Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A mother’s thoughts on prepping for a third child’s grad party May 16, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:37 AM
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BY THIS TIME six years ago, and two years prior to that, I would have had everything planned. Right down to the last food and decorating detail.

But now, the third time around, I am less stressed about the high school graduation reception which my husband and I will host for our youngest in a few weeks.

I suppose you might say the third time’s a charm. Or you might say that by child number three, I’m more relaxed. That would be true. It’s not worth worrying about weather or if I’ll have enough food or all those other details that can stress a graduate’s mom. Everything will fall into place or what will be will be.

That said, recently I finally forced the graduating son to help me design and print invitations. We’re keeping it simple—black and white photo paired with a slip of paper upon which the party information has been printed.

The soon-to-be graduate also assisted me in setting up a system to print computer generated addresses upon labels. I know those labels fail to meet Miss Manners guidelines. But I am lazy with this third graduate and prefer easy and convenient over hours of hand-addressing envelopes.

I was spoiled with the previous two graduates, both daughters. They pitched in, designed their own photo display boards and were otherwise helpful in the party planning. My boy has no interest in any of this.

A photo display board of my boy through the years. The images kept falling off, until I attached them with photo corners.

So I was left to peruse photo albums, to choose photos of my son and then organize them onto a tri-fold display board.

I’ve e-mailed extended family and asked for kitchen help and pans of bars for the party. They’ve obliged. We help each other like that.

Nine hams, bought on sale before Easter, are stashed in the freezer as are three batches of cookies.

I did a trial test of the cheesy potatoes I planned to serve and have subsequently replaced that menu item with easier-to-prepare and less-costly baked beans.

My florist sister has potted flowers that will serve as centerpieces upon tables draped with vintage tablecloths. It is better if I don’t think about the pre-party ironing.

My husband replaces crumbled stones on a backyard limestone pathway.

The husband has redone a portion of the partially crumbling backyard limestone pathway. We can’t have guests tripping on rock. He just began cleaning the garage, which will center the reception along with several tents. We have a working man’s garage packed with two work benches, a tool box and equipment everywhere. Nothing pristine and bare or neat and orderly about our exposed-studs garage.

We’re not planning to paint rooms, shampoo carpet or otherwise upgrade our house. Except to use the bathroom, guests are supposed to stay outside.

But when they do venture indoors to use the facilities, I hope they won’t notice the section of cardboard-covered wall in the dining room where a brick chimney was removed 2 ½ years ago. Maybe they will appreciate that the bathroom faucet does not leak; the husband recently replaced it.

I hope the kitchen crew doesn’t twist off the leaky and worn kitchen faucet or wonder too much why I haven’t yet replaced the vintage brown kitchen sink or yellowing cupboards or the Formica countertops or the aged vinyl flooring. Perhaps several strategically-placed bottles of wine will keep them from focusing on the flaws…

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Thirty years together May 15, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:09 AM
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Audrey and Randy, May 15, 1982. We were so young then, only 25 1/2.

THUMBING THROUGH THE PAGES of our wedding album, I can barely believe that 30 years have passed since my husband and I exchanged vows on May 15, 1982.

Where did the past three decades go?

And who are those kids in over-sized glasses with more hair (him) and shorter hair (me) and both pounds lighter?

Could that possibly be us, newlyweds on the cusp of married life, grinning with the exuberance of young love?

That is, indeed, us.

Together then.

Together now.

Friends asked me Saturday night for tips to a lasting marriage. The question caught me by surprise and I simply told them they didn’t need my advice because they are doing well on their own.

Later, though, I considered how we’ve kept our marriage going strong for 30 years. For Randy and me, the fact that we were just friends before we even began dating set the tone for our relationship.

Friendship and trust. Shared values and a shared faith in God. All have been integral in our marriage.

Many times I think, too, that the similarities in our childhoods—both from farm families with little money—have curbed disagreements over finances. We live a simple, basic life and are content with what we have.

