DOWNTOWN OWATONNA, MINNESOTA:
The word reads “GREEN.”
But the visual is blue…
Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Mayberry, Wisconsin, or not November 6, 2014
IF BUT FOR A FEW MOMENTS, I feel like I’ve walked onto the Main Street of Mayberry, North Carolina, circa 1960s.
You know, fictional home of Andy Griffith, local level-headed sheriff who dispensed justice and wisdom once a week alongside his inept sidekick, Deputy Barney Fife.
I’d like to believe Mayberry existed, still exists, in places outside my black-and-white television sitcom memories of some 50 years ago.
That could be Andy’s son, Opie, and friend ambling across the highway with fishing poles and bucket in hand. The scene seems more flashback than reality.
But all of these images are reality—in Necedah, a community of some 930 residents located about half way between LaCrosse and Oshkosh on Wisconsin State Highway 21. The town rests near two lakes and the Wisconsin and Yellow rivers. Fishing opportunities abound.
And so does the opportunity to explore the Queen of the Holy Rosary Mediatrix of Peace Shrine. It is here that the Virgin Mary reportedly appeared to Mary Ann Van Hoof, farm wife and mother of eight, on November 12, 1949. Over 34 years, the Mother of God supposedly told Mary Ann to “bring the truth to all people” with a focus on youth.
You can choose to believe this or not. The intention of this shrine seems wholesome enough and I expect many have been blessed simply by visiting this reverent site.
But when I read a sign requesting that women wearing shorts or slacks stop at the office for a wrap-around skirt, I thought surely I must be in Mayberry, North Carolina, circa 1960s.
Shortly thereafter, I left.
(These photos were shot in May 2014 and August 2011.)
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
A photographic journey through rural western Wisconsin November 5, 2014
SHADOWS AND CURVES AND LIGHT.
Sky.
Land.
Farm buildings.
All draw my eyes to the landscape, my hand to the camera, eye to the viewfinder, finger to shutter button.
Flash of color: A red barn.
Rural scenes unfold before me on this drive through western Wisconsin, from Nelson north to St. Croix Falls in early October.
I am linked to the land by my past, daughter of a southwestern Minnesota crop and dairy farmer. Even after 40 years away from the farm, fields and farm sites hold my heart more than any grid of city blocks or cluster of homes or urban anything.
If I could, I would live in the country again, close to the scent of dried corn stalks and fertile black soil.
I would live under a sky that overwhelms, inside a white farmhouse with a welcoming front porch. That was always my dream.
But dreams cost money. Instead, I have lived in an old house along an arterial street in a town of some 23,000 for 30 years. I am grateful to have a house, to live in a community I love among dear friends.
Still, a part of my soul yearns, aches for the land I left.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
My health insurance premium goes through the roof & I’m mad as… November 4, 2014
I KNEW IT WAS COMING.
But still, I was hopeful it wasn’t.
And I am raging mad. I’d write mad as h*** except I prefer not to swear.
On Monday I received a packet of information from my health insurance carrier, PreferredOne. It contained not a single word of good news.
The letter I received from my health insurance carrier.
Instead, I was notified that, if I stay with my current SignatureChoice Plus plan with a $2,000 deductible, copay and 100 percent coinsurance, my monthly premium will skyrocket a whopping 76 percent.
That’s right. Seventy-six percent.
My new monthly premium, effective January 1, will be $777 compared to my current $441.
Are you kidding? I cannot even begin to express how angry I am at this ridiculous rate increase. If this is affordable health insurance, then I wonder what the definition is of unaffordable health insurance.
Likewise, my husband is seeing a similar increase in the cost of his health insurance. His employer pays half his premium, which will be $778/month effective January 1.
We insure our college-aged son, too, through a plan offered at his East Coast university. At $185/month, that seems dirt cheap.
I have no idea what we are going to do. None. But to pay $1,351/month in health insurance premiums is not affordable on our income.
Some of my choices if I stay with PreferredOne.
I will spend the next few weeks exploring options. After my nightmarish experience with MNSure last year, I am hesitant to try that route. But I’ll grit my teeth, bite my tongue (maybe), attempt to check my disdain and wade through the process which is sure to anger and frustrate me. I anticipate a system overload as nearly 60 percent of those purchasing insurance through MNSure last year were with PreferredOne. Now that Golden Valley based company has dropped out of MNSure and all those folks, plus individuals like me, will be shopping for new plans.
Early on I was optimistic that healthcare reform might work, that costs might be contained, that the average person could afford health insurance. No more.
HOW ABOUT YOU? Are you, like my husband and me, facing unaffordable health insurance premiums? What are you going to do?
What’s your take on this mess? At whom should my anger be directed? Politicians? Health insurance companies? Who?
We need some accountability here.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
A joyful labyrinth honors faith & family November 3, 2014
MY FRIEND JOY is one of those creative types whose talent and energy seem endless.
She carves and builds and creates, always working on some project that enhances the rural Faribault home she shares with her husband, Steve.
Indoors and out, Joy’s house and yard reflect her individuality, her appreciation for family and history and that which is old or useful or meaningful. Her faith is often interwoven into her projects.
An overview of Joy’s backyard labyrinth.
A few years ago, Joy constructed a labyrinth outside her walk-out basement. It presents for impressive and practical backyard art.
A close-up, without the overall impact of the meditative walk way.
Until this past summer, I’d only seen the labyrinth in the dark, walking it during an evening campfire. I wasn’t prepared for the stunning beauty of this twisting path in the fading hours of daylight.
A mosaic created by Joy.
Wow.
Sample tiles were used in the labyrinth.
No wonder this took my friend some three years to construct. She began the labyrinth in 2010, laying selected tile into sections of concrete. Some of those tiles were sample tiles acquired from a friend.
The horse tile celebrates a granddaughter’s love of horses.
Joy proves always resourceful in reusing and repurposing. There’s not much she will throw.
Precious imprints of loved ones’ hands and feet.
Grandchildren imprinted hands and footprints.
The focal point and end of the labyrinth, perfect for a prayerful walk.
Memories. Faith. Time. All are intertwined here.
Walking portions of the labyrinth during a photo shoot.
At least once a week, if not more, Joy walks this labyrinth. It is her quiet place, her place of prayer. Right here, created by her gifted hands, in her backyard.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Annie Mary still remembers me on Halloween October 31, 2014
THAT ANNIE MARY TWENTE is getting a tad forgetful is to be expected. She would, after all, be 134 years old if she had lived past age six.
The little girl from Hanska was buried alive in October 1886 after presumably falling into a coma and thought dead by her parents. But she wasn’t. Dead, that is.
Stories featured in Ghostly Tales of Southwest Minnesota include “Annie Mary’s Restless Spirit.” Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.
As this southwestern Minnesota ghost story goes, Annie’s father went a bit mad after exhuming his daughter’s body and finding scratch marks inside her coffin and locks of hair pulled from Annie’s head.
I can only imagine. The very thought of burying one’s child alive would make anyone crazy.
I first learned of Annie Mary more than 30 years ago, when I lived in a community near Hanska. My Aunt Marilyn grew up hearing the story from her mother, Stella, who grew up just across the lake from the Richard Twente farm.
So when I moved to St. James, near Hanska, my aunt reminded me that I now lived in Annie Mary’s backyard. She told me about the fenced cemetery with the lone gravestone and somewhere in her storytelling Marilyn mentioned Annie swinging in a swing knotted to a tree branch. Legends seem to take on a life of their own, meaning it’s often difficult to separate fact from fiction.
A card I received from Annie Mary on a past Halloween. Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo.
But one fact remains constant. Every year for about the past thirty, I’ve received a Halloween card from the little girl who was buried alive. It’s always signed ANNIE MARY in an awkward childish print of block letters.
Up until this year, Annie also wrote, “I MISS YOU!” That always sent shivers up my spine, even though I don’t believe in ghosts and knew my Aunt Marilyn had penned the message. This year she forgot the “I MISS YOU!” part.
But she made up for the omission by finding a card with a bare branched tree shadowed in the background inside a fence. And when I look closely, I swear I see the face of a little girl and a swing dangling from a branch.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Maybe he plows snow… October 30, 2014
Photographed on Minnesota State Highway 3 in Northfield.
AT THE TIME I shot this Ford truck with the “let it SNOW” window sticker, I found the message humorous. It was a hot and humid July afternoon in Northfield, Minnesota.
Now that winter isn’t all that far away and overnight temps are dipping into the 30s, I’m not laughing.
All too soon the snow will fall. Remember the Halloween blizzard of 1991?
Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Undergoing that most dreaded of screening tests October 29, 2014
Two of six photos of my colon given to me after the procedure.
SHE CALLED ME a Colon Virgin.
And, at eight years past fifty, I was and shouldn’t have been.
I had my first colonoscopy on Friday.
That title bestowed upon me by the nurse taking my health history prior to the colon cancer screening made me laugh. That was her intention along with praise for the young family doctor who made sure I didn’t leave the clinic after my annual physical in July without scheduling a colonoscopy. Smart doctor.
So there I was, 3 ½ months later, lying on my back in a hospital gown, thin sheet covering me, answering health questions and dreading the procedure that would begin within the hour.
I was assured that I would not be aware nor would I remember anything while under conscious sedation. I thought to myself, they don’t know me.
The two nurses continued prepping me– inserting an IV, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around my left arm, snapping a heart rate monitor on a right finger and then clipping tubes into my nose because “sometimes you forget to breathe.” Probably not the best thing to say to me.
I could feel my rapid heart rate, the tenseness that held my body. I didn’t want to be here. But, I reminded myself, I’d just endured a challenging cleansing process and I’d been through much worse than this medically. Why would I back out now?
So I tried to relax, told the two healthcare workers that I needed something to distract me. “That’s why we have music,” said the nurse with the sense of humor. For the first time, I heard the music as the two headed out the door to find the doctor.
I laid there for a really long time, or so it seemed, listening to the music, wishing it was the uplifting and prayerful Christian music I listen to daily on Twin Cities radio station KTIS. I willed my body and mind to relax and chuckled to myself when a singer crooned something about waking up when it’s done. Quite appropriate.
At the exact appointed time of 8:30, the surgeon entered the room. “I’m really cold,” I complained and was promptly layered in a heated blanket. Yes, I should have been more welcoming to this man who delivered my first daughter nearly 29 years ago by emergency Caesarean section. But at that moment on that morning, I was not particularly happy to see him again.
I told him I was nervous, made him promise that I wouldn’t remember anything. He reassured me. Last thing I remember was his request that I roll onto my left side and my wondering aloud where to comfortably place my blood pressure cuff wrapped left arm.
And that was it until I saw changing images of my colon on the computer screen.
Remember that part about not being aware or remembering? Despite my alertness, I was not anxious. The “happy juice” was still working its magic.
In the end, I made it through just fine. I survived the cleansing of my bowels, semi-fasting (liquid diet), lack of sleep and a resulting headache and lower back (kidney) pain and then the actual procedure.
The good doctor removed two non-cancerous polyps. And even though I remembered part of the colonoscopy, I wasn’t traumatized. In five years, I’ll be back because, you know, dealing with colon cancer would be a lot worse than having another colonoscopy.
#
COLONOSCOPIES HAVE BEEN IN THE NEWS this week as Cologuard, a new non-invasive procedure to screen for colon cancer, is now on the market. The screening involves submitting a stool sample, which is then analyzed using “advanced stool DNA technology to find DNA from abnormal cells and hemoglobin from red blood cells” according to information on the Cologuard website. The lining of the colon naturally sheds cells.
Early reviews on this screening method are mixed. That’s to be expected.
You can learn more about Cologuard by clicking here.
Whatever you decide, if you’re age 50 or older and/or have a family history of colon cancer, don’t just do nothing. Doing nothing could cost you your life. Take that from a former Colon Virgin.
Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Discovering Osceola October 28, 2014
An artist’s rendition of Chief Osceola, after whom Osceola, Wisconsin, is named, stands near the stairway leading to Cascade Falls.
I ALMOST DIDN’T DESCEND the stairs to Cascade Falls in Osceola, an historic community of some 2,600 located along the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway in Polk County, Wisconsin, just an hour from the Twin Cities.
Many are drawn to the natural beauty of Cascade Falls in downtown Osceola.
Peering over the edge at the labyrinth stairway to the falls, I hesitated. First, my fear of heights caused me to pause until I realized the stairs simply hugged the side of the Osceola Creek gorge. Then concern about ascending the 156 steps kicked in. In the end, down I went.
The falls through the trees.
Sunlight peeks into portions of the gorge, highlighting the mist spraying from the falls.
A shot of Osceola Creek, bordered by sunlit and shaded woods. The creek rushes into the St. Croix River.
Detailed autumn beauty on the path to the falls.
A little history of the falls.
And it was worth the laborious climb back up to listen to the rush of water over rock, to stand mesmerized by the falls, to imagine the history this place holds of mill and brewery. The falls were the reason this river town was founded in 1844.
Downtown Osceola from near the falls. Route 35 runs right through the heart of this community.
To find a waterfalls in the heart of a downtown, along a state highway (35) is a bit of a surprise. I expect if my husband and I had explored more of this downtown, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, we would have discovered more surprises.
A close-up of the Chief Osceola statue, a beautiful work of art.
Especially impressive are the huge pots overflowing with flowers.
This attractive signage hangs outside Osceola Antiques, which bills itself as the largest antique mall in northwestern Wisconsin with 11,000 square feet.
Osceola Antiques also includes a place to get coffee, espresso drinks, candy and ice cream.
However, after delighting in the waterfall, photographing a folk art version of Seminole Chief Osceola after whom the town is named, and perusing the cavernous Osceola Antiques, we headed to the next river town.
A local watering hole and eatery.
What now, I wonder, was our hurry on that Wednesday afternoon?
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
My impressions of Marine on St. Croix October 27, 2014
The volunteer fire department is housed in the heart of the one-block, give or take a little, downtown.
MARINE ON ST. CROIX. It sounds so poetic, those four linked words that name a village banking the St. Croix River.
And it is that in the sense of feeling like you could be perhaps in South Shaftsbury, Vermont—although I’ve never traveled there and have no idea if this Minnesota community is at all like Shaftsbury—where Robert Frost penned his most famous of poems, “Stopping By the Woods On A Snowy Evening.”
A quick snapshot shows the Village Hall to the right and the Marine General Store two doors down.
Marine on St. Croix presents history and nature mingled in a quaint New England type setting. Here the 1870 General Store and 1888 Village Hall still serve this community of 700, although I have no idea where all those residents live. Apparently not near the town’s business district. Perhaps across the roadway which, to the north, will take you to Taylors Falls and, to the south, to Stillwater.
Fabric flags outside Reclaiming Beautiful remind me of simpler times.
This place has a timeless, poetic feel. Woods and river. Aged wood frame buildings. A history that stretches back to 1839 when this settlement was termed Marine Mills and served as home to the first commercial sawmill along the St. Croix River. That makes Marine on St. Croix 175 years old this year, founded 19 years before Minnesota became a state.
I can almost smell the scent of white pine which once forested this region, see logs bobbing in the St. Croix, hear the screech of saw against wood, domesticating trunks into lumber.
That aged General Store, which I didn’t check out, but wish I had. Next time.
Pausing at the General Store, I imagine deep dark coffee beans and yards of cotton calico and sticks of penny candy.
A sign points to ice cream, but…
…the shop is closed for the season.
Marine on St. Croix clings to its past in a good sort of way that makes you want to stay longer, to linger and think poetic thoughts.
BONUS PHOTOS:
There’s a garage in town.
And a cafe with a bike, minus Toto, marking it.
Reclaiming Beautiful was closed on the day of my visit.
But the bar was open, although I did not check it out.
And the volunteer firemen were on duty.
© Copyright 2014 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
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