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This whole debt ceiling and defunding ObamaCare business makes my head hurt almost like one of the seven or nine concussions I’ve had in my life. It makes me think back a month or so when we were at the state fair watching the University of Minnesota Break Dance Team spinning and hopping and diving like they were made of rubber. I did that at my younger daughter’s wedding a few years back, diving to the concrete floor, my body made of gin and rubber, rolling to a shoulder and leaping to my feet to the roar of the crowd. I’m still rather amazed that I didn’t break any teeth or bones with my foray into that form of dance as a rank amateur. All I proved was that I was malleable enough to not give myself another concussion, which at last count stood at between seven and nine.

Did I already mention that?
Anyway, the granddaughter was quite intrigued with the dancers and their dexterity and malleability. All I could think of was that I avoided losing teeth or cracking my skull when I tried to hop around like that.
The break dancers were to be followed by a talk about the efforts to shift ethanol production from grain corn to cellulose from a faculty member in the U of M biology department. I wasn’t quite sure how long that would last with the three-year-old granddaughter. Still, it was shaping up to be a good day at the fair.   

 I hadn’t bothered any conservatives yet and had consumed a single foot long hot dog. As the dancers ended their performance I saw that Sen. Al Franken was speaking to a crowd across the street in front of the Farmers Union building. We wandered over to get a little politicking. After a minute or two a fellow wandered through the crowd to the front, flipped Franken the bird and strode off down the sidewalk. Normally I’d have to agree that politicians need to have a shoe thrown at them or get flipped off once in awhile. But when a senator is available to talk to with no security in sight I guess I’d rather a disgruntled constituent take the opportunity to have a Minnesota State Fair visit and actually voice concerns instead of simply offering a symbolic gesture.

“Only at the fair,” was Franken’s first response, delivered with a smile. He’d been talking about ethanol as well and the fact that it was starting to switch from grains to fiber, a welcome shift that could usher in a new and friendlier method of producing energy across the agricultural landscape. I wasn’t going to bug him other than to say that he had to do a few more comedy routines for his fellow senators, get them laughing a little bit, soften them up. Don’t give up on comedy just because you get elected to the senate. Comedy is a very effective tool in weeding out the blowhards and the intransigents with the beady eyes. The fat cats are also easily flushed out of the weeds with comedy. That’s all I wanted to say to Franken. He seemed receptive to my ideas.

I was looking for a little comedy of my own. Members of the New Conservative Neanderthal Party (NCNP) were hidden carefully in the state fair crowd. One fellow was selling t-shirts that said “I was a conservative before it was cool.” I couldn’t really remember when being a stick-in-the-mud was deemed cool but it was a catchy little sentence that would likely earn him a few bucks throughout the fair from the pockets of the NCNP.
“Go for it pal,” was all I said. “More power to the free market.”

As I wandered the fairgrounds, not really in search of hidden conservatives but maybe I was, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the 215,000 fairgoers were unemployed. From a slightly higher vantage near the Dairy Building thousands upon thousands of heads bobbed in the sun down the street toward the Frank and Rose Warner Coliseum. The heads acted like a wave, like a tide. I quickly but quietly initiated all of them into the National Union of Friendly Americans (NUFA) and they went about their business with a step that was a little more jaunty, a little more optimistic in human nature.

I did ask the guy selling the amazing knives in the Creative Arts Building if he thought the world had grown too pessimistic, too easily persuaded to believe in concepts that were against their own best interests.
“They’ll believe in an economic system that caters to the rich but they won’t buy a knife that will change their lives. There are too many conservatives. Conservative with their money. This knife is amazing. I show them how it cuts and what it cuts. I feed them what it cuts on a cracker. But they’re conservatives. Even when they see it with their own eyes they’re afraid to believe. I’m beginning to think it’s a virus of sorts.”

I told him not to worry. Thousands of fairgoers, those recent NUFA converts, were marching their way toward his booth to see his amazing knife and share their hard-earned dollars with him. They would believe. I told him they are optimistic that we can change this old world for the better. They will buy his knife and make salsa or fillet a free-range chicken breast. He is now a NUFA member himself and he had three more fairs to attend. He admitted that he was feeling pretty upbeat all of a sudden.

“That NUFA thing must be the real McCoy,” he said. “Feels kind of like I just did some yoga or meditated.”
I only wish I would’ve been thinking a little quicker on my feet and NUFA-nized that fellow who flipped Franken the bird before he disappeared into the crowd. Those are the kind of Americans we need to get to in this topsy-turvy time in our history. It is the time to exhibit dexterity and be malleable enough not to get a concussion when you think about the Tea Party (“The Rebellion to Stay the Same”) or the close-minded platform of the NCNP.

Did I tell you I’ve had seven or nine concussions in my life? In my book, a good bonk on the head is more natural than thinking like those people.