Minnesota Prairie Roots

Marlene (Schmidt) Gulden, senior class yearbook photo, Wabasso High School Class of 1974.

WHEN I HEARD of a house fire in New Ulm that claimed two lives Valentine’s Day evening, I considered for a fleeting moment that the victims might be known to me. My mom has lots of cousins living in the area. But, New Ulm is a fair-sized community, so what were the chances?

That all changed Monday evening, when I opened an e-mail from my Wabasso High School classmate, Sue. She delivered the news that our classmate, Marlene (Schmidt) Gulden, and Marlene’s husband, David, perished in the fire.

Although I have not kept in touch with or seen Marlene in some three decades, the news still hit me hard. I expect that classmates will die perhaps of a heart attack, cancer or motor vehicle accident. But a fire? No.

According to information published in The New Ulm Journal, the Guldens were pulled from their smoke-filled home and given CPR, but later died at the New Ulm hospital. The news story continues to explain how firefighters were hampered in their efforts when a second fire truck, and then snowplows, became stuck in the couple’s long, narrow, snow-filled driveway.

Truly, the deaths of Marlene and David are a tragic loss not only to their families and friends, but to the New Ulm community.

And within the community of Wabasso High School, Class of 1974, Marlene’s death, especially, has left us with aching hearts. In a class of 89 students, you know each other pretty well.

While Marlene wasn’t in my circle of closest high school friends, I certainly considered her a friend. Really, we were all friends.

When I think about Marlene, I remember her physical beauty—she had lovely straight hair that framed a beautiful face. She always looked nice.

But mostly, I remember her quiet inner beauty. And her kindness, yes, her kindness.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

My husband's NAPA automotive machine shop toolbox.

Randy grinds a flywheel.

TAKE YOUR WIFE to Work Day begins with good intentions.

My husband has been hinting for a week that he can use some extra hands in the Parts Department, Inc., Northfield (NAPA), automotive machine shop. So I, rather foolishly, volunteer to help and he, rather foolishly, accepts.

So Saturday morning I remove my wedding band and Black Hills Gold ring, borrow two of his work shirts, grab my most ragged jeans from the closet and pull on tennis shoes. I know I am about to get greasy, dirty and stinky.

During the 25-minute drive to Northfield, we admire the frost that creates a magically- beautiful landscape. Turns out this will be the best part of my morning.

Soon we pull into the NAPA parking lot and step into a world that smells of chocolate cereal. Memories of cold winter mornings on the farm and steaming bowls of Malt-O-Meal cereal, made in Northfield, flit through my mind as we walk across the icy pavement.

Once inside, Randy punches in. I don’t. This is, after all, a trial run, volunteer work, an unpaid internship. I doubt I’m ready for the payroll. But I am anxious to get started.

As I wait for my spouse to organize tools and choose a project for me, I survey his machine shop. I understand now why he has asked for assistance. I’m overwhelmed simply viewing the piles of heads and blocks and other engine “stuff” grouped on the cement floor.

Just one example of all the work that awaits my husband in the NAPA automotive machine shop.

And I am impressed by all of the equipment—the cylinder re-boring machine, honing machine, valve guide and seat machine, brake drum and rotor lathe, flywheel grinder, airless shot blaster, baking oven and more—that Randy operates. This is one smart man, I remind myself.

Me, well, I’m not so smart about automotive work, I quickly learn. I do OK removing expansion plugs and oil gallery plugs from 302 Ford engine and 292 Ford engine blocks. But removing camshaft bearings proves too challenging as I struggle to slam a rod with a huge hammer.

“I thought you could swing a hammer better than that,” Randy says.

Uh, no. It’s a swing and a miss.

I'm not good, not good at all, with camshaft bearing drivers because I can't accurately swing a hammer.

Frustration begins to set in as I sense I am not doing well.

But, hey, once I overcome my desire to save and reuse parts, I’m pretty good at tossing old parts into the scrap metal barrel.

Soon I’m standing around, wondering what to do. “This is getting to be a really long morning,” I say, glancing at the shop clock, which tells me I’ve only been here 1 ½ hours.

When Randy begins sweeping the floor, I seize the opportunity. “Let me sweep. I’m good at cleaning,” I say, practically grabbing the broom from his hands. He instructs me to keep down the dust level. Apparently I’m good at sweeping as he never criticizes.

But I feel like this is simply busy work. “Give me some meaningful work,” I say.

So he locks a 1960s vintage 327 Chevy cylinder head into a machine and shows me how to drill out worn valve guides. But I fear I will wreck the head, even though he claims I can’t. He stands watch as I try. I tentatively float the machine, line the drill with a guide and flick the switch. I did it. But when he steps away, I place my hand on the machine to steady it and knock off a part. I panic. He finishes the job.

