palace of winds

I went to the Heritage Festival in Independence today. My dad was working at the West Hennepin Chamber of Commerce booth, so we went down to see him and to grab lunch and check out the booths. It was typical small-town fair fare, and reminded me a lot of the thing Kirksville has in the square every fall, only on a much smaller scale. And in the middle of a park. If it can even be called a park. The city only bought it a few years ago, and as of now it’s a field that gradually gets more wooded.

Anyhow, it was a real trip into Hicksville, but in a laughably charming way. They were offering rides up and down in the machines they use to work on electrical lines, which they’d parked right next to a giant cornfield they’d made a maze through. You could see a dozen bright yellow balloons bobbing just over the corn where children were running. There was a little 9/11 ceremony that reminded me irresistibly of Mooseport. The speakers stood up on a little stage and from where I sat they were backed particularly with an enormous sprawling perfect oak, and less particularly with the rest of the tall shade trees. Everything was so polite and ceremonious.