Honey, I Shrunk My Summer

Due to circumstances completely under my control, I seemed to have lost my summer. If anyone could remember where I lost it I would appreciate its return to days of cold beer on the deck after a night of softball instead of the murky winds of fall already peaking thru.

For most people, school buses, a returned interest in TV and online poker signify a change in the season. Instead of pants-free nights on the computer there’s a blanket to ward off the chill from the air conditioner that you no longer need on. Personally, its all about the Great Minnesota Get Together that changes the leaf colors. If you’ve never been to the Fair, or wonder why 100,000+ chalk white Norwegians gather daily for over a week near Como Avenue to eat overpriced food on a stick and add to their farmer tans, it is something to be experienced at least once.

Most people will come, look at a the crowds, smell the ripe cow patties walking from the makeshift field parking lot and maybe hang out enough to have a dish of cheese curds but never take in what makes it special. It’s the 4-H exhibits of art, including a shocking black and white large photograph of a toddler with stitches outlining the wrong end of a fight with the family dog who looms near the backdoor of the house. It’s the radar gun that was rigged to show that I can’t throw harder then a little leaguer anymore but still had to try for that inflatable Twins bats for the starry eyed four year old looking to bring home more useless knickknacks from the Mighty Midway. The Leinie Lodge providing live entertainment and 3.2 beer while the Vulcans from St. Paul roamed sinfully in the parade behind the crowd.

Irrelevant. Fun. And usually too tiring to get thru the 22,800 steps it takes to work off a giant turkey leg, but I’ll be ready again next year with an empty stomach and a family wanting one more shot at the giant Lucky Bear Care Bear doll that will end up in the rafters a week after putting a ring around a Coke bottle.

Thanks for dropping by, now any poker night you lose two buy ins and a half (ahead each time) that would have paid for the December trip to Vegas, but take down a $5 SnG and give it back playing HORSE versus some internet poker donkeys it’s a great night of poker in my book. Friends are the best tonic for tilt.