At this point, I know with absolute certainty that I am more of a hindrance than a help to Randy. So I voluntarily take a break, glancing one last time at NAPA race car drivers Ron Capps and Martin Truex Jr. Their near life-size photo cut-outs, which I can see through the shop window on the NAPA retail floor, proved a welcome distraction during my moments of insecurity.

NAPA race car drivers Ron Capps and Martin Truex Jr. keep a watchful eye on me in the NAPA machine shop.

I head to the car and grab a bag of work that I’ve brought with me, just in case I didn’t pan out as an automotive machinist’s assistant. For the next 1 ¾ hours, I proof the spring issue of Minnesota Moments magazine.

Later, when I ask Randy to make a list of the work I did that morning, he writes:

• Removed expansion plugs and oil gallery plugs.
• Attempted to remove camshaft bearings.
• Drilled out worn valve guides.
• Swept the floor.
• Edited magazine.
• Distracted fellow employees.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

(Check back later this week for more images from the NAPA automotive machine shop.)

Oh, yeah, and I'm not good either at using the lifting hook.

A preschooler's t-shirt message celebrates Valentine's Day.

VALENTINE’S DAY, for me, brings sweet, sweet memories of shoeboxes covered in white paper and decorated with pink and red hearts carefully cut from construction paper. Classmates slipped punch-out valentines through a slit in the box cover.

Attached to those “Be mine” messages, were heart-shaped suckers or a stick of Juicy Fruit gum or a pocket-sized box of conversation hearts that I thought tasted more of chalk than of candy

Many of those childhood valentines are tucked away now, somewhere in a cardboard box in an upstairs closet. Of all those greetings, I remember not the store-bought ones that sparkled with glitter, but rather the hand-cut plain white heart from Dallas.

“I love you like a little dove,” my neighbor boy, and classmate, wrote.

I can’t recall ever having a childhood crush on Dallas. It was Craig whom I “liked.” But, now, as an adult, I wonder if perhaps Dallas wasn’t trying to woo me with his heartfelt message.

Or maybe not. I mean, what exactly does it mean to “love you like a little dove?”

#

A TRIO OF VALENTINES

Two-year-old Braxton, son of friends Billie Jo and Neal, is, indeed, a little "hunk of burnin' love."

Billie Jo and her kids, Nevaeh and Braxton, made these cookies for the February 13 game night at Trinity Lutheran Church, Faribault.

I discovered this Valentine's Day message in the preschool at my church, Trinity Lutheran.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY from Minnesota Prairie Roots!

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

“I thought you could swing a hammer better than that,” he says.

He is my husband, the automotive machinist.

Me? I am the writer, who shadowed her husband at work. My Saturday morning in his automotive machine shop went exactly as I expected. But apparently, he expected more…

Stay tuned for the rest of the story.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A favorite American comfort food and easy meal, a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup.

FEW COMFORT FOODS rival simple grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.

Grab two pieces of white bread, add slices of Velveeta cheese, slap the bread together, butter one exterior side, flip, then butter the other side, and toast in a frying pan over low heat until the bread browns and the cheese begins to melt.

Even my teenage son can prepare a grilled cheese sandwich.

Add a bowl of Campbell’s tomato soup, and you have the perfect comfort food that makes you feel all warm and fuzzy and like a kid again. At least that’s my description of a comfort food.

What would you add to this list? Mashed potatoes, mac and cheese, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, spaghetti, Tator Tot hotdish, chili, chocolate cake? I expect answers will vary depending on where you grew up, maybe even your economic status.

When my oldest daughter was in college a few years ago, she helped organize Grilled Cheese Night in her Winona State University dorm. I found this a bit humorous. But the event was popular and, probably, because the grilled cheese reminded students of home.

Which leads me to wonder…with so many families eating out or grabbing ready-made foods on the go, what will today’s youngsters consider comfort foods? Chicken nuggets, Hot Pockets, frozen pizza, a Big Mac?

Share your thoughts. What are your favorite comfort foods? And, more importantly, why?

A grilled cheese sandwich oozes with Velveeta.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A coveted Bates Motel towel.

FOR SOME REASON my cousin Dawn, who lives in Morgan, thinks I am the mastermind behind recent correspondence she’s received from Norman Bates. He’s the proprietor of The Bates Motel in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho movie.

Yesterday, Dawn received a letter from Mr. Bates and a hand-embroidered Bates Motel towel, she tells me in an e-mail. Dawn doesn’t expound on the contents, but says she plans to reserve a room in the motel later this year. Honestly, I am surprised, even shocked, that my cousin would consider staying at a place that was the scene of a gruesome murder in a motel room shower in 1960.

Maybe Mr. Bates is offering her a good deal. I don’t know. Whatever, the reason, I’m declining Dawn’s invitation to join her and her family on a California get-away. No, thank you.

