Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Tornado terror in Minnesota on June 17, 2010 June 18, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:55 AM
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Ominous clouds roil above Faribault shortly after 9 p.m. Thursday. I shot this through my dining room window.

“WERE THOSE THE SIRENS?” I ask, inching down the car window, uncertain whether I’ve heard the sirens that warn of an approaching storm.

“I think it was a truck,” my husband says as he continues driving west along Minnesota Highway 60 in Faribault toward the Eagles Club.

Then I hear the sound again, and this time we recognize the shrill whistle warning us to take cover.

“I want to go home. Now,” I command.

I can tell simply by my husband’s lack of response that he thinks I’m crazy. The skies don’t appear all that threatening.

“They’re not going to take our blood anyway,” I state, arguing my case. “I’m sure they have protocol in situations like this.”

He won’t concur that I am right, seeming to hesitate at the intersection that will take us to the Eagles and the Red Cross Bloodmobile. But on this June evening, the Red Cross will get none of our blood. We are heading back home, across town, to safety.

My husband switches on the car radio. The announcer is advising people to take shelter as near as Waterville about 15 miles away. The area lies in the path of a tornado.

Back home I nearly leap from the car and rush inside the house where we left our 16-year-old son finishing his homework for a night-time astronomy class. Before leaving, I instructed him to seek shelter if he heard the sirens. Clearly, he has listened to me this time. The door to the basement is flung open, the lights blazing.

I yell for my boy, but get no response. Soon he pounds down the stairs from the second story. “I checked on the internet and it’s only a thunderstorm warning,” he says.

“Uh, no,” I say, explaining that we are under a tornado warning.

Given that, none of us are fleeing to the basement even though I fear tornadoes. Witnessing the destruction of the June 13, 1968, Tracy tornado (see my June 13 blog post) that claimed nine lives and, decades later, seeing the damage a twister caused to the southwestern Minnesota farm where I grew up instilled in me a life-long healthy respect for these powerful storms.

And yesterday, in Minnesota, that respect likely grew among residents. Two people in the Wadena area and one near Albert Lea were killed when tornadoes struck. The state may have broken its record for the biggest tornado outbreak in a single day. That record stood at 27 on June 16, 1992, when an F5 tornado devastated Chandler and killed one person.

On Thursday, multiple twisters ravage many regions of Minnesota. At one time, a weatherman reports that a tornado seems to be moving straight north along Interstate 35 toward Owatonna, just to the south of Faribault.

I worry about my sister and her husband who are traveling on I-35 to Des Moines sometime after she gets off work Thursday afternoon. That route would take them directly through the storm-struck area. The interstate has been closed due to the storm, one reporter says.

Here in Faribault, round 9 p.m. on Thursday, the skies turn an eerie green to the west. To the east, ominous steel-gray clouds weigh heavy upon the earth. My anxiety level rises as I recall something about green skies and tornadoes, true or not. But no new warning sirens blare.

When I climb into bed at 11:15 p.m., many Minnesota counties, including my home county of Rice, remain under a tornado watch until 1 a.m.

This morning I awake to cloudy skies, edged out now by bright sunshine. I expect for many in our state, daylight brings a new appreciation for the power of tornadoes and a profound thankfulness for surviving their rage.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

I may not be Joe Mauer’s mom, but I’ve “got it” June 17, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:45 AM
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Cookies 'N Cream (not Kemps) store brand ice cream

TERESA MAUER, move over. You’ve got competition on the playing field.

I, too, can hit a fly ball—uh, scoop of ice cream—across the ballpark—um, kitchen.

Here’s a replay of my shining moment:

“Do you want some ice cream?” I ask my guys. Silly question since I already know they’ll say “yes.” But I hope that, by inquiring, one of them will dish up the treat. Arm wrestling rock-hard ice cream really isn’t my favorite sport.

Clearly, the guys are not going to pinch hit for me. My teen is snuggled into a corner of the couch with his laptop. My husband has his feet up in the recliner watching America’s Got Talent.

So I head toward the kitchen, pull open the freezer door and consider the options. “Peanut Butter Brownie Sensation or Cookies ‘N Cream?” I shout.

Of course, they both want the Blue Bunny “peanut butter ice cream loaded with brownie chunks and a chocolate peanut butter swirl.”

“There’s not much left,” I share, thinking maybe they’ll settle for the store brand of Oreo-laced vanilla ice cream and I can have the remaining Brownie Sensation.

Nope, that game plan isn’t working, so I scrape the bottom and sides of the carton, evenly distributing the ice cream into three bowls. (Well, I do cheat some and give myself a little bit more. But who’s watching?)

