![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Always a bridesmaid, never...
Sep. 8th, 2019 07:09 pmI came up short again this year, though the winning entry was quite cute and I don't feel bad for losing to it.
It was a very small field of entrants this year, which definitely helped me to move up one spot in the rankings over the past two years. Moving up one spot is something.
Hanging in the rec room, there is a grainy, black and white picture of four elk standing in front of a giant soy bean. Whoever took the picture was obviously not a skilled photographer because they cut off the left side and top of the giant bean. As folks often did for family pictures, they arranged themselves from tallest to shortest. The dad towered above the rest of the family, with his impressive antlers accentuating his height. He was holding up his right hand to point up at the giant bean behind them, while mom had both hands at her sides. Next to her was the son, a gangly young teenager with his arms crossed, and his head dipped, glaring up at the camera in a manner that made it plain that he would prefer to be almost anywhere else at that moment. Finally, at the end was the young daughter in an adorable sundress who was looking up over her shoulder at the bean rather than at the camera.
I remember when I first noticed the picture at Grandma’s house. I was fascinated by it, and mostly by the giant bean behind them. When I was a little older, I asked her about it on another visit and she laughed heartily. It was her and grandpa and dad and aunt Clarice in the picture. They been driving to a fair two counties over, and grandpa had decided to take a shortcut through the back country. They’d driven a bit when they saw a sign that told them to take the next right to see the world’s largest, gilded soy bean. Dad didn’t want to go – he was really eager to get to the fair – but Grandma insisted they turn, since “when are we going to come this way again?”
This was back in the days before smart phones or GPS, and grandpa refused to take a map with him in the car. If they’d had a smart phone or a map with them at the time, they’d likely have given it a pass because it ended up being a full hour’s drive down a bumpy, secondary road that wound its way through gullies, and around (in grandpa’s words) “Damn near every berm and lake in Minnesota, it seemed like.”
The bean stood on a concrete base in the corner of the dusty little town’s only gas station. It had a plaque at its base billing it as the world’s largest soy bean, standing thirty-four feet, ten and one-half inches tall, making it four feet taller than the second largest one allegedly standing somewhere in Ukraine. She said that the plaque went on about how the bean somehow represented America’s superiority over the commies. She was pretty sure that part was there – her body blocks the plaque in the photograph, and that text wasn’t there when she’d gone back with Aunt Clarise to see it a couple of years ago.
She remembered the gas station better than the bean, because it was a dingy little place run by a scary, grizzled, old chain-smoking buck with only one antler. When they’d asked if he sold souvenirs, he growled at them that he sold gas and he sold coffee, and unless they wanted either of those, they were welcome to leave him the heck alone. She said that it wasn’t actually the word heck he’d used, but she still considered herself too proper to repeat the word.
She said that when she and my aunt went back, the roads were in better shape. The Interstate gets you about fifteen minutes away from it now. The old gas station has been replaced by a BP that mostly caters to Cardlock customers. She said the town was pretty much gone now since most of the small family farms got bought up by big factory farms and most of the farm families packed up and moved to the cities. Grandma said that Aunt Clarise had always been fascinated by the bean, and had talked about it for years after their visit.
“So, how was it?” I’d asked.
“Well, they obviously haven’t been maintaining it,” she’d said. “Most of the gold leaf has flaked off, and the wood is all cracked. Also, it’s leaning pretty badly to one side. Whole thing is probably going to fall over in another decade.”
“What about Aunt Clarise?” I had asked. Grandma paused that that point.
“When we got out of the car and walked up to it, she looked it up and down and said, ‘It is not as tall as I remember.’ That was all she really had to say about it. We bought a couple of Frosteez at the gas station, topped up the tank and came home.”
That was almost ten years ago. Last year she gave me the picture when we were helping her pack up to move to an apartment. I had a look at Google street view, and as of two years ago when it was last updated, the bean was still standing.
I think I may take our kids there this summer so that we can see it before it’s gone. My son is about the same age as dad was when he went, and I’m curious to see if he can pout for the camera as well as his grandpa.
And as far as I know, it’s still the world’s largest soy bean, and that’s not something you get to visit every day.
It was a very small field of entrants this year, which definitely helped me to move up one spot in the rankings over the past two years. Moving up one spot is something.
Hanging in the rec room, there is a grainy, black and white picture of four elk standing in front of a giant soy bean. Whoever took the picture was obviously not a skilled photographer because they cut off the left side and top of the giant bean. As folks often did for family pictures, they arranged themselves from tallest to shortest. The dad towered above the rest of the family, with his impressive antlers accentuating his height. He was holding up his right hand to point up at the giant bean behind them, while mom had both hands at her sides. Next to her was the son, a gangly young teenager with his arms crossed, and his head dipped, glaring up at the camera in a manner that made it plain that he would prefer to be almost anywhere else at that moment. Finally, at the end was the young daughter in an adorable sundress who was looking up over her shoulder at the bean rather than at the camera.
I remember when I first noticed the picture at Grandma’s house. I was fascinated by it, and mostly by the giant bean behind them. When I was a little older, I asked her about it on another visit and she laughed heartily. It was her and grandpa and dad and aunt Clarice in the picture. They been driving to a fair two counties over, and grandpa had decided to take a shortcut through the back country. They’d driven a bit when they saw a sign that told them to take the next right to see the world’s largest, gilded soy bean. Dad didn’t want to go – he was really eager to get to the fair – but Grandma insisted they turn, since “when are we going to come this way again?”
This was back in the days before smart phones or GPS, and grandpa refused to take a map with him in the car. If they’d had a smart phone or a map with them at the time, they’d likely have given it a pass because it ended up being a full hour’s drive down a bumpy, secondary road that wound its way through gullies, and around (in grandpa’s words) “Damn near every berm and lake in Minnesota, it seemed like.”
The bean stood on a concrete base in the corner of the dusty little town’s only gas station. It had a plaque at its base billing it as the world’s largest soy bean, standing thirty-four feet, ten and one-half inches tall, making it four feet taller than the second largest one allegedly standing somewhere in Ukraine. She said that the plaque went on about how the bean somehow represented America’s superiority over the commies. She was pretty sure that part was there – her body blocks the plaque in the photograph, and that text wasn’t there when she’d gone back with Aunt Clarise to see it a couple of years ago.
She remembered the gas station better than the bean, because it was a dingy little place run by a scary, grizzled, old chain-smoking buck with only one antler. When they’d asked if he sold souvenirs, he growled at them that he sold gas and he sold coffee, and unless they wanted either of those, they were welcome to leave him the heck alone. She said that it wasn’t actually the word heck he’d used, but she still considered herself too proper to repeat the word.
She said that when she and my aunt went back, the roads were in better shape. The Interstate gets you about fifteen minutes away from it now. The old gas station has been replaced by a BP that mostly caters to Cardlock customers. She said the town was pretty much gone now since most of the small family farms got bought up by big factory farms and most of the farm families packed up and moved to the cities. Grandma said that Aunt Clarise had always been fascinated by the bean, and had talked about it for years after their visit.
“So, how was it?” I’d asked.
“Well, they obviously haven’t been maintaining it,” she’d said. “Most of the gold leaf has flaked off, and the wood is all cracked. Also, it’s leaning pretty badly to one side. Whole thing is probably going to fall over in another decade.”
“What about Aunt Clarise?” I had asked. Grandma paused that that point.
“When we got out of the car and walked up to it, she looked it up and down and said, ‘It is not as tall as I remember.’ That was all she really had to say about it. We bought a couple of Frosteez at the gas station, topped up the tank and came home.”
That was almost ten years ago. Last year she gave me the picture when we were helping her pack up to move to an apartment. I had a look at Google street view, and as of two years ago when it was last updated, the bean was still standing.
I think I may take our kids there this summer so that we can see it before it’s gone. My son is about the same age as dad was when he went, and I’m curious to see if he can pout for the camera as well as his grandpa.
And as far as I know, it’s still the world’s largest soy bean, and that’s not something you get to visit every day.