If anything, I should discourage my cousin from accepting whatever opportunity Mr. Bates is offering. Considering his past correspondence, which included a dead box elder bug, you would think Dawn would be wary. I mean, really, I think this motel owner may be psycho.

Dawn, apparently, is not concerned given the tone of her e-mail. “I love the towel that I received from the Bates Motel,” she writes. Who, in their right mind, would treasure such a gift? Dawn, I guess. She’s not sure what’s more exciting, the package she received from Norman Bates or her son’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition, both of which arrived in the family mailbox yesterday. Can you imagine?

That reminds me of my relatives on my mom’s side. Many, many years ago, these extended family members began spending one week every summer, or every other summer, at a central Minnesota resort. They stayed in a rambling old house. Perhaps the place reminded them of the spacious old house where Norman Bates and his mother lived. I’m not sure. But soon enough, the resort house was dubbed “The Bates Motel.”

“What I remember is walking in the back door on our arrival and saying ‘Hi Mother, we’re back,’ and than walking by the locked room at the top of the stairs, touching it and saying, ‘Hi, Mother,’” my Aunt Dorothy tells me. “That locked room was made into a third bathroom and took away part of the fun. We also used to get letters from there.”

Dorothy doesn’t recall details of those letters or much else. Her sister, my Aunt Rae, is researching the history of the Minnesota Bates Motel and will get back to me. But I remember hearing of family Olympics competition that rewarded winners with hand-embroidered Bates Motel towels. Why covet a gold medal when you can have a towel?

I know one thing for certain. When I stayed at the Minnesota Bates Motel in 2006, I hated using the upstairs bathroom across from my bedroom, especially at night. The shower curtain there depicted a menacing hand, grasping a butcher knife, poised above the silhouette of a woman.

Dawn, do you understand now why I’m cautious about anything remotely related to Norman Bates or The Bates Motel? How could you possibly think I have anything to do with the towel and letter you received yesterday from Mr. Bates?

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Hand-stitched lettering adorns a Bates Motel towel.

Check out my December 15, 2009, post, “My cousin receives a chilling letter from The Bates Motel.”

SHE HAS HER whole day mapped out, she tells her friends last week, and then tells me.

First, she’ll stop at Caribou Coffee for free coffee on her way to work in St Paul.

And that’s it, she says, and laughs.

Leave it to my daughter Amber, my eldest, to have such grand plans for her not-quite-a-quarter-of-a-century birthday. I knew those preliminary plans would change, and they did.

Today, at 10:56 a.m. to be exact, she turns another year older. And if she was home, I would hug my daughter and tell her I love her and bake a birthday treat.

But she’s not and I can’t, but I can and I can’t.

She’ll celebrate with co-workers and friends. The hug from me will have to wait. The “I love you” arrives in an e-mail and a phone call. A co-worker is bringing brownies.

This I learn Tuesday evening, when Amber calls to wish her brother a happy 16^th birthday. With three children, what are the odds that my oldest would be born on February 10 and my youngest on February 9?

That aside, Amber shares one more bit of news. Retired U. S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor will be in the Twin Cities today. And there’s a slim possibility that maybe, just maybe, Amber will meet this first female to serve on the nation’s highest court.

Whatever the days holds, and that also includes a free meal with friends at Noodles & Company and then an evening at church, I’m certain my daughter will enjoy every minute.

I wish I could celebrate this day, her birthday, the day I became a mother, with her. But kids have this way of growing up and moving on. One minute they are babies and the next minute they are adults. Or so it seems.

A birthday rose for my oldest daughter, Amber, photographed this summer in St. Cloud.

Happy birthday, sweet daughter of mine!

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

When will all of this snow STOP? A stop sign on the corner by my house is nearly buried in snow.

MY TEENAGE SON is getting his birthday wish today—a snow day.

Last night he asks, “Do you think we’ll have school tomorrow?”

His dad and I look at each other. “Maybe a late start,” Randy says.

Later, as we’re watching the 10 o’clock news, announcements of late-school starts and closings are already scrolling across the bottom of the television screen. To Caleb’s disappointment, “Faribault” does not follow “Fairmont,” meaning classes are on as normal.

But travel conditions apparently change overnight, when another several inches of snow fall atop the eight or so inches already on the ground. Or perhaps school and transportation officials realize safety should come first.

My husband, who has switched on the TV before leaving for work Tuesday morning, tells me that Faribault schools are starting two hours late. OK, I mumble as I kiss him goodbye, then pull the bed covers tighter around my neck.

Soon I am up, though, unable to sleep. At 8 a.m., I switch on the local news. Just to make sure. Sometimes situations change. After learning that the Senior Clothes Closet, the Rice County Day Activity Center and a few other places are closed, the radio announcer gets to the schools. I’m standing in my kitchen, wondering why he doesn’t announce the school delays and closings first.

“All of these schools are closed,” he finally says, beginning a long list that includes Faribault and almost every other nearby school.

My boy, my now 16-year-old birthday boy will be so happy, oh, so happy to hear this news, when he finally awakens. I expect that will be around noon.

Which is the car in our driveway and which is the snowbank? Tough to distinguish the two, isn't it?

OK, I'll admit there's some beauty in this latest 10-inch snowfall, like my neighbor's snow-draped evergreen.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Eggs are for more than eating.

MY DAUGHTERS, both in their early 20s, sometimes share snippets of their lives that make me a bit jealous of their youthful exuberance.

Take my eldest, who drove down from south Minneapolis on Sunday. A few hours into her visit, Amber asks to use her brother’s laptop. She wants to show us something on her Facebook page. I’m not on Facebook and wouldn’t have a clue how to use it, if I wanted. And I don’t want.

But back to the point. Amber proceeds to show us a hilarious video of her friend James lying on the floor of her basement laundry room, cup clenched in mouth, attempting to catch eggs dropped through a first-floor laundry chute.

Tim is dropping the egg yolks and, on the third try, hits the target. Maybe you have to see this clip to appreciate the humor. But it’s pretty darned funny. Once the task is completed, Tim and James stand side-by-side with bottles of laundry detergent, mimicking a television commercial. Their friend David, who is among the creative talent at a Minneapolis-based ad agency, suggests the laundry commercial.

As I’m viewing the egg episode, I’m thinking two things: How did Tim come up with this idea to drop eggs down a laundry chute? Secondly, if tweaked a bit, this clip is just odd enough and funny enough to work as a detergent or stain removal ad.

Now, on to daughter number two, who is a college student in Wisconsin. Recently, Miranda participated in a photo scavenger hunt during a friend’s birthday party. Among the craziest of images needed was a picture of team members petting a cow. Unlike their competitors, who aim directly for the toy section of a major retailer, Miranda and crew head for, no, not a Wisconsin farm, but for the meat department in a grocery store. Their photo depicts a slab of beef, sans cow. Had I been the judge, I would award extra points for creative thinking.

Another photo requirement calls for them to beg a French fry from a stranger. So the team drives to a fast food restaurant, spies a group of high school boys and asks for a fry. They get the single potato slice and permission to dip it in ketchup, earning them extra points.

I could tell you more about that photo scavenger hunt, but those details involve an old man dancing in a bar, the YMCA song and a parked car. Nothing criminal, nothing bad, but just better left unsaid.

Oh, to be 20-something again, chasing cows in Wisconsin, dropping eggs down a laundry chute…

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

HAVING GROWN UP, as my three kids would say, “in the middle of nowhere,” I appreciate the opportunities available to me as an adult.

But before I get into that, I just want to clarify that, yes, while my hometown of Vesta lies quite some distance from any major city, the people living there today certainly are not isolated. They are a fine bunch who simply must drive out of town to enjoy cultural amenities. I’m proud to call that spot on the southwestern Minnesota prairie my hometown. Very proud.

However, as a child, I had limited opportunities. Part of that was the time—the 1960s and 1970s—and, yes, part of it was the location. We had no bowling alley, no movie theater, no roller rink, no, not even a library in Vesta. And we most definitely did not have live theatrical performances. Sure, we could drive to Redwood Falls or Marshall for entertainment, but, in all honesty, my poor farm family simply didn’t have the extra monies for such pleasures.

My culture experiences were limited to high school concerts and high school plays, or a visiting missionary speaking at the Lutheran church.

So today, whenever The Paradise Center for the Arts in Faribault, where I now live, features a performance by either The Merlin Players or the Paradise Community Theater, I typically attend. Perhaps subconsciously, I am making up for all those years when I was culturally-deprived. But rather, I would like to think that I enjoy good community and professional theatre.

The Paradise Center for the Arts theatre setting for "South Pacific," performed this past summer.

I simply feel incredibly blessed to live in a community that has both a theatre AND a library.

But it’s theatre that I wish to address in this blog post. Last night my husband and I attended two one-act comedies at The Paradise. Bob’s Date and And the Winner Is not only provided us with much-needed laughter during this long, long winter, but also thought-provoking material to contemplate.

As much as I enjoyed the acting and the story lines in these productions, I was disappointed. That disappointment comes not from the stage, but from the audience, or lack thereof. I doubt even half the chairs in this 300-plus seat auditorium were filled.

I am embarrassed, downright embarrassed, that in this city of about 22,000, we cannot fill every single seat.

If this had occurred only once, I might consider this a fluke. But I have been to other shows with similar low attendance. I cannot attribute this to the plays or the performers. I have enjoyed only outstanding shows in The Paradise. In all fairness to the topic, there have been sold-out performances at this theatre.

Yet, in a community this size, every show should be a sell-out. Tickets, at $12 for an adult, are reasonable. I mean, honestly, can you go to a movie for $12?

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling