Soucheray: Why do those 12 days hold us so? What’s the secret, Jerry Hammer?
Not yet an eternal mystery, but certainly a spiritual quest for 169 years, is the attempt to explain the grip the Minnesota State Fair has on us, we who wander in, dutifully, probably having parked on somebody’s lawn.
Animals and food and those neat yardsticks and thrill rides and, ah, there, a bench in the shade. Crop artists and mustache-waxed hucksters of miracle cutlery or this year’s variety of new anti-chapping creams and elixirs. We are the only people in North America who can annually see a portrait of Abraham Lincoln done entirely in seeds and leave with a tube of udder cream guaranteed to freshen the skin.
Why do these 12 days hold us so? Today we are going to get the answer, or at least the best answer I’ve heard and I’ve wondered about it as much as the next guy.
Jerry Hammer announced his retirement last week as general manager of the Fair, the CEO since 1997. But he came off Breda Street in the Como neighborhood when he was a kid and headed straight to the grounds. He is 68. It is safe to say that for 60 years the Fair has been his life, starting at the Greenhouse as a hired hand. He held every job possible until the only thing left was to make him CEO.
Now, having gotten to know Hammer over the years, it is not easy to get him to wax poetically. He might cut it up with his Como boys at their weekly breakfast and he plays guitar in a couple of garage bands, but he is a humble guy and he keeps his success in the “aw shucks” school of bromides. He winces when I insist he is as important to this state as the governor, more so in my book. He runs a tight ship, turns a profit and people leave happy.
It can’t have been easy.
One time, Hammer and his wife were at a car show on the Fairgrounds. A guy recognized Hammer.
“I bet what you do is fun,” the guy said. “I’d love to have that job.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” Debby Hammer said.
The Hammers have two children and five grandchildren. Bob Hammer, Jerry’s dad, died in 2014. He worked in construction and was a business agent. He fought with the 4th Infantry on D-Day, and then also survived the Battle of Hurtgen Forest. He was a Bronze Star recipient.
“For some stuff,” Jerry said. “He said he won for some stuff.”
Aw shucks.
Hammer will be missed. But his successor will inherit the secret. We’re almost there.
A root beer vendor stopped Hammer on his rounds one day.
“Why are these people so happy?” the vendor asked.
Hammer might have been asked that question a million times. This time, he had an answer.
“It’s in the dirt,” Hammer said, “it’s magical. The closer you are, the more you can’t see it, but it’s in the dirt and the dust.”
It’s only a fair and Hammer was only its general manager, but it’s our dirt and our dust and it’s unlike any other.
Satisfactory. I’m going to stop wondering now. It’s as good an answer as we will ever get. Well done, general manager. It’s in the dirt, meaning it can never be lost.