Yet, the differences between us have also benefited our marriage. Randy possesses a quirky sense of humor. He makes me laugh, lightens the moment, causes me to smile when I’d rather not. Without him, life would simply be less fun.

I am the serious one. I can organize and focus and keep everyone on task.

But I can’t handle medical situations. Our three kids have always known that they should go to Dad, not Mom, with any health issues. Need a sliver pulled? Take the tweezers to Dad. Wonder if that cut needs stitches? Consult Dad.

And when I faced health issues—a severe, three-month case of whooping cough in 2005, surgery four years ago to replace my arthritic right hip and most recently the sudden loss of hearing in my right ear—my husband was right there. I could not have managed without him. He took seriously those vows, “in sickness and in health.”

He’s also good with numbers and excels as an automotive machinist. (Get in line if you want him to work on your car or truck or van or tractor or…) This man of mine is a hard worker and has always kept his family sheltered, clothed and fed. For that I am grateful.

I’m also grateful for his strong support of my writing and photography.

For 30 years we’ve had this balance, this give and take, this relying on each other (and God) and tapping into our strengths to make our marriage work.

And, yes, most assuredly that love quotient remains, as strong, if not stronger, than 30 years ago.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Thank you, Mr. Postmaster, for finally hearing the voice of rural America May 14, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:33 PM
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FINALLY, AN IDEA that makes sense for continuing postal service in parts of rural America.

The United States Postal Service revealed a plan last week that could keep thousands of small-town post offices open by reducing hours. That’s certainly better than the alternative for places like Hope, Minnesota, an unincorporated community just off Interstate 35 south of Owatonna in Steele County. Last summer Hope’s 120 residents learned that their post office, like thousands of others across the country, likely would close in a cost-cutting measure.

Under a proposal, the Hope Post Office will remain open with daily window hours cut from eight to two.

Residents of Hope didn’t simply give up and accept their fate.  Instead, they circulated petitions and attended meetings and voiced their opinions and filed an appeal. To no avail. The postal service announced in April that the Hope Post Office would close. But now it appears the Postal Service has had a change of heart about closing thousands of small-town post offices nation-wide.

Postmaster General and CEO Patrick R. Donahoe said in part last week: “…we’ve listened to our customers in rural America and we’ve heard them loud and clear—they want to keep their post office open. We believe today’s announcement will serve our customers’ needs and allow us to achieve real savings to help the Postal Service return to long-term financial stability.”

So what does all that official talk mean? Some 13,000 post offices are now on “a preliminary list (for modified hours) that requires additional review, analysis, and verification and is subject to change.” Of those, 407 are located in Minnesota.

Well, the Postal Service is certainly covering all of its bases with that language, leaving room to tweak proposals and change plans/minds. I suppose one can never be too careful and cautious when one is a government entity. Meetings will be held in the affected communities to review options, which could take more than two years to implement.

Additional alternatives, according to the Postal Service, include mail delivery to affected customers via rural carrier or highway contract route; contracting with a local business for a village post office; and offering service from a nearby post office.

In a news release issued May 9, Postal Service Chief Operating Officer Megan Brennan says: “The post offices in rural America will remain open unless a community has a strong preference for one of the other options. We will not close any of these rural post offices without having provided a viable solution.”

Good.

The post office in Randolph is facing reduced hours, dropping from eight daily to four.

This certainly comes as welcome news to the folks in Hope and in many other Minnesota communities. In my region, post offices in Morristown, Warsaw, Kilkenny, Webster, Nerstrand, Dennison, Hampton, Castle Rock and Randolph are facing possible reduced hours.

My hometown of Vesta 120 miles to the west, along with nearby Wabasso, Wanda and Wood Lake, also made the modified hours list.

In every corner of Minnesota and hundreds of places in between, you’ll find those 407 small-town post offices where window service is likely to be trimmed. The Minnesota list fills slightly more than eight pages on a 260-page document that includes some 13,000 post offices across the U.S. To read that list, click here.

The Mantorville post office, where this photo was taken, is on the preliminary list of southeastern Minnesota post offices slated to have daily hours cut from eight to six.

It’s never a good thing, to reduce service in a small town. But closing the post offices would be worse.

I sometimes wonder if the decision-makers have ever set foot in these small towns, if they grasp the importance of a post office as an integral fiber in the fabric of community. Post offices are more than a place to pick up mail, to purchase stamps, to send a package. In these small towns, they are also community gathering places, a locale to exchange news, a spot to reach out to neighbors and a symbol of community identity.

I’ve witnessed, first-hand, how losing a school, a church, a business, can impact a rural community. In Vesta, for example, the town’s 330 residents can’t even buy a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk; they must travel some 20 miles for those staples. I remember when my hometown’s Main Street was lined with businesses, including a grocery store, two hardware stores and more.

Yes, times have changed. We are a more mobile society. We communicate via cell phones and e-mail and Facebook and other social media. But not everyone. In these small towns—the ones where the Postal Service initially considered shuttering post offices—many elderly residents don’t own computers, relying instead on old-fashioned mail delivery to pay bills and send letters and hear from loved ones. The post office is vital to their system of communication.

That the U.S. Postal Service finally heard the loud and clear voice of rural America, and perhaps understood that voice, pleases me as it should thousands of other Americans.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The uncooperative Sphinx moth

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:06 AM
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The wings of the white-lined Sphinx moth beat non-stop in a blur of motion as it feeds on the nectar of Superbells.

IF I DIDN’T KNOW BETTER, I would have thought it a hummingbird, this rapid wing-beating insect that swooped into my yard Sunday afternoon, drinking the sweet nectar of the pink-striped Calibrachoa.

Often confused with a hummingbird, this white-lined Sphinx moth whips its wings at up to 85 beats per second.

No wonder I found photographing this fascinating creature an incredible challenge. Perched on a step ladder at near eye level with a hanging flower basket I’d gotten for Mother’s Day just hours earlier, I tried to focus my lens on the energetic moth. I mean, honestly, could the moth simply just hover in one spot for maybe a minute?

It didn’t help either that the wind swayed the basket and that I’m a teeny bit afraid of anything with flapping wings. When the moth circled my head and seemed to take an interest in the floral-patterned shirt I was wearing, I grew a little nervous.

And then the husband, unbeknown to me, grabbed at my pant leg. I screamed. He laughed. The moth zoomed away.

Later, I would read online that the Sphinx moth, since it has no ears, could not possibly have been frightened by my screech. Rather the quick jerk of my camera and my rapid descent from the ladder likely temporarily caused the moth to exit from the patio premises.

Apparently, though, the lure of that sweet nectar was too much as the moth returned. I climbed onto the ladder again and then tried some under the basket shots until the moth, seemingly intoxicated by all that drinking, zig zagged towards the woods.

Aiming up from under the flower basket, I captured the Sphinx moth zoning in on a blossom.

Another down under, looking up shot showing the moth’s proboscis dipping into the flower for a sip of nectar.

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN, or tried to photograph, a Sphinx moth?

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

My mother’s hands May 13, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:29 AM
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My mother, Arlene, and me.

IT IS THE EARLIEST SNAPSHOT of me and my mom, dated January 1957.

Photos with her are rare; the next comes four years later. Yet, it matters not that my childhood photos fill only a few pages in an album. They are enough to see my mother’s love.

I see it in her hands, always the hands—clasping a baby or holding a toddler or encircling a child.

Hers are the hands that wrapped six babies in blankets, including me, her eldest daughter.

Hers are the hands that guided soiled cloth diapers and my dad’s grimy barn clothes into a Maytag wringer washer.

Hers are the hands that dumped buckets of water into the old tin bath tub on Saturday nights.

Hers are the hands that held books and rocked babies and swiped mecuricome onto skinned knees.

Hers are the hands that seeded seasons of gardens and hoed weeds and preserved the bounty of the earth.

Hers are the hands that peeled potatoes and stirred gravy and fried hamburger into blackened hockey pucks.

Hers are the hands that pressed coins into tiny hands for Sunday School offerings.

Hers are the hands that folded in prayer–for children and husband and her own healing.

Hers are the hands that reached out in love, always, to soothe, to calm, to protect. For nearly 57 years she has been a mother. It has been her life, her calling, and I have been blessed to be her daughter.

These are the hands of my mother, the mother I love always and forever.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The mysterious delivery of a dozen roses May 11, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:43 AM
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The UPS delivery man dropped a dozen multi-colored roses and a box of chocolates off at my house late Thursday morning. I asked him: “Are those really flowers in that box?” He gave me a look like, “Lady, what do you think is in that box?” Well, sir, I’ve never received flowers in a box.

FOR SEVERAL HOURS, the mystery remained a mystery.

But I was determined to solve it—to learn the identity of the individual who sent me a dozen boxed roses and a sampler of chocolates, without a note.

I could have simply called the San Diego-based world-wide floral company listed on the return address label. But why opt for the easiest solution? I would play sleuth.

First I phoned a Minnesota floral shop and then sent two text messages before crossing my husband, floral designer sister and my oldest daughter’s boyfriend (because he is one of the few Californians I know) off the list.

Next I texted my other daughter who lives in eastern Wisconsin. She was working and couldn’t respond. I didn’t suspect her anyway given she is a recent college grad paying off student loans.

Finally, I had run out of ideas and phoned the San Diego floral company.

“We must have forgotten to put the note in the envelope,” the kindly woman on the other end of the line said.

Uh, huh.

After giving her the order number, the nice lady told me she couldn’t identify the sender, but she could share the missing message. I listened as she read an endearing Mother’s Day message from…the daughter in Wisconsin.

Thank you, Miranda, for the lovely, surprise gift. It’s the first time I’ve received a dozen roses. Ever.

They’re beautiful, just like you, my dear, sweet, precious daughter.

The chocolate sampler sent by my daughter Miranda.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

May flowers May 10, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:30 AM
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An allium bud.

THE FIRST FLOWERS of spring always draw me close with my camera to bend and crouch and ponder how I might photograph buds and/or petals in a way that seems anything but ordinary.

I study buds clasped so tight I wonder how they will ever release. I marvel in delicate petals and the green of leaves and stems and in coiled fiddleheads.

Bleeding hearts

Every spring flower, from the first jolts of lemon-hued daffodils to the vibrant red and yellow tulips and now the pink of dainty bleeding hearts and the lavender of long-stemmed waving allium, pulls me close. Yes, even the dandelions.

A dandelion gone to seed.

As we transition into May in Minnesota, I consider the annuals I will pot, the seeds I will sow in flower beds and the perennials yet to bloom in the heat and humidity of long summer days.

This truly is the time of year when all seems brighter and greener and, oh, so full of promise.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Morel Madness in Minnesota May 9, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:34 AM
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This morel measures about eight inches high.

MY SISTER, LANAE, and her husband, Dale, were giddy as two kids in a candy store when Dale walked in with the net bag plumped with a dozen morels.

Lanae grabbed her camera. I grabbed mine. And we photographed the largest morels I’ve ever seen. Not that I’ve seen many of these tasty mushrooms…but the tallest, an eight-inch high chunky morel, certainly impressed me.

It’s been a bumper crop year for morels in Minnesota, according to my brother-in-law, who has been hunting for this savory spring treat since he was a kid growing up in southwestern Iowa. He remembers piling into the family car afer church on hot, humid mornings and heading to the wooded hills west of Defiance to search for morels.

Dale lives in southeastern Minnesota now and, through the years, has uncovered morel hotbeds. He revealed the location of his latest find—within a half hour of his Waseca home—and then instructed me, with a grin spreading across this face, that he’d have to kill me if I shared the specific location.

My lips are zipped.

However, Dale offered this publishable tip to finding morels: on the south side of wooded hillsