Ah, yes. There it is. Behind me, once again.

And now the plot is thickening, isn’t it? Who can’t see the seeds of the school experiment failure — and you know this one will be a failure, it’s the way of the city — being sown with the discussion of tracking? But Chris and Snoop’s Burial Crypts is about to be busted. The election is now a horse race. And Lt. Marimow learns, probably not for the first time or even the tenth, that he’s not the police he thinks he is. Discuss.

If you need time-wasters to put off starting your Monday and justify a third cup of coffee, you could hardly do better than Eric Zorn’s particularly rich Land of Linkin’ today. Stay away from that movie one. You’ll be there all. Damn. Day.

This week’s forgotten soul track, unearthed by Old-School Saturday and downloaded from iTunes immediately afterward: “The House That Jack Built,” Aretha Franklin. I’m calling this perhaps the best breakup lyric ever:

There was the fence that held our love,
There was the gate that he walked out of
This is the heart that is turned to stone
This was the house, but it ain’t no home
This is the love that I once had
In a dream that I thought was love,
This is the house that Jack built,
I’m gonn’ remember this house!

In a perfect adult world — that is, one where I was at liberty, with sufficient funds, and without children — I would have gone to a screening of “The Departed,” then had dinner at a nice tapas place. Maybe one of those baseball games we had in the D this weekend, had I been lucky enough to get a ticket.

As it was, though, I saw “Akeelah and the Bee” on pay-per-view, ate a pizza from the Sicilian bakery down the road and spent a weird Saturday afternoon mourning what we left behind in Fort Wayne.

Yes, mourning: As I think I mentioned not long ago, in the Fort you’re never more than a 15-minute drive from the country, and this is the time of year we’d spend part of a Saturday at Ohlwine’s Orchard, filling brown grocery bags with apples apples and more apples, along with a gallon of cider, and head home feeling all apple-y and autumnal and good. This day is followed by several weeks of pies and applesauce and (my favorite) Cider-Roasted Chicken (recipe from Betty Rosbottom’s “American Favorites,” if you’re interested).

Last year I went looking online for u-pick orchards in the Detroit area. The closest was, I’m not kidding, 47 miles away. I settled for the Eastern Market selection and decided I would make a better plan in 2006.

Now it’s 2006. The Free Press offers a pdf of their guide to orchards and cider mills, more than three dozen, complete with a map, hours and all the rest of it. I downloaded it, and we decided to go picking after Kate’s soccer game Saturday. I studied the map and found the ones that seemed to be closest. One was on 37 Mile Road; to put this in perspective, we live between 7 and 8 Mile. Another was out by the airport. Huge advantage: We could drive nearly the whole way on freeways. So we chose that one.

As we neared the airport, Kate, reading in the back seat, asked, “How long have we been driving, anyway?” The answer: 35 minutes. But in 10 more we were at the exit and headed west. The pavement ended and gave way to washboard dirt, a very good sign that lasted about 30 seconds and we saw the traffic stopped ahead. Workers in color-coordinated T-shirts waved us into a parking lot along with a crowd that might have rivaled that at the Tigers game. Across the road was a carnival, complete with rides and inflatable jumping things. We quickly realized we had wandered into a venue of what’s now called “agritainment.” You know all those stories about the country mouse getting fleeced by his fast-talking city cousin? Rest assured, he is getting his revenge.

The carnival was only part of it. There were pony rides, a petting zoo, a pumpkin patch, crafts for sale, food and inadequate restrooms. You might be asking yourself, “But was there a massage chair with masseuses available for a quick rubdown?” Oh yes. And was there a rock band laboring through Free’s 1970 classic “All Right Now”? Mm-hmm. I looked around for any indication that we might be able to pick some apples. I couldn’t even see any trees. We crossed back over the road to the pumpkin patch, where people stood in line to get their gourds weighed by an unsmiling teenager and pay for them to an even less happy grandmother. APPLES $10 BAG, the sign said.

I waited in line. “Where do we pick apples?” I asked the grandmother, who reminded me of Marge Simpson’s sisters. “Kitty-corner over there,” she said, taking my tenner and handing me an empty plastic bag. “What varieties do you have, and is there a map to the orchard?”

“Guy over there’ll know,” she said. “That’s what we have,” pointing to a hand-lettered piece of cardboard, reading, “RED GOLD DELICIOUS EMPIRE MATSU.”

I hate Red Delicious apples. I can tolerate a few Golden Delicious, but only when they’re absolutely fresh. Empire I’ve never had before. Matsu I’ve never even heard of. I like an apple to bite back a little. There’s no shortage of sugar in the world, and tart-crisp is the apple for me. Specifically, Cortlands. I like Jonathans for eating, but for baking, ahh, it’s the Northern Spy.

“What about Cortlands? Jonathans?” I couldn’t imagine a serious apple orchard without these.

“Guy over there’ll know.”

We trudged back across the road, and found the guy over there. I said, “If you don’t have a decent tart variety I want my money back.” Somehow granny’s mood was catching.

He assured me Matsu was the one for me, although “most people just want the Delicious.” Northern Spy? “Oh, them’s all gone,” he said. He did have one other variety not on the card — Jonagold. Ah well.

We made our way into the rows of Matsu. The apples were green and softball-size. We filled half the bag, then made our way over to the Empire, the Jonagold, and topped off the parcel with a judicious few Golden Delicious. We were nearly alone; only two other families were in evidence. The relative isolation, and the pretty trees, and the smell of rotting windfall fruit worked its spell. It didn’t take long to fill the bag. We didn’t feel the need to stop back at the carnival for some kielbasa or whatever the hell it is they were selling.

I kept thinking, “What would Alice Waters do?” Try as I may to resist, I’ve fallen for her preposterous image of the countryside for too long. (It is only the adult version of the children’s-book countryside — chickens in the barnyard, cow in the pasture, sheep in the meadow — that I swallowed whole as a child.) That is, of a countryside dotted with rugged people living an authentic life, tied to the soil and the timeless rhythms of the earth. They have no time for artifice or posing, because they have to spread manure or tend to the cheese ripening in the…wherever cheese ripens. The cheese house. They get up at dawn without complaint. They don’t watch television. And so on.

And time and again, I learn that the pictures in the cookbooks aren’t true, that farm wives love Velveeta as much as suburban soccer moms do. They plant the apples that sell, and when they sell, they throw in as many ancillary money-hoovers as the acreage will accommodate. It’s really sort of funny, when you think about it.

Note: The Matsu are not as tart as I like, but not bad at all. Haven’t tried the Empires yet. But next year, I’ll make do with what’s at the Eastern Market.

I tired of the Foley story 36 hours ago, even as it continues to amuse. It has sprung so many Hydra-heads — the political angle, the internet angle, the cover-up, the closet, the late-arriving “clergyman” who fondled our offender — that you really can’t cover it concisely anymore. Underneath it all is the Disgust: Well, what can you expect from those people? They have sex in toilets, after all.

I think about that last one a lot. In recent years, gay writers along the political spectrum have tried to wrestle it to the ground, and it seems to be a losing battle. Even if all gay men were upstanding and Cleaveresque (“Ward, I’m worried about the Beaver.” “Oh, Wally, you know he’s just a red-blooded American boy.” “That’s what I’m worried about.”) some straight people are simply going to be repulsed by the idea of what two men do in bed together. The fact that gay people feel the same way about what men and women do doesn’t bother them at all, so I advise gay people to take the same approach: Don’t worry about it and carry on.

Far more pervasive is disgust over the man/boy thing. I’d imagine most straight people would be a lot quicker to accept gay people if these stories would stop popping up. Priests and altar boys, congressmen and pages — unequal partners, lopsided in power, the corrupt elder sucking the juices (sorry) out of the innocent younger.

Every day brings some heterosexual version of this in the papers, but we ignore that. Only stories contaminated with gay catch our eyes.

I think it bugs us because it’s one of the big themes in humanity’s master narrative. Sex is a threshold everyone crosses with a partner. In most cases, one partner has crossed it before. Many believe it’s best to do it this way, avoid the two-fumbling-ignorant-teenagers model for one in which it’s at least possible to have some real pleasure, some instruction in how it’s supposed to go. All over the world, fathers take their sons to brothels for their first go-round; I’ve known a couple of these sons. In fact, when I think back, I remember lots of these lopsided cases among my peers — a babysitter stopping off for a quickie with her employer as he drove her home, an intern with a mentor. Nearly all ended without lasting damage, even as the parties believe what they did was wrong. It was just something that happened. As Donald Rumsfeld says, freedom is messy. I guess, if we really wanted to prevent it, we could structure our society so it never happens — keep young people under lock and key until they take wedding vows, dress girls head-to-toe in concealing clothing to avoid arousing temptation, impose religious sanctions on those who stray. It would look a lot like…never mind.

