Dave Wood

Note: this column is not meant to cast any aspersion on River Falls Days or our wonderful Pierce County Fair; both are monumental and worthy events.

But as I grow old I realize the wisdom in the wrath my pa expressed in his long-held opinion that it should take a monumental event for a town to justify sponsoring a festival. “These days, all it takes is to have an underweight chicken cross a road to throw a broiler festival.” In a sense Pa was correct. In my not so brief life I’ve seen industries fold and celebrations like Whitehall’s Beef and Dairy Days become a confusing misnomer. 

Back when my hometown still had a milk plant and a slaughterhouse (get it? Beef and dairy!), I dragged a friend from Ohio to watch our Sunday parade, which featured lots of combines and yellow convertibles carrying big girls, beautiful girls, even personable girls, all of them dispensing the Queen Elizabeth II slow wave. All were wrapped in banners that told us they were Miss Beef or Miss Dairy, Miss Muskmelon, or Miss Catfish. Upon the appearance of another yellow convertible, hauling a blonde beauty called “Miss Strum,” my Ohio guest stared in wonder and said, “I know that eggs and beef and catfish are edible, but what in hell is a STRUM?” I advised him not to try tasting a Strum or the Miss which would bring up the rear, Miss Eleva[tor]. 

And the rationale can get worse with the introduction of modern events like beer dugouts, where you actually have to buy a badge in order to enable you to buy a beer or even 100 beers if you behave yourself and don’t puke on the sidewalk. And there’s the Massey-Ferguson Combine Demolition Derby which will no doubt inspire the Two-Row John Deere Antique Corn picker Smasheroo for the history buffs in the crowd, you know, the naysayers who have suggested whatever DAYS are, they shouldn’t have to include rowdy, wasteful combat. Festival apologists would counter with the argument that these modern free-for-alls were inspired by well-meaning organizations like the Grange, the Farm Bureau and Wisconsin’s reputation for the “Ideal “project.” So let’s go back before the Bacon Bash Days which attract thousands of bacon-noshing Minnesotans with a historical culinary side trip called The Fried Side Pork Smasheroo. Served with a side of milk gravy, it would pass the Bacon Bash double martini by a country mile. Or maybe we should ignore my late father’s blather about the good old days of “one festival per county.”

I’m serious! But I can’t deny the profitability of these festivals. Each year the history-minded citizenry of New Prague, Minn. attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists to Dozinky Days, which celebrates Czech heritage. A few years back, my pal Bob Vanasek, who was then speaker of the Minnesota Statehouse, told me that he earns enough from his sidewalk sales to pay his son’s tuition at college. Fried side pork? Nope. He sells chunks of Jitrnice [pronounced Yit-er-neetza], a ring sausage made of the skin, ears and flesh of a pig’s head, buckwheat groats and garlic.

You can get a bowl of boiling sauce, and a slice of Zelnicky (a crisp sauerkraut flat bread.) Bob will ask if you prefer Jiternice that’s white (no pig’s blood) or black (with blood). (psst: Take the black).

And if you like polkas, waltzes and schottisches ala Whoopee John Wilfahrt, and it’s Sunday, find a seat on the curb near the Sportsman’s Bar and catch the musical stylings of the excellent oompah band from the Masonic Temple in the nearest Protestant town. 

History buffs should stay for the ancient tractor parade, which features lots of the Minneapolis variety before it merged with Moline, Olivers, Advance-Rumelys, Cockshutts, many of which look as if they’re still in use, unlike the new behemoths that are donated each year to UWRF’s Ag Engineering department as demonstration models. As my friend and wit the late Kermit Paulson always said at the Homecoming parade, “Look!  There’s no manure on those tires!”

NEXT WEEK: My favorite summer festival.