Minnesota Prairie Roots

"Meet me by the elephants."

Run for your lives, zebraa!

AN AFRICAN SAFARI has never been my dream vacation.

But, on Saturday, I went on a safari of sorts.

I accompanied my husband to Cabela’s, the World’s Foremost Outfitter®, a.k.a. that store packed with guy stuff.

Randy has $125 in gift cards to spend. And since he’s not a sportsman, he decides to hunt for a new winter coat. He soon fixates on a bright red and gray coat that I find unappealing. I suggest a neutral brown and tan coat that will remain in style for more than a year. Thankfully, he listens, perhaps because the coat features a buffalo plaid red lining.

So, now, if you think this is the end of my story, it is not.

I must add here, however, that spending $159 on a Columbia coat is not typically something either of us would do. That’s just too much money, even if the coat was originally priced at $230. We justify the expense only because Randy has $125 in gift cards and he will get a $15 discount if he signs up for a Cabela’s Visa card.

Getting a credit card we really don’t need weighs on us. But, in the end, the $15 discount sucks Randy into applying for another credit card.

While he does the paperwork and pays for his coat, I go on safari. “I’ll be by the elephants,” I say. “Meet me over there.”

It is a good plan considering Cabela’s is about as big as Africa.

So I head for the wild animals—elephants, zebras, monkeys, lions, rhinos—displayed in an African safari type setting. Since I have my camera slung over my shoulder and time to kill, I start shooting.

On the hunt.

No playful kitty cat.

And then I wait. And wait. And wait.

Randy fails to join me on my African adventure.

Tired of shooting, and waiting, I set out to find my missing husband.

I must appear a bit lost myself as soon a Cabela’s employee inquires if she can help me.

“Yeah, how do you find a lost husband?” I ask.

She laughs and suggests I call him on my cell phone.

“We don’t have cell phones,” I answer.

A look of disbelief momentarily crosses her face before she offers to page him.

“He would love that,” I smile.

So, together, we head toward the front of the store, not because I want him paged, but because he still may be there buying his coat. He’s in line alright—the customer service line.

The clerk, though, wants to play a little joke on my husband. So I hang back as she walks over and tells Randy, “Your wife is waiting for you by the elephants.”

He knows, he says, and tells her that I shouldn’t let the elephants spray me. He’s a funny guy.

Then I come out of cover, curious to hear why my husband is waiting in customer service with a bag clutched in his hand. He says the check-out clerk rang up his coat as a credit card, rather than gift card, purchase. And because she can’t correct the mistake, he’s standing here waiting for someone else to fix the error.

Great.

While he waits, I check out another animal display. Then I view the fish in huge wall aquariums. I return and Randy is still waiting.

I’m getting more than a bit impatient, especially when the couple behind him is now at the customer service window. Randy tells me later that they knew the Cabela’s worker and he bumped them ahead of others.

I glance at my watch. Twenty minutes have passed since I found my lost husband. I’m leaning on a boat now because there is no place to rest my weary, I’m-really-tired-of-Cabela’s feet.

Finally, the purchase problems are resolved and we head out the door.

We’re both a bit ticked about the 30-minute wait in the customer service line.

But, hey, he got that $15 off his coat purchase, plus a free promotional Cabela’s cap and a free Mini Multi-Tool with LED Light that includes a flat-nose pliers, small blade, small screwdriver, wood saw and bottle opener.

And, I went on a lengthy African safari.

By the time I leave Cabela's, I feel ornery as a rhino.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

IF THIS HADN’T happened to me, I likely wouldn’t believe it either.

But nearly two years ago, while vacationing at a Wisconsin Dells waterpark, I suffered traumatic injury to my inner ear.

And how, exactly, did this happen?

I floated under a waterfall in a winding lazy river.

The pounding water hit my right ear at just the correct angle because I suffered permanent hearing loss, tinnitus and pain in my ear. My ear specialist has recommended a hearing aid.

All of that I can handle. Eventually I’ll swallow my pride and ante up the big bucks for the hearing aid.

I’ve gotten used to the ringing. My husband tells me if I answer, then he would be concerned. Get it? Ringing.

And the pain, well, it’s mostly bothersome at night and not intolerable.

But then came Wednesday night. Being a 50-something woman, I need to use the bathroom at least once a night, if not more. So, when I awoke at midnight, I sat up expecting to get out of bed like usual.

This time, though, the room was spinning, as in I-drank-too-much dizziness.

However, the only alcohol I had consumed were a few sips from my husband’s beer.

Earlier in the evening, I viewed a lot of alcohol at the liquor store. But I’m pretty sure that simply looking at, instead of consuming, alcohol does not cause dizziness.

After managing to make my way to the bathroom by clinging to the walls, I climbed back into bed. Four hours later I was awake again. Same scenario.

Luckily, when I awoke in the morning, I was fine.

But I’m a bit worried because my doctor told me that damage to my inner ear can be a precursor to meniere’s disease. Up until now, I had all of the symptoms except the vertigo.

Hopefully he’s wrong.

After all, I don’t want to give those people who already think I’m dizzy the satisfaction of knowing that I am, literally, dizzy.

I suppose, just to assure that I keep my balance, I should listen to my doctor’s advice and avoid cats.

Not literally.

But C-A-T-S as in:

Caffeine. That should be easy, you would think, because I’m not a coffee drinker, don’t even own a coffee maker. However, I like my chocolate. So, no, I can’t avoid caffeine.

Alcohol. This shouldn’t be a problem, you would think, as my alcohol consumption is basically limited to a beer with my weekly Friday night pizza. But then, on occasion, my sisters corrupt me with a Bloody Mary or a glass or two of wine. So, unless I avoid my sisters…

Tension. I’m the mother of a teenager. Need I say more?

Salt. I seldom use a salt shaker, but I like my chips. Do not, I repeat, do not, attempt to take away my chips.

In summary, I suppose I’ll have to risk the occasional ride on the Tilt-a-Whirl.

Did you know that the Tilt-a-Whirl is made only blocks from my house?

OK. That’s another story…

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

HAS CURSIVE WRITING gone the way of the typewriter, landlines, the horse and buggy?

If my conversation with a Faribault High School English teacher Thursday evening is any indication, then the answer would be a resounding “yes.”

The topic came up during parent-teacher conferences, when I viewed a test my 16-year-old, her student, had taken.

“Is he the only one who doesn’t write in cursive?” I ask, dismayed that my son has printed his answers. “This looks like a third grader’s printing.”

The teacher rifles through her stack of papers. “No,” she tells me. “All of the students print.” She even showed me a paper with printing so minuscule I would have needed a magnifying glass to read the student’s writing. Seriously.

This inability to write in cursive bothers me. What happened to penmanship?

When I was in grade school, we actually had penmanship as a subject and spent many hours perfecting our cursive letters. I remember writing rows and rows of sweeping double-humped “n’s,” triple-humped “m’s” and capital “O’s.”

The teacher isn’t surprised, nor seemingly bothered, by this lack of cursive usage. When she was in college (which wasn’t all that long ago), student papers were typed, not handwritten, she says. I get that.

But still.

“Can he write his name?” the teacher asks.

“Yes, that he can do,” I answer.

Then I wonder: What kind of generation are we raising when many young people can’t write, and probably can’t read, cursive?

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Some business owners in Faribault objected to this vibrant green paint on the Los 3 Reyes Bakery.

THE CONTROVERSY OVER COLOR continues in Faribault.

Which colors are appropriate for the downtown historic district? What colors are inappropriate?

The city’s Heritage Preservation Commission has been wrestling with that decision and Tuesday night, according to an article in The Faribault Daily News, presented their recommendations to the City Council.

That HPC proposes to:

• Require a “certificate of appropriateness” for exterior painting, staining or sealing, and for removal of existing exterior paint.
• Change historic district regulations to include additional guidance on painting buildings.

In other words, the plan calls for the city to approve a list of paint colors deemed suitable for the historic district.

The City Council is pondering the recommendations.

I, for one, am greatly troubled by proposed government regulations that would limit personal freedom. What makes one color OK, another unacceptable? Personal opinion? Color trends? History? Culture?

Differences in culture (although not publicly stated) started this whole color controversy in Faribault last summer. When Mariano Perez painted his Los 3 Reyes Bakery a vibrant green, like the bright hue common in his native Mexico, some neighboring business owners objected. The vivid green didn’t fit the downtown historic district, they claimed.

They asked Perez to repaint the building and, when he couldn’t afford to do so, collected money for a new paint job. The building was then repainted a subtler gray-green.

The Los 3 Reyes Bakery after it was repainted a subtler, almost gray, green, agreeable to objecting neighbors.

Although Perez quietly accepted the new paint color, I sensed during several interviews with him, that he felt bullied. “More people like it (the original paint color). I think two people don’t like it. I don’t know why they don’t like it,” he told me in September. Read my Sept. 30, Oct. 6 and Nov. 9 blog posts on the subject.