Next, I lift the flaps on the Cookies ‘N Cream box, edging the tip of the ice cream scoop into the hard, hard ice cream.

Then, just as the ice cream molds into a ball, it releases. It’s a hit. The ice cream ball flies up, grazes the watch on my left wrist and lands at the edge of the kitchen sink, nearly rolling into clean silverware stashed in the dish drainer.

I’m stunned. But I react swiftly, grabbing and tossing the ball into a bowl.

I share none of this with the team…until later, when my husband and I are watching the 10 p.m. news. Our son is gone by then, star-gazing at his astronomy class.

During a commercial break, I watch as Teresa Mauer, mother of Minnesota Twins player Joe Mauer, scoops ice cream. Then, just like that, the ice cream releases from the scoop and flies across the room. Joe lunges and catches the ice cream ball in his bowl.

My jaw drops. I have never seen this Kemps’ “Got It” television spot. Yet…

“That just happened to me,” I say, detailing to my husband exactly what occurred in our kitchen 1 ½ hours earlier.

“Yeah, except you didn’t have Joe Mauer there to catch it,” he replies. “You just picked the dirty ice cream off the floor and put it in my bowl and figured I wouldn’t notice since it’s Cookies ‘N Cream.”

Uh, not quite.

Bottom line, I love this “Got It” ad. It’s short, sweet (catch that?), and absolutely believable.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A car vomits along the road June 16, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:10 AM
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WITH NEWSPAPER STORIES that tell of budget cuts and lay-offs, oil spills and natural disasters, crime and tragedies, items published in the “Cops & Courts” report can sometimes provide comic relief.

Let me clarify lest you misunderstand. I am not amused by motor vehicle accidents, by vandalism, by assaults or similar occurrences reported to law enforcement. Rather, I am amused by the occasional comic element or in the wording of information in published public records.

For example, a recent “Cops & Courts” item printed in the Faribault Daily News states: “3:28 p.m., caller wants to report a theft that occurred eight years ago by his step-daughter…” This isn’t exactly clear to me. Is the stepdaughter the victim or the accused? More importantly, why did this stepfather wait eight years to contact the sheriff’s department about this supposed crime?

Ditto for another report filed on the same day. A complainant alleges that “his neighbor has been coming to his location and stealing motorcycle parts and tools, has been happening a lot, first time reported…”  If my neighbor was stealing from me, I wouldn’t wait to call the cops.

Finally, this published report gives me pause to chuckle a bit and to formulate numerous questions: “11:41 p.m., someone glued doors shut in the 200 block of Third Street Northwest.”  Who would think of doing this? How do you commit this type of crime without anyone noticing? Which doors were glued shut? What type of glue was used and exactly how strong is that glue? How did the victim open the glued doors? Was the victim glued in or out of his/her house? Why would anyone do this?

Finally, the most amusing of recent reports: “2:06 a.m., vehicle with hazards on, vomiting on the side of the road, Warsaw Township 118 at Cannon Lake Trail and Echo Court.” When was the last time you saw a car vomiting on the side of the road?

Just for the record, I once owned a 1976 canary yellow Mercury Comet appropriately nicknamed “The Vomit.”

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

West of New Ulm June 15, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:12 AM
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Traveling along Redwood County Highway 10 between Vesta (my hometown) and Lucan in southwestern Minnesota, a land defined by open spaces, big skies, farm fields and small towns.

DOES SOUTHERN MINNESOTA exist west of New Ulm?

Of course it does, you say. Just look at a map, follow a road west.

Well, folks, I can tell you that for many Minnesotans, southern Minnesota ends at New Ulm, or even Mankato some 25 miles to the east.

I’ve drawn this conclusion after decades of trying to explain where I grew up. Typically, I say that my hometown lies half-way between Redwood Falls and Marshall on State Highway 19.

All too often, I’ll get a blank stare, meaning I must resort to a more detailed explanation that Vesta is west of Redwood Falls, which is west of New Ulm, which is west of Mankato.

Then maybe, just maybe, they’ll understand.

Minnesotans unfamiliar with the southwestern part of our state really ought to spend some time there, in this land of wide open spaces and endless skies, of farm fields and small towns, of grain elevators and water towers that can be seen from miles away.

I’m proud to claim roots in the southwestern Minnesota prairie. My blog name, Minnesota Prairie Roots, honors the land that shaped who I became as a person and a writer.

Although I don’t get back to the prairie as often as I’d like, I’ve never lost my connection to this place. I appreciate the solitude, the wind, the sky—especially the skies—the rich black soil, the weathering red barns, even the cemetery where my father and other family members lie buried on a rare prairie hilltop that overlooks the countryside.

I have not lived in southwestern Minnesota for nearly three decades. But I’ll always consider this land, this place my kids call “the middle of nowhere,” my home.

Well, I rather like “the middle of nowhere,” this Minnesota that lies west of New Ulm, which lies west of Mankato.

One of many red barns along Cottonwood County Road 7 near Westbrook.

A farm site just outside of Westbrook along Cottonwood County Road 7.

Windmills dominate the landscape along Minnesota Highway 30 in the Jeffers area.

A lone farm building along State Highway 30 in southwestern Minnesota.

Horses graze under the spacious skies upon the southwestern Minnesota prairie along State Highway 30.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

“You paid how much for a brat and pop at Target Field?” June 14, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:13 AM
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“THAT’S PRICE-GOUGING, or whatever you call it,” I exclaim.

My husband has just revealed that he shelled out $18 for two brats and two soft drinks for himself and our teenaged son at a Minnesota Twins game.

“That’s ridiculous,” I continue to rant. “Who pays that much for a brat and pop?”

Apparently, if you’re a Twins fan (and dare I say here that I really don’t care about sports in general), that’s the price you’ll pay for simple fare to fill your belly.

Let me restate that. A brat and a pop do not fill the stomachs of two hungry guys, especially one who is 16.

Nor do a brat and a soda satisfy a man who would prefer a brat and a beer. But, with beer priced at $7, even my husband could manage to eat a brat sans beer. I didn’t even ask him the price of Tony O’s Cuban sandwich, the food he once told me he would try if he attended a Twins game.

But he did share, seeming a bit miffed, that Leinenkugel beer, brewed across the border in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, is grouped at Target Field with beers labeled as “Minnesota-made.”  That appeared to bother him more than the beer price.

So, wanting to direct him off the topic of beer, I inquire about our oldest daughter’s meal. (She has given her dad and brother the $18 tickets as a Father’s Day gift and is attending the game with them.) “Carrots,” he tells me. “She brought a bag of carrots.”

“I thought you couldn’t bring food into the game,” I say, at the same time inwardly applauding my daughter for her healthy food choice.

“She had that big green purse,” he explains.

Ah.

Later, after I check out the Twins Web site, I read that you can take food into Target Field, but only if you eat it in the general seating area. Ditto for a few beverages, that, for obvious reasons, do not include beer—Wisconsin or Minnesota-made.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Remembering the Tracy, Minnesota tornado of June 13, 1968 June 13, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:33 AM
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“YOU COULD SEE THINGS FLYING in the air…big chunks of wood from houses…everything was circling.”

Forty-two years ago today, then18-year-old Al Koch watched as a tornado, which would soon turn deadly, aimed for his family’s Custer Township farm one mile east of Garvin in southwestern Minnesota.

“It looked like it was coming toward us, then it took a jog,” he remembers. “It was real wide and real black.”

The twister had changed direction, heading at an angle straight toward Tracy four miles to the northeast. When the Koch family—Melvin and Delpha and sons, Bruce and Al—realized that, they sounded the alarm. Delpha phoned the Tracy Police Department dispatcher at about 6:50 p.m., warning of the approaching tornado.

Civil defense sirens sounded five minutes later. And at 7:04 p.m., the twister struck the southwestern edge of this farming community.

The F5 tornado, the most powerful with winds of 261 – 318 mph, ravaged the small town, leaving nine people dead and 150 injured.

If not for that warning from the Kochs, more people likely would have died. The family was honored for their efforts, and drew much media attention.

Today, at age 60, Al recalls how his family nearly immediately drove to the Tracy hospital, where Delpha worked as a nurse. They knew she would be needed. According to news reports, even local veterinarians were called upon to treat the injured.

The Kochs dropped Delpha off and then left Tracy right away. Al remembers, especially, the people he saw walking among the destruction. “They were kind of black, covered with dirt.”

Details like that and his fear that the tornado would hit his family’s farm, even after more than four decades, stick with this Garvin farmer who had just graduated from Tracy High School in 1968. Years later, he would marry Janette, one of my best friends from Wabasso High School.

Earlier this spring while researching the Tracy tornado, I learned of Delpha Koch’s early warning to the community. I e-mailed Janette and asked if Delpha was related to her husband. Of course, she was and that’s how I ended up with a thick packet of newspaper clippings about the deadly twister. These were stories I had never heard.

I was only 11 ½ when the storm struck. On that deadly evening, my dad watched the tornado through an open barn door on our farm near Vesta. He thought the twister was much closer than Tracy 25 miles to the southwest. My family eventually drove to Tracy to see first-hand the destruction. What I witnessed left me with a life-long respect for—even fear of—the powerful strength of a tornado.

Now, 42 years later, as I paged through these first-person accounts, I sensed the horror of those who experienced the June 13, 1968, tornado.

I read, for the first time, the names of those who died: Nancy Vlahos, 2; Walter Swanson, 47; Ella Haney, 84; Mildred Harden, 75; Ellen Morgan, 75; Otelia Werner, 75; Fred Pilatus, 71; Paul Swanson, 60; and Barbara Holbrook, 50.

I read of bodies laid out for identification in the hospital laundry room. I read of the father who struggled to hold onto his 12-year-old daughter as tornadic winds tried to suck her from his grasp. I read of the 50-year-old woman who came out of her basement too early and died. I read about one victim, who had a big, long piece of wood driven through his legs. I read about the woman found lying dead near her couch, presumably unaware of the tornado because she wore a hearing aid and did not hear the storm coming.

I read. I cried.

Today, please take a moment to honor the memories of those who lost their lives in the Tracy tornado of June 13, 1968.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

I belong to a pretty hip club June 12, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:36 AM
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TWO YEARS AGO TODAY, at age 51, I became a card-carrying member of a club I never asked to join. It’s a pretty hip organization—pun intended—given all members sport new hips.

My club membership card, which I’m supposed to carry in my pocketbook at all times (and I do), verifies that I have a “metallic surgical implant.” For me specifically, that’s a ceramic hip. The “metallic” part is the pin securing the hip in place.

Now, I really don’t care to think about the artificial joint or about that pin which appears exceptionally long in an X-ray. Such thoughts disconcert me. I’m not the medical type.

But nearly every day I am reminded that I have a body part which is not my own.

That reminder nags at me whenever I bend—when I’m gardening, slipping on my shoes, shooting photos, even cutting my toe nails. I’m not supposed to bend my hip more than 90 degrees or I risk dislocating it.

The mere thought of such a painful event is enough to keep me obedient, although my husband says I break that 90-degree rule all too often. I’ve never professed to be good at math.

Despite that life-long restriction, I remain grateful for my new hip. I can walk again, and without pain.

For two years, until I worked up the courage to undergo total hip replacement, I lived with pain 24/7. The simple act of walking was nearly impossible. Climbing stairs literally meant “climbing stairs.”

Today, unless you know I have an artificial hip, you wouldn’t see that just from looking at me. No one expects a 50-something woman to have a fake hip.

I never expected this either. Even my doctor, who originally diagnosed my medical condition as a pinched sciatic nerve, apparently thought me too young for a hip so arthritic that bone rubbed against bone. Once examined by an orthopedic surgeon, I was given a six-month to five-year time frame in which I would need surgery. I lasted two years.

Because of my young age—in terms of joint replacement—I wanted to delay surgery as long as possible. My surgeon simply told me, “whenever you’re ready.”

Many family members and friends, however, pressured me to have the surgery immediately. They meant well. But unless you have walked in someone else’s shoes, or in my situation walked with an arthritic hip, those comments only serve to madden and frustrate.

I’ve learned much for having gone through this total hip replacement. I appreciate good health and modern medicine. I empathize with those who struggle to walk and/or live with pain. I know the meaning of patience. I’ve experienced the depth and breadth of my husband’s love through his attentive care and encouragement.

Often, in life’s most challenging moments, we learn the most.

In two decades I’ll have the opportunity to advance my education, when my membership card comes up for renewal.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Faribault losing one classy restaurant with Monte’s Steak House closure June 11, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:44 AM
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WHEN I WON A $25 gift certificate to Monte’s Steak House at the Faribault Business Expo and Community Showcase in late April, I told my husband, “We better use this before the place closes.”

I should have heeded my own advice.

Monte’s forced to close, a front page headline in this morning’s Faribault Daily News screamed at me.

“Oh, no,” I uttered to no one because no one was around to witness my surprise, even though this wasn’t really a surprise.

Monte’s has been plagued with issues from the get-go and has closed at least once, if not twice (I can’t recall details), during its several years in Faribault. Most recently, the property went in to foreclosure and was purchased by a Northfield bank.

The current tenant, apparently, has had enough and is opting out of signing a month-to-month lease on the building, the story reports.

For the community of Faribault, the closing of Monte’s represents, in my opinion, the loss of a restaurant that offered great cuisine in a classy atmosphere. Some locals even compared Monte’s to “restaurants you would find in the Cities.” I wouldn’t know; I’ve never dined in the metro except at a chain restaurant or two.

But at Monte’s, I sampled food other than battered, deep-fried everything that seems typical fare in these parts. Not a steak-lover, I stuck mostly to the pastas and was never disappointed.

When my second daughter and I last ate at Monte’s on St. Patrick’s Day, I savored a superb salad laced with locally-made blue cheese, toasted pecans, strips of grilled chicken and dried cranberries topped with a maple dressing. Crusty bread served with a garlic-infused olive oil and balsamic vinegar (or maybe it was garlic-infused balsamic vinegar and olive oil) dipping sauce accompanied our meals. I even tried crab cakes for the first time, sampled from my daughter’s seafood pasta platter.

Monte’s initially promoted itself as an upscale restaurant, and that may have attributed to the attitude among many locals that the food was too high-priced. Admittedly, I am frugal to the point that I typically order only water while dining out. And I don’t dine out all that often because, as I said, I’m frugal. So for me to dine at Monte’s means the prices were not, for the most part, unreasonable.

In addition to the unique food offerings, I also appreciated the atmosphere of this historic building, basking in the lovely wooden floors, luxurious leather booths, exposed brick walls and large windows.

Cloth napkins and hefty, real silverware added to the class of Monte’s. Dining here was an experience.

I’ll have one last opportunity to enjoy Monte’s. After I donned my eyeglasses so I could read the entire news story and not just the Monte’s forced to close headline, I learned, thankfully, that the restaurant will be open until June 18. That gives me exactly one week to get my butt downtown and use that $25 gift certificate.

I may even order a glass of wine. After all, my meal will be on a Faribault realtor’s dime and not mine.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Reflections, in words and photos, upon graduation June 10, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:41 AM
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A soon-to-be graduate walks down the hallway of Westbrook Walnut Grove High School one last time.

ALL ACROSS THIS COUNTRY, family, friends and faculty gather in hot, stuffy gymnasiums or auditoriums to celebrate high school and college graduations.

The honored students perch on hard folding chairs, fidgeting, sweating in their caps and gowns, some crying, others smiling, most simply wishing the ceremony over.

Speakers speak of friendships and memories, of lessons learned and lessons yet to be learned, of the past and of the future.

Mothers wipe away tears. Cameras flash. Applause rings out and choirs sing.

And then the graduates march, down the aisle, tassels swaying, smiles wide, into the waiting arms of those who love them enough to let them go.

My niece, Carlyn, left, and a classmate prior to graduation from Westbrook Walnut Grove High School.

Graduation gowns await graduates at WWG High School.

The guys hang out one last time before graduation ceremonies at WWG High School.

Family, friends and faculty gather in the WWG gym for graduation ceremonies.

A family member videotapes the WWG High School graduation ceremony Sunday afternoon in Westbrook.

WWG students await their diplomas.

A long line of family and friends forms to greet WWG graduates with flowers and hugs.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A mother’s thoughts as her daughter leaves for Argentina June 9, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:31 AM
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I TOSSED AND TURNED LAST NIGHT, as if wrestling alligators in my sleep, although I dreamed of white rats.

Twice I got up, once to pop an Ibuprofen that I hoped would loosen the muscles in my shoulders that felt like taut, knotted ropes.

The drug worked its magic, if but briefly. I awoke this morning with tension pain still sweeping across my shoulders.

I expect that ache to linger, at least until I hear from my Argentine-bound daughter. She leaves in several hours from the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport bound for Houston and then for Buenos Aires.

I’ve made her promise to contact me as soon as possible, to assure me she’s safely reached her destination.

You would think by now that I would be used to this footloose, fancy-free life my second daughter leads. She’s been to Argentina before, lived there for six months while studying abroad and doing mission work. Prior to that, she traveled domestically, beginning in high school.

But this time it’s different. She’s on her own, arriving in Buenos Aires without a defined living space, without a defined schedule of activities, without parameters set by a university. She’ll stay in a hostel for awhile until she finds an apartment.

She’ll be a working woman, interning as a public relations assistant with a company that offers walking tours of the Argentine capital.

I worry that she won’t come home. She’s a Spanish major who loves South America. But my daughter assures me that she purchased a two-way ticket.

The practical, sensible mother in me wants her to stay here, in Minnesota (heck, I’d even settle for the Midwest, even the U.S.), and find a good-paying job (even just a job) to repay the college loans that will come due later this year.

But I must let her go, to follow her dreams, to take this adventure, now while she’s young and free.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling