Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Super Bowl ads: The babe I liked & the one I didn’t February 7, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:49 AM
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LET’S TALK ADVERTISING TODAY.

First off, how many of you watched the Super Bowl? How many of you were more interested in the commercials than in the big game?

I could care less about the game. But the ads interest me. I didn’t see all of them, but I caught enough to be unimpressed.

I’d give “the best” award to the Doritos ad where an adorable baby rockets to snatch a bag of snacks and then munches on the chips alongside a smiling grandma. The ad was cute, memorable and I got it. I don’t always understand the commercials.

Teleflora gets my “the worst” ad distinction for its pure sex-infused commercial featuring an alluring woman encouraging men to give flowers for Valentine’s Day. “Give and you shall receive,” she purrs. “She” happens to be famous Brazilian model Adriana Lima.

Seriously, Teleflora marketing people, do not insult women by airing ads like this.

Also, and this really, truly, absolutely bugs me. A few years ago we bailed out the auto makers. Yet, they have millions of dollars to spend on Super Bowl advertising. What gives here?

Speaking of car ads, I didn’t like the Hyundai ad with the cheetah attacking a man. It reminds me too much of those animal-pursuing-animal/survival-of-the-fittest television documentaries.

A snippet from the new jcp print ad. Bold, bright and hip, wouldn't you agree?

OK, now lest you think I’m oozing negativity today, let’s turn our attention to retailer jcp, which I know as Penneys. The department store is making big changes, most noticeable to me in the magazine style advertising insert tucked inside my local daily newspaper on Super Bowl Sunday.

Changes were inevitable with former Apple executive Ron Johnson now serving as the new jcp CEO. And might I add, changes were needed to update the image of a retailer that seems more suited to my 79-year-old mother, or me, than to my 20-something daughters. I don’t really ever hear my daughters talk about shopping at Penneys. Typically they gravitate toward the more hip Target.

But it’s obvious, from the print and television ads I’ve seen, that jcp is trying to draw a younger, hipper crowd. Their new ads are crisp, clean, bold, bright and packed with motion.

Even more important, the company is eliminating those continual sales promotion mailings. Finally.

Instead of the previous complicated, ongoing, ever-changing sales system, the company is switching to a “fair and square” approach of everyday lower prices, month-long values and first and third Friday mark-downs. It all still sounds a bit too complicated. But anything has to be better than the previous marketing strategy.

So there you have it—my take on the world of advertising on Super Bowl Sunday.

WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS? Give me your input on the Super Bowl commercials and/or on jcp’s new approach to marketing and sales? I’d like to hear what you think, even if your take differs from mine.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

I need my writing fix February 6, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:33 AM
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ONE, TWO, THREE. Three days without a computer threw me into a state of angst. Ask my family how agitated I’d become by Sunday morning. I was not a pleasant person. I wanted to write. I cannot go three days without writing unless I am out of town and then I get my creative fix via photography.

What led to this downward spiral? Computer monitor failure.

Friday morning, after I published my daily post and logged onto my e-mail, my monitor failed. I should have taken seriously the flickering screen issues which first popped up a week earlier. But, in denial, I believed the problems would vanish without intervention. Foolish me.

Even more foolish was my belief that I could simply purchase a new monitor. Dear readers, it is not as easy as asking the guy in the electronics department if a $99 screen will work with an old computer. He will assure you that it will. And he would be wrong.

My in-house techie teen informed me that the graphics card in my 2004 computer would not support the monitor I’d just purchased.

So what then? I had to find a monitor. Without a screen, I can’t write. I can’t work.

My son has a laptop. But my files are not on his computer, nor do I know how to use his laptop. Yes, I could learn. But he needs his computer for school and I don’t want to fight vie with him for daily computer access.

I was desperate, trying to think of anyone or any business that might have a monitor compatible with my ancient computer.

My friends Tom and Deb came to the rescue, lending me a monitor until I figure out how to permanently resolve this situation. I know these older flat screen monitors are out there, sitting in spare bedrooms and closets, offices and basements. The hunt is on to find one. So…if you have an extra flat screen monitor compatible with my aging computer, this writer needs one. (And, yes, I have the specs.)

For now I’m OK. The anxiety is gone. I can write. I can work. I can input photos into my computer. All is good.

But I still need to make a decision. Should I upgrade now to a new computer while my son is still home to help me purchase, set-up and teach me how to use it? (Did I mention that I am not tech-savvy, or have you already figured that out?) He tells me I’m putting off the inevitable, that in two years or so I’ll be forced to update when Microsoft no longer supports Windows XP.

Or should my 17-year-old, who will start college next year to study computer engineering, get a new laptop and give his old one to me?

Decisions, decisions.

WHAT WOULD YOU DO? If I buy a new computer for myself, should I purchase a desktop or a laptop?

Have you had to handle time without a computer? If so, how did it affect you?

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

An historic fashion find in Faribault February 3, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:00 AM
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IT WAS AN IMPRESSIVE FIND. There, hanging on a circular clothes rack jammed with winter coats, I discovered the soft suede coat collared in fur.

I beckoned my daughter to come, try it on. Wrap yourself in this finely-crafted coat with covered buttons and deep pockets and hand-stitched lining at the collar. Try on this fawn-colored coat that reminds me of Mary Tyler Moore when I picture you wearing it.

But she hesitated, not certain about wearing a coat trimmed with fur, a fur we couldn’t identify because we’re not accustomed to such luxury.

Eventually I coaxed her into slipping on the tailored garment from Ochs of Faribault, a fine, but now defunct, department store that served communities in southern Minnesota for nearly 100 years with branches in Owatonna, Waseca, Rochester and Austin and, later, a store in New Ulm.

That deep history alone made the coat worth purchasing. Ochs, established in Faribault in 1888 as a seller of dry goods and notions, became “the” place to shop in the heyday of department stores.

I’ve lived in Faribault long enough to remember Ochs. I couldn’t afford to shop at this elite business, although my husband rented our wedding tuxedos there in 1982. Not long after that, Ochs closed, about the time high-end department stores began disappearing from Main Street.

Buying the coat would equal acquiring a piece of history. I impressed that upon my 25-year-old daughter as she pondered purchasing the coat. Soon she pulled $12 and some loose change—I threw in the remaining coins—to total $12.50.

She’d just purchased a finely-made coat from one of Faribault’s finest department stores for half price at the Faribault Senior Center’s Clothes Closet.

I thrilled in the thrift store find and followed with a back yard photo shoot to document our discovery.

And then I suggested to my daughter that she pose for a second photo shoot next to the Mary Tyler Moore statue on the Nicollet Mall in downtown Minneapolis. She, like the actress in the 1970s The Mary Tyler Moore Show sitcom, lives in Minneapolis and is a strong, independent, single working woman.

Such a photo would be a fitting tribute, I think, to the strength and power of women. When Verna Love Ochs became the president of Ochs in 1969 upon the death of her husband, she was one of only five women in the country serving as a department store president. That’s according to a Faribault Heritage Preservation Commission Downtown Walking Tour video clip produced by Daniel J. Hoisington of Edinborough Productions.

Note the Faribault Ochs store in this mid-1920s photo from the private collection of Daniel J. Hoisington.

Verna Ochs, who died in 1989, was also a member of the Rice County Historical Society and a charter member of the Faribault Heritage Preservation Commission. She’d likely appreciate the restoration of the Ochs Department Store building several years ago by the State Bank of Faribault.

Will my daughter value her new suede coat? I expect, given its history, she will.

CLICK HERE to watch a video clip about Ochs.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Vintage photo courtesy of Daniel J. Hoisington

 

46 years of serving pancakes for a cause on Super Bowl Sunday February 2, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:10 AM
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THEY’RE SYNONYMOUS in Faribault—the Super Bowl and pancakes.

For 46 years, the Faribault Lions Club has sponsored a pancake and sausage breakfast on Super Bowl Sunday, raising funds to support projects that adhere to the club motto: “We serve.”

Let me repeat that. Forty-six years. Wow. You have to admire an organization so committed to helping others. The Faribault Lions expect to feed 1,200 – 1,500 and raise $5,000 at their Super Bowl Pancake Breakfast.

Now I’m no fan of pancakes (ranking them right alongside liver) or of football, but I may have to eat pancakes this Sunday simply to support a worthy cause. I’ll skip the football except for the commercials.

The Faribault Lions provide funding for college scholarships, dictionaries for third graders, food for children in need, and assistance for the visual and hearing impaired, among other projects.

While all are worthy causes, the club’s effort on Sunday to collect used prescription eyeglasses and hearing aids and to raise dollars to assist those with visual and hearing impairments resonates with me.

I’ve worn glasses since age four, after undergoing surgery to correct crossed eyes. Without that surgery, I would have gone blind in my “lazy eye.” I value my vision and know that without corrective lenses, I would struggle to see.

Lions Club International’s commitment to helping those with vision issues stretches back to 1925 when Helen Keller presented this challenge during a speech to the Lions:

Will you not help me hasten the day when there shall be no preventable blindness; no little deaf, blind child untaught; no blind man or woman unaided? I appeal to you Lions, you who have your sight, your hearing, you who are strong and brave and kind. Will you not constitute yourselves Knights of the Blind in this crusade against darkness?

And so with that challenge, the Lions became “Knights of the Blind,” collecting and distributing prescription eyeglasses through clinics world-wide. Can you imagine the joy of giving someone the gift of sight?

