Minnesota Prairie Roots

IN SOME WAYS, kindness resembles a kaleidoscope. It’s ever-changing, surprising and delightfully-beautiful. So is music. Combine the two, and you have a harmony of kindness.

Attendees at a recent blues concert in Faribault’s Central Park were extended a kindness by the Minnesota Blues Society via the gift of a free harmonica and a short lesson in playing techniques. The Everett Smithson Band had just completed its performance when folks gathered in the park’s center for the give-away. I grabbed two harps (a synonym for harmonica) for my elementary-aged grandchildren, but didn’t stick around for the lesson. An interested group of concert-goers, though, circled Smithson, a Minnesota Blues Society Hall of Fame inductee, for instructions.

Decades ago as a child, I had a metal toy harmonica, with not a clue how to play it. My attempts at music were more noise than anything. Yet here I was, many years later in the presence of a professional harmonica player and vocalist willing to teach a bunch of strangers harmonica basics through the Blues Society’s “Harmonica Lessons for All Ages” program. The group, with a mission in part of promoting blues music in Minnesota, has given away more than 500 harmonicas. That’s a whole lot of kindness spread to music lovers across the state, including right here in Faribault.

KINDNESS IN A SHOE STORE

It was during a previous concert in the same Faribault park that I once again witnessed kindness, this time in the words of a 10-year-old, the daughter of a friend. I don’t recall how the subject turned to shoes. But this young girl, who’d been cartwheeling across the grass and playing Frisbee and kick ball with her sister and friends, declared that her favorite store is Burkhartzmeyer Shoes. That’s a third-generation family-owned shoe store and repair shop in Faribault.

Now when a kid tells you they like a shoe store better than a certain Big Box retailer (which shall remain unnamed), you take notice. Turns out Bruce at Burkhartzmeyer Shoes allowed my young friend entry to the shoe storage space behind the curtains. She was impressed by all the shoes in the back room and by the free sucker you get whenever you buy a pair of shoes. Oh, and by the fact the Burkhartzmeyers know your shoe size just by looking at your feet.

So here I was in the park listening to a story about a kind shop owner who left such an impression on a 10-year-old that she was now promoting “Shop Local” without even realizing it. Kindness in action repaid with kind words.

KINDNESS IN A BOOKSHOP

Another shop in Faribault, this one open not even two years, also excels in exceptional customer service and kindness. Last week, when the grandkids were staying with us, we popped into Books on Central, a used bookstore run by Rice County Area United Way. All proceeds benefit non-profits which the local United Way supports. My granddaughter, who is very much in to dragons, was looking for a dragon book she hadn’t yet read. There were none to be found despite the best efforts of the volunteer staff and myself to locate one.

The next day, though, I received an email from volunteer Dave Campbell that the graphic novel, The Dragonet Prophecy, was just donated. Did I want it for my granddaughter? Izzy, who previously wanted nothing to do with graphic novels, quickly said, “Yes.” Did I mention she loves dragons?

Dave said he would hold the book for me. If not for his wife, Jeanne, who was volunteering on the day we shopped at Books on Central, the Wings of Fire graphic novel would have been processed, shelved and quickly sold. It’s a popular series. But Jeanne remembered Izzy’s dragon interest and, in this act of kindness, a girl who loves to read now has one more dragon book in her collection.

Kindness exists everywhere. I saw it in a harmonica give-away. I heard it in the story of a 10-year-old praising a local shoe shop. And I received it in a book held for the granddaughter I love, the girl I want to live and grow and thrive in a world of kindness.

© Copyright 2025 Audrey Kletscher Helbling