For a community with a diverse minority population that includes Hispanics like Perez, Somalis and Sudanese, we are sometimes less than accepting of cultures that don’t fit our Scandinavian/German/French/Irish, etc. roots. This time, that came in the lack of understanding regarding the color of a building.

When this historic city was founded in 1852, did the early townspeople argue about the styles and colors of buildings?

It might behoove Faribault’s Heritage Preservation Commission and City Council to seek input from minority business owners like Mariano Perez, who today represent the changing colors of downtown Faribault.

In the 200 block of Central Avenue, Banadir Restaurant presents a colorful storefront to those patronizing the Somali business in downtown Faribault.

I've never known what business occupies 117 Central Avenue, but the color choice certainly makes it stand out from other buildings. Should this get a new facelift too because it doesn't fit "historic?"

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

The Minnesota Capitol in St. Paul.

A Princess Kay of the Milky Way butter carving in the Minnesota History Center's MN150 exhibit.

IF YOU ATTENDED a Minnesota school in sixth grade, you likely toured the state Capitol after a year of studying Minnesota history.

But, do you remember what you saw, heard and learned while on that tour?

If not, look for the just-published March/April issue of Minnesota Moments magazine and my travel feature on St. Paul. The publication is available on newsstands, by subscription and online at www.minnesotamoments.com.

I’ll take you inside our state’s center of government and inside two other St. Paul landmarks—The Minnesota History Center and The Cathedral of Saint Paul—via a 20-page feature that includes 27 photos.

I’m proud of my work, especially because shooting photos in dark places with high ceilings can present technical challenges. I relied mostly on natural light, which requires a steady hand at slow shutter speeds.

But I think, I hope, I captured the magnificence and essence of the places I visited.

The magazine also includes my regular reviews of three Minnesota-authored books and a short story on an old parish hall with Irish roots in the tiny Rice County town of Shieldsville.

You’ll find lots of other interesting stories in this issue of Minnesota Moments such as features on Tom Rudy, who runs the Pearl Lake Lodge up around Lake Wobegon way, and Tom Dietman of Pierz, who makes Uncle Pete’s Mustard. My husband grew up near Pierz and attended high school there, so this story especially interested me. Check it out, and if you happen to find Dietman’s sweet and spicy mustard anywhere near Faribault, let me know. I’d like a jar.

Finally, take time to admire the final page of Minnesota Moments’ spring issue, which features a stunning photo by Kaylyn Wirz, a talented young photographer from Faribault. I’ve known Wirz since she came to America from India more than a dozen years ago. You’ll find more of her images on the magazine Web site.

That said, I need to get back to writing. I’m already working on stories for the May/June issue of Minnesota Moments. And, I promise, you’ll find plenty of interesting stories and photos in that edition too.

The Cathedral of Saint Paul inspires.

The Virgin Mary, one of my favorite Cathedral of Saint Paul art pieces, found in a lower level museum.

I was awed by the Italian marble columns embracing the grand French marble stairway inside the Capitol.

My favorite photo from the Minnesota Capitol was taken in the Governor's Reception Room and shows the painting, "Father Louis Hennepin Discovering the Falls of St. Anthony." I love how the light streams through the window, slanting onto the floor.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

I SAY, IF YOU want a cookie for breakfast, then, go ahead, have at it.

But if this unorthodox, early morning sugary consumption makes you feel guilty, then at least pick a healthy cookie.

STEP ONE: Choose a cookie like oatmeal cranberry as a healthy option to your typical breakfast cereal.

That’s how I justify my numerous, before 8 a.m. forays into the cookie jar last week.

The cookies I ate include oatmeal and dried cranberries. Fiber and fruit. Healthy breakfast components, right? I thought so.

But just to assure my Lutheran guilt doesn’t get the best of me, I crumble the cookie into a bowl of vanilla yogurt.

STEP TWO: Crumble the cookie into yogurt.

Looks healthy. Seems healthy with the rolled oats, cranberries and dairy product. Yup, that’s good enough for me.

Never mind the white chocolate chips. A girl needs a little chocolate to start her day, doesn’t she?

STEP THREE: Stir the cookie into vanilla yogurt and enjoy a healthy, guilt-free nutritious breakfast.

Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Cookies

2/3 cup margarine, softened

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 ½ cups quick or old-fashioned oats

1 ½ cups flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

6 ounces sweetened dried cranberries

2/3 cup white chocolate chips

Beat margarine and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, mixing well. Combine oats, flour, baking soda and salt in a separate mixing bowl. Add to margarine/sugar mix in several additions, mixing well each time. Stir in the dried cranberries and chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 10 – 12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on wire rack. Makes about 2 ½ dozen cookies.

Text and photos © Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

THE WORLD SEEMS SMALLER every day, especially during catastrophic natural disasters like the recent Haitian and Chilean earthquakes. Communications take us instantly into the destruction, touching our hearts, moving us to tears and action.

This time the 8.8 magnitude earthquake in Chile brings thoughts of my daughter Miranda, who a year ago arrived home from Argentina, Chile’s neighbor to the east.

Sunday afternoon I phone Miranda, who is finishing her Spanish degree at a Wisconsin college with hopes of returning to Argentina in a few months. I catch up on her studies and then our talk turns to the earthquake.

Residents near Tucumán in northern Argentina, where she spent about six weeks doing mission work, felt the tremors, she tells me. But Buenos Aires, where she lived for most of her six months abroad, was too distant to feel the earth moving, she reassures me.

Still, no matter the distance from Chile, we are all affected in some way.

Later, when I go online and view The Christian Science Monitor photos of the destruction in Chile—specifically images of fallen bridges, buckling roadways and mangled cars—I flash back to the August 1, 2007, collapse of the 35W bridge in Minneapolis.

This instantaneous reaction surprises me.

The similarity between those roadway earthquake photos and my memory of the Minnesota bridge collapse images strikes me like a blow to the chest.

I wonder, do other Minnesotans feel that same sense of familiarity when they view the earthquake photos of fallen bridges, heaved pavement and crushed cars? Do they relive again the terror of that summer day in Minnesota upon seeing a photo of an injured Chilean lying in the bed of a pick-up truck?

While comparing the two disasters may seem like comparing apples to oranges, I cannot help my initial reaction. My thoughts turn then to Garrett Ebling, a former Faribault newspaper editor who was among those most seriously injured in the 35W bridge collapse. I interviewed Garrett shortly after the collapse for a feature story published in the November/December 2007 issue of Minnesota Moments magazine.

I wonder how he’s doing.

But mostly, today, I wonder how the people of Chile are doing? Will they, like Garrett, overcome the tragedy that has forever changed their lives? Will they, like Garrett, strive for the positive?

Garrett told me in our 2007 interview: “Sir Edmund Hilary—the first person to climb Mount Everest—once said ‘It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.’ When this is all said and done, I will be standing—STANDING—at the top of the mountain.

But I will not have conquered the bridge. Rather, I will have bested the uncomfortability, the uncertainty, the pain. I will have realized from which the depths I can rise up.

It’s the top of the mountain that puts us closest to heaven.”

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

By my house, earlier this month.

IT’S ABOUT TIME, I think, as I watch city crews remove snow at the intersection by my house Friday morning.

For months, high banks of snow have blocked drivers’ views of oncoming traffic. It’s been like a cat-and-mouse game with motorists creeping out, cautiously easing vehicles into the edge of the traffic lane, hoping to avoid an accident.

All over Faribault, except in the downtown area, visibility at intersections has been bad.

All winter.

And, perhaps because I live along one of the city’s busiest streets, the problem has been more noticeable to me, more worrisome.

So I welcome the beep-beep-beep of the loader backing up. I welcome the shudder of the house as the mammoth machine scrapes the pavement and lifts boulder-size snow chunks. I welcome the thunk of snow plummeting into the dump truck.

Yes, I’m happy that city streets will now be safer.

But later, I discover that my thankfulness was a bit premature. As my husband and I head out for the evening on Friday, attempting to pull from our side street onto the main road past our house, we note that the snow to the left is now higher, visibility more diminished.

We’re having an even tougher time seeing oncoming vehicles in the lane closest to us than before today’s snow removal.

How could this happen?

“They just moved the snow from the corner and piled it higher there,” my husband says.

He’s right.

“There” is directly in the sight-line to spot oncoming traffic.

For all the time city workers pushed and moved snow, I did not expect this. But I suppose, when you’re sitting high in a loader or a dump truck, your line of vision is skewed. A snowbank that appears low is really high, at least for the average motorist.

Now, I suppose, we’ll simply need to wait for sunshine and warm temps to reduce the hazardous snow piles. Unless, of course, city crews would like to return to my neighborhood and play in the snow again.

GOING...

GOING...

GONE! WELL, AT LEAST SOME OF IT.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Some of the letters college recruiters have sent to my 16-year-old son.