Add homosexuality to the mix, and you’ve really got a powder keg. Is there a creature with more sexual energy than a teenage boy? How about one who knows his feelings are wrong and bad and forbidden — just look at how dad sneers at those fags on “American Idol” — but still wants to express them? He doesn’t understand what goes where, who does what, how it works, and what’s more, other men seem to just know — about him, that is. A boy craves a teacher, and all of a sudden, here’s this friendly congressman who remembers his name, asks about his family, pays compliments.

Just so you understand: I think adults should keep their mitts off teenagers. I think they should avoid even thinking about it. I don’t care how hot Scarlett Johansson is. That’s for Benecio Del Toro to think about, not you. But I also think that if we want this to happen less often, we might try giving gay teenagers in particular another door to walk through, one that doesn’t lead to public bathrooms and wooded areas in parks and other venues of shame and concealment. You won’t save every one from the Rep. Foleys of the world, but you might save a few.

Bloggage:

Foley was the very picture of self-loathing, of the corrupting closet: Here in Florida, where people knew him longest and best, friends said he kept his sexuality quiet because the most influential forces in his life, his parents and the political world he thrived in, would not accept him otherwise.

“I never asked outright because I thought it would be inappropriate,�? said Billy Brooks, a town council member in Palm Beach who was Mr. Foley’s high school guidance counselor. “I suppose if I had my druthers, I would have said, ‘Let’s get it out and get it over with.’ It was always bubbling under the surface.�?

Did you know the Catholic Medical Association still teaches that “overprotective mothers” are a common element in the backgrounds of gay men? Uh-huh, along with this: “If the emotional and developmental needs of each child are properly met by both family and peers, the development of same-sex attraction is very unlikely.” Thanks. And get out there and play some football, ya fairies!

The perils of live TV reporting, at least in Columbus. Thanks to Marcia.

Don’t bother spending $30 on “State of Denial.” Slate has condensed it down to the good parts.

I only met R.W. Apple Jr. — “Johnny” to all — once. He was a FoKWF (Friend of the Knight-Wallace Fellowship) and spoke at a conference our class hosted, on food writing. I recall his talk was a disappointment; he spoke of fusion cuisine, of which he disapproved. But he was jolly and funny and you just knew he’d be a blast to have dinner with. The Calvin Trillin profile in The New Yorker might have been on the stands that very week, and remains the single best source for understanding his legend. For a roundup of all the tributes, Romenesko is the best starting place.

Radio sucks here, the way it does everywhere else. We had less than a year of Nirvana after moving here; our public radio station spun those adult-album-alternative platters during the day, broke for NPR news at 4 p.m., went to jazz in the evenings and played various amusing niche shows on the weekends.

That’s no longer the case, alas.

But what of commercial radio, you ask? The usual — right-wing talk, hip-hop, soccer-mom lite rok (it’s not hard enough to deserve a C), bleah. All my life I’ve wanted a car radio with enough presets to accommodate my many moods of musical preferences, and I finally got one in 2003, just in time for there to be no radio stations worth listening to. I think I have four buttons programmed in FM, three in AM, and I mostly listen to NPR, CDs or my own thoughts.

But. There’s one bright spot — WGPR, which at 10 a.m. on Saturday kicks off Old-School Saturday, a full day of you-know-what. I’m usually running errands on Saturday, after which I jump onto iTunes and download all the great tracks I heard that day and thought were lost in the mists of time.

I’m talking, ohhh, Tyrone Davis, “If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time.” Bloodstone, “Natural High.” L.T.D., “(Every Time I Turn Around) Back in Love Again,” which has this great bass hook that sounds sort of like a funky fart. This week I grabbed Lakeside’s “Fantastic Voyage,” later dismantled and reassembled by Coolio.

Googling around, I see Lakeside was yet another funk band out of Dayton, Ohio. Yes, Dayton. You thought of it as the home of National Cash Register, but it also gave the world the Ohio Players and Heatwave, among others. There’s a pop-culture master’s thesis in regional pop music, I think, and not just the obvious candidates — cajun/zydeco, mariachi. I’m thinking of, oh, Carolina beach music, exemplifed by the Chairmen of the Board. (Note their birthplace: Detroit. Heh.) Also, go-go, known to all in Washington D.C. and not so much elsewhere. Guess what the kick-off track was last week on Old-School Saturday? E.U.’s “Da Butt,” the one and only go-go song I could name.

(In its everlasting quest to be the world’s most authentic urban-procedural TV show, there was a go-go reference in an episode of “The Wire” a couple seasons back. A D.C. gangster tells Stringer Bell he ought to come up to Drama City sometime. Stringer: “I hate that go-go shit.” Gangster: “That’s cuz you never heard it live. I know a club in Oxon Hill? That’ll wreck y’all.” Let me see the hands of all who knew what they were talking about. Yes, I thought so.)

Anyway, what drove regional sounds, regional records? The same forces that keep the regional potato-chip business afloat in the age of Lay’s and Ruffles — freshness, tradition, salt and grease. We saw “Walk the Line” the other night, and I was struck by the lost relic of the Sun Records storefront, where Sam Phillips tells a young Johnny Cash that it costs $4 to cut a record, and he can call the secretary for an appointment. Motown started life as a regional studio, and while it was surely an unstoppable force, it probably didn’t hurt that it was in the same metro area as CKLW, which broke dozens of records with its Bigfoot signal.

It’s at this point that I usually pause, read back what I’ve just read and ask, “What the hell am I talking about, anyway?” The question seems particularly acute at the moment. I think I’m trying to talk myself into getting XM radio. Is it worth the money? Because I’m thinking I need to cut costs, but jeez, radio stinks like week-old fish.

I am streaming an internet go-go channel as I write, however. I bet this stuff is good, live.

So, bloggage:

Charles Madigan wants to know if journalism was really so good back in the day, so he holds a seance. An amusing column that should have ended one paragraph before it did.

The Freep offers a classic of the insecure-city genre, the look-look-at-all-the-stars-who-love-our-local-sports-team story. Among the stars who root for the Tigers: a “Dateline” correspondent, a senator from freakin’ Delaware and my personal favorite, Kevin Saunderson. Who is?

“One of the founding fathers of Detroit techno music.” Ohhh-kay.

And since I’ve just achieved the miracle of semi-closing this half-assed circle, I think I’d better duck out now. A swell day to all.

What is this lovely mixed grill we have? We have:

Yesterday the Kronk, tomorrow your grandma’s grave: Scrap-metal thieves target grave markers.

The best/worst thing about the internet is, it makes you care about the fates of strangers’ cats. Alas, Waffles didn’t make it. Damn Chows. Damn stupid Chow owners.

And finally, a recipe. This was sent to me from someone who attributes it to her “Michigan cousins.” If you believe, as I do, that recipes are a form of anthropology, well, many things about Michigan will reveal themselves to you in just a few short lines. So enjoy…

Caramel apple salad

1 cup sugar
1 tbs. flour
1 heaping tbs. cornstarch
4 tsp vinegar
2 eggs
1 – 20 oz can crushed pineapple (or tidbits)

5-6 cubed Granny Smith apples
1 cup chopped Snickers candy bars or crushed Heath candy bars or peanuts
1 – 8 oz carton Cool Whip

Cool Whip — the secret weapon of every Midwestern cook’s larder.

But not nearly enough.

That’s the thing about 1.5-income finances — there’s never enough left over for travel. I get out of town so infrequently I don’t even dream of things like getting on airplanes and using my passport. (Although I have high hopes for Istanbul in 2007. Somehow, some way.)

So I found one of those what-states-have-you-visited map generators, and it would seem that I have actually been around the block:

Create your own visited states map

Even if some of those were only drive-thru (Kansas, at 85 mph) or change-planes (Utah) visits, it seems I’m on my way to bagging 50. But how could I have gone this far in life and not made it to Maryland? This I don’t understand.

Something else you might not know about me: I went to high school with Justin Timberlake’s Uncle Mark. Or so I’m told. I remember him in junior high, but after that I sort of lose the thread.

Well. We can tell it’s Friday, can’t we?

So let’s go straight to the admittedly skimpy bloggage:

First, the copper problem, explained in the DetNews.

And second: I’m not a runner. Never will be a runner. Hate running in all its forms. Think running is overrated as both exercise and test of character, and yes, many think of it as a test of character. You can find marathon runners and ultramarathon runners throughout the executive suites, where the ability to train for and complete a long-distance race is seen as proof of the sort of flinty toughness needed in today’s business world, particularly when you have to lay off the doughy non-runners on the shop floor. (OK, that was a cheap shot.) The most boring people I know are runners. So are several of the most interesting, but if I lined up all the runners I know and sorted them into boring/interesting piles, the boring pile would tower over the other, especially when they talk about their training routines. (Another interesting set and subset: Crazy people who are also devoted chess players.) And the thing is, I like long sessions of boring, repetitive exercise. I love biking, love swimming laps, have flirted dangerously with rowing, and the closest I ever came to bodhisattva while exercising was on an erg, although I now know my form was all wrong. I once thought I should maybe train for a triathalon, and then remembered I’d have to run. And gave it up.

When I was a copy editor, one of my duties was editing — and slashing the crap out of — the running column. Definition of hell: reading 800 words about shin splints at 5:45 a.m.

Anyway, I know runners have their own issues, both within and without their community. A runner I know (interesting) fumed after overhearing a famous sportswriter bitching loudly on the topic of this Slate throwdown, about how “sluggish newbies” have ruined the marathon.

…this growing army of giddy marathon rookies is so irksome that I’m about ready to retire my racing shoes and pick up bridge. …The marathon has transformed from an elite athletic contest to something closer to sky diving or visiting the Grand Canyon. When a newbie marathoner crosses the finish line, he’s less likely to check his time than to shout, “Only 33 more things to do before I die!”

A fun read.

Now I’m going to get on the bike, before the rain starts.

I was feeling energetic and expansive this morning, preparing for the first bike ride in days. I had errands to run and thought I might want to try some fun new hit singles from the iTunes music store. It — the store — suggested Hanson’s “MMMBop.” (No, I don’t know WHY, and I’m not sure I want to know.) What a capital suggestion; I long ago buried my shame over having a secret love for bubblegum (in small, sugar-free doses, if possible).

When it started to play, I was startled to realize I’d never actually heard the entire song before. Like everyone else in the world I remember a video of three cute California sk8r boys playing around on their Tony Hawk decks. Of course I remembered the chorus, which was everywhere at the time:

Mmm bop, flip ta ba du op
Du daba, du op
Flip ta ba du
Ye-ah
Mmm bop, flip ta ba du op
Du daba, du op
Flip ta ba du
Ye-ah

But this song, to my astonishment, has verses. And they suggest a certain world-weariness that’s disturbing in three blonde California teenagers:

You have so many relationships in this life
Only one or two will last
You go through all the pain and strife
Then you turn your back and they’re gone so fast
Oh yeah
And they’re gone so fast…yeah
So hold onto the ones who really care
In the end they’ll be the only ones there
When you get old and start losing your hair

Start losing your hair? Hanson, at the time, had more hair on their three heads than you can find in some entire middle schools. But there was still another surprise to come:

This song is four minutes and 28 seconds long. What the hell? The compact between artist and consumer in bubblegum music is pretty clear, if you ask me: You get in and out in 2:30, and if you go any more than 14 seconds past that, you’d better have a damn good reason. You have a hook, a little verse or two, and the whole thing better be about chaste teen love, not hair loss. For this we will happily buy your records, request them when they reach oldie status and keep you touring on the state fair nostalgia circuit until you get tired of it. You can’t go writing four-minute-thirty singles! It’s just not done!

But maybe it gets you this:

Yes, you read that right: 20th Century Masters. Hanson. I ask you.

I sent this to Emma. She reassured me that my recollection of just what Hanson was, and is, was not lunacy:

God. I remember when I interviewed them over the phone.
Zac: What are you eating?
Me: Chips. Are you flirting with me?
And that was about as good as it got.

Still a cool single, though. Although it needs to be a lot shorter.

Like most mothers, when I saw the photos of Suri Cruise, I had one immediate thought: “Eh, cute kid, but my baby was far, far cuter.”

And I have evidence:

Here’s Kate at the same age Suri is now. Note her superior cuteness in every way. And the photo wasn’t taken by a world-famous photographer, but by me.

A bonus, to underline her staggering cuteosity:

When I used to walk both her and the dog at the same time, sometimes we would literally stop traffic. I had to fend off Hollywood agents waving million-dollar contracts promising to make her the next Welch’s grape juice child. (“As if,” I’d tell them. “Call me when you have Scorsese ready to deal.”)

You know what gets me? All this talk about her hair. As you can see, Kate was born with a ton of hair. That was the first thing anyone said about her: The nurse peered up my ya-ya and said, “Wow. That’s a lot of hair. (pause) On the baby.” Well, that was nice to know. And it was. Hair on a baby makes for extra cuteness. Welcome to the world, Suri. We’re not sure about your parents and the world is crazy, but hey, you’ll always have those photos.

(Thanks to J.C. for digging these up using his mad metadata skillz. My only digital copy of these photos was on a damn floppy.)

This just in: The freak show, long banished from polite state fair midways, seems to be making a comeback.

OK, I can’t say for sure. Every lifestyles editor knows you need three to make a trend, and I’ve only been to one state fair this year. So make of that what you will. The freak show was a busy part of the Ohio State Fair midway in my youth; I attended once. There was a man there with hanging tumors all over his body, and I forget his Nom de Freak — Snake Man, whatever — who took the microphone and gave a canned, insincere-souding statment about the horror of his condition, which had a polysyllabic name I cannot recall. The shock of seeing his skin was momentary, though. What freaked me out was this: He smoked a cigarette. My dad smoked cigarettes. It was a more unifying gesture than any phony speech could arouse.

Not long after that — I guess this would have been around 1970 or so — the freak show sort of slipped away. There was a growing sense that it was wrong to put human beings on display like zoo animals, and mainstreaming meant there were more job opportunities than those available in carny culture. (I once patronized a credit union with a real bearded lady teller. She shaved, though.) And the subtext of the shows — that these conditions were curses thrown down by God — dissipated as more people trooped onto talk shows to “raise awareness” of this or that once-unspeakable condition, from cancer to sexual dysfunction. The idea of hiding in a tent and charging admission to look upon one’s hermaphroditic sexual organ seemed impossibly …quaint. Why go for small change when you can get a book contract? Anyway, I saw “Freaks” and at some point it boils down to this: We all gotta make a living.

So I don’t know what’s behind this attraction at the Michigan State Fair. Reality television? Carnivale? Who knows? I always overthink these things. (Actually, when you think about it, the freaks market should be at rock-bottom. What possible appetite for freakishness, in any area of life, can’t be satisfied by the internet or Discovery Channel? Or real life? As my colleague Mike Harden once said (paraphrased): “In my day, we had to pay extra to see the fat lady and the tattooed man. Today they walk freely among us on the midway.” But there she was, Little Linda, with a tape-loop barker reel and a fairly low admission price. Kate and her friend wanted to go in. I briefed them the way any 21st-century parent would: “She’s a person just like you, so don’t stand there and stare. Say hello. She’s just small.”

So they paid their money, walked behind the barrier and exchanged hellos with a Haitian woman with dwarfism.

Of course they were disappointed. Can you guess why? They expected to see someone small enough to sit in your hand, like the painting on front of the attraction. (The painting of Little Linda also features a rather impressive rack, which I’d wager was also no match for reality, although I didn’t ask.) “But the sign says she’s 29 inches tall,” I pointed out. Kids never read the fine print.

I hope Little Linda found the trip to Michigan worthwhile. It’s hard out here for a dwarf, and everybody else in this state, these days.

Now this guy…

…this guy wasn’t a freak at all, just a guy on stilts in a tree costume. The girls wouldn’t go near him, and I can see why. I don’t know what he was about, sorry. Maybe something about the emerald ash borer.

UPDATE: Treeman, identified.

Fairs are all about wholesome family entertainment, so of course they clamored for tickets to walk through a gaping head wound into the Fallen Giant, a giant inflatable dead guy. It was hard to get a read on it from the ground. The website is more instructive — by day a “lightly educational” walk through a giant inflatable dead guy, by night a “scare event” in which pygmies chase you out the exit, in the giant’s armpit. The girls pronounced it cool. I just found it unnerving:

And there were rides and junk food and animals and the milk-a-cow exhibit and the bottomless-glass-of-chocolate-milk booth. We saw the Miracle of Life tent, which will make a vegetarian of anyone. And the pig races were a special treat, if only for a glance at the grandstand, which included an orthodox Jewish couple (don’t eat the pig) sitting next to a Chinese family (eat every part of the pig), as well as a Sikh in a turban (don’t eat the pig or any of his barnyard friends) and a Kentucky-sounding family hootin’ and hollerin’ to “Cotton-Eye Joe” and all the Arkansas hog-calling jokes (eat the pig? Hail yeah!). This is my America.

Finally, inspired by Detroitblog’s recent series of posts on the State Fair neighborhood, I took a little driving tour of the area as we headed home. He did not lie. The whole area is going back to prairie, with some of the most astonishing decay you can see in the city. In a single block, we saw three burned houses, still standing, the worst sort of hazard a neighborhood can have, but apparently not high on the city’s list of demolition priorities. This was the best of the bunch:

“Wow,” said Kate’s friend. “This is a bad neighborhood.”

It certainly was, although probably not an unsafe one for a drive-through. Still, I had two little girls with me, one not even my own. We headed home to suburbia, having met the country and the city, just a few miles away.