I just rummaged through a dresser drawer and found four eyeglasses that I can donate to the Faribault Lions Club on Sunday.

The prescription eyeglasses I'm donating.

Faribault Lions have also connected with the Minnesota State Academy for the Blind in Faribault, supporting numerous projects there, including an apartment to teach independent living skills.

My community is home to the Minnesota State Academy for the Deaf, perhaps another reason local Lions take such a strong interest in helping those who are hearing impaired.

I am among those with a hearing impairment having lost 70 percent of the hearing in my right ear last March in an episode defined as “sudden sensory hearing loss.” (Click here to read about that.) Unfortunately, a hearing aid will not help with this type of near-deafness.

But for most who suffer from a hearing impairment, a hearing aid will help. The Lions are committed to collecting used hearing aids for distribution to those in need. Can you imagine the joy of giving the gift of hearing?

It’s impressive, isn’t it, how so many worthy causes have evolved from two powerful words: “We serve.”

FYI: The Faribault Lions Club Super Bowl Pancake Breakfast will be held from 7:30 a.m. – 1:15 p.m. on Sunday, February 5, at the Eagles Club, 2027 Grant Street Northwest. Cost is $6 for adults and $4 for those 12 and under.

The Lions are also selling Super Bowl snacks—8-ounce packages of nuts for $5 – $6—to raise monies for their Backpack Blessings Program which provides local children in need with food for the weekends.

It should not go without stating here that many local businesses and volunteers (within and outside of the Faribault Lions Club) contribute to the annual Super Bowl breakfast.

Bring your used prescription eyeglasses and hearing aids, your money and your appetite on Sunday to participate in the “We serve” endeavor.

Click here to learn more about the Faribault Lions Club.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Once upon a time I was a seamstress February 1, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:13 AM
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spools of thread

Spools of thread in the sewing box I haven't opened in years.

I ALWAYS THOUGHT I’d sew clothes for my family. That was before children, in the days when I was young and had no realistic concept of the time demands of parenting.

I grew up sewing—clothes for myself, dresses for my Grandma who quilted like a mad woman but couldn’t follow a pattern. She quilted while I stitched shapeless dresses for her from polyester and cotton.

Nearly all of the clothing I wore as a teen in the 1970s, I made. Hot pants. Smocks. Dresses. Elephant leg pants, which never fit right around the waist because I was way too skinny. Pajamas. Even underwear, a rather challenging task presented by a home economics teacher who thought we should sew underwear from some slinky, slippery impractical fabric. The project was a failure.

But I digress. I loved to sew—to choose crisp, cotton fabric, and, yes, sometimes even stretchy polyester, from bolts packed onto shelves in the fabric store or in the basement of J.C. Penney in Redwood Falls or in the grocery store/general store in Lucan. The prints were psychedelic pieces of art—bold and crazy and colorful.

I can't state with certainty that this is cotton fabric from the 1970s. I picked it up several years ago at a thrift store because it reminds me of psychedelic 70s prints.

I loved paging through thick catalogs of patterns, choosing just the right trendy design to match manufactured clothes.

While I didn’t particularly enjoy the pinning of tissue paper patterns to fabric or the measuring and cutting process, I loved sliding the fabric across the sewing machine, stitching straight, even lines or easy curves until I’d created something I could wear.

There's a certain satisfaction in guiding fabric under a pressure foot, the needle pumping through fabric.

The ability to sew truly rated as a necessity more than an indulgence in a creative outlet. Our poor farm family couldn’t afford closets full of store-bought clothes. If I wanted clothing, I would need to sew them.

So, with that background, I expected to continue sewing as an adult. When I graduated from high school, my parents gave me a Sears Kenmore sewing machine as my graduation gift. My oldest brother got a car. Yeah, well…

My 1974 sewing machine, a graduation gift from my parents.

Fast forward through college—definitely no time for sewing then, except during breaks back home on the farm. Launched into the working world 3 ½ years later as a newspaper reporter, I had precious little time for sewing.

And so the years passed, until I became a mother in 1986 with grandiose plans of stitching cute little dresses for my first-born daughter. That never happened and I had even less time when my second daughter arrived 21 months later. On a tight time and money budget, I mostly relied on rummage sale clothes to dress my daughters and later, my son.

It’s been years now since I used my sewing machine. Somewhere in the busyness of raising three children and in the economic reality that I could purchase store-bought or recycled for less than the cost of fabric and a pattern, I lost interest in sewing.

I haven’t lost, though, the thrill of walking into the fabric section of a store, perusing the bolts of cloth and running my hands across the woven threads.

And it seems to me that the prints today are bold and crazy and colorful, quite like the psychedelic prints of the 70s.

HOW ABOUT YOU? Did you, like me, sew at one time? Or are you a creative seamstress,  stitching away today?

Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling