Gedney Pickles

Gedney is a Minnesota company that's been producing pickles since 1881. In 1991 the company launched two State Fair Pickles that were made from actual prize winning recipes. The Kosher Dills recipe belonged to Genevieve Spano and the Bread & Butter Pickles recipe belonged to Nita Schemmel. In 1994 the company also begins producing jams made from four different State Fair blue ribbon recipes. I haven't seen a television commercial for Gedney Pickles recently but the jingle is still stuck in my head: "Gedney...It's a Minnesota pickle. Gedney...It's a Minnesota State Fair pickle..."

Minnesota State Fair 1992

Prior to 2001 I hadn't been to the Minnesota State Fair since 1992. That year, a friend of mine, Mike, had tickets for a Grandstand show by a group named Color Me Badd. Color Me Badd was a bubble gum boys band of the early 90's that came and went pretty fast. Mike was going through his second adolescence (or maybe it was his first) and was into stuff like that. As it was a free ticket I decided I really didn't have anything to lose so I went along. I gotta say that even though I didn't have any strong feelings about the band that they really did put on a great show. They could really sing and their moves were quite slick. After the performance ended at about 9 p.m. we had some time to walk the fair and hang out. I really do like being at the fair in the late afternoon and evening as it's not as crowded, it's cooler and it just plain brings back memories.