LAST WEEK THE LETTERS begin arriving. Not just one or two, but as many as eight a day. Initially, we laugh, say this is crazy, even insane, and toss the literature into the recycling bin. But, by the third day, I am curious.

How many letters will accumulate in, say, a week?

A lot.

The stash of letters from colleges and universities now addressed to my sophomore son totals 26, excluding the dozen or so that we trashed.

New York University, Cornell College, Hamline University, DePauw University, the University of Minnesota and of Miami, even Duke and Drake, are apparently anxious to welcome my son.

(He has yet to receive letters from Gustavus Adolphus, St. Olaf and Carleton, all prestigious institutions of higher learning in our backyard. )

I expect by now the mail carrier is cursing my sophomore and wishing he would graduate in 2010 instead of two years from now.

What exactly, you’re likely wondering, set off this deluge of academic mailings? The answer: the ACT practice test and the quick check of a box by my test-taking son.

I’ll try not to sound boastful, but this boy of mine is smart, really, really smart. Suffice to say that based on his preliminary ACT test results, he falls into the rank of those students admitted to “highly selective” colleges and universities.

So, I am curious what he thinks of all that correspondence, of the letters that proclaim:

• “We’re interested in you!”
• “I think you’d be a great fit…”
• “You’ll be prepared for life after college.”
• “Your ACT PLAN results show you have the ability to be successful in the …selective academic environment.”
• “…we make…affordable through need-based financial aid.”

Here’s what he tells me impresses him about a college or university mailing: “If they change the letter format and it’s (the envelope) easy to open.” He’s half-serious.

He selects the visually and graphically-appealing colorful tri-fold mailing from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, as his favorite. Did I tell you my son is into computers and Web page design? His choice comes as no surprise.  Knox boldly shouts: “Make a Difference. Make a Statement.”

Then he adds, “If one of them sent a free letter opener, I would be very impressed.”

He also seems impressed by this statement in a letter from Pennsylvania’s Lafayette College:  “As a Marquis Scholar, you will receive $80,000 in merit awards over four years of study.” It’s clearly no accident the college has bold-faced those words.

He likes, too, the offer of a free t-shirt if he shows interest in the College of Saint Benedict or Saint John’s University.

But it will take more than a free letter opener, t-shirt or promise to impress me, the mom. I’ll need a full-ride college scholarship for my boy. Yeah, that ought to do it.

Show me the money!

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

RATS POOPING in a rural Fergus Falls mailbox, an unidentified animal pooping on a rug in a Vesta garage…

What’s with these Minnesota animals? Have they, like most Minnesotans, been pushed to near insanity by this eternally long winter? That would be my explanation.

But you decide as you consider these two stories:

The first comes from rural Fergus Falls where, on Monday afternoon, a woman discovers two domesticated rats inside her mailbox. They have chewed on, pooped on and peed on her mail.

And, no, she claims, she did not order the rats.

The second story comes from my hometown of Vesta, where an unidentified animal deposits a pile of poop on a door mat inside a garage. This would be my mom’s garage.

As Mom tells the story, she discovers the poop pile of unknown origin, cleans up the mess and later finds another pile of s**t on the same exact spot. This leaves her mystified and a bit frightened of the possibly dangerous creature lurking in the dark corners of her single car garage.

Fearing others may think her crazy, my mom leaves the second poop pile untouched. She wants/needs/desires confirmation of its existence, and my ex-sister-in-law, who stops by to pick up a cake pan, walks right into the mess. Well, not literally.

As the two ponder whether an opossum might be holed up inside, their anxiety level rises. But they manage to clean up the scat and lay down newspaper. Or maybe my mom places newspaper down after the first accident. I don’t recall the exact sequence of the garage-tidying.

Whatever, the pair decides to leave any animal hunt until daybreak since they really don’t want to face a petulant possum in the darkness of night.

The next day, my mom calls in the reinforcements, meaning she phones her brother-in-law and sister-in-law, who live a block away. Milan arrives armed with a baseball bat. Jeanette just walks right into the garage and starts poking around. I’m not certain where my mom is stationed at this point. But I will assume away from dark corners.

In short order, brave, brave Jeanette scares an animal out of a corner. A small cat streaks across the garage and through the open overhead garage door, quick as a flash of lightning. Both Jeanette and my mom note that the cat has a short tail and is, clearly, not an opossum.

Now, I’m wondering, has anyone seen a small short-tailed cat zipping northwest towards Fergus Falls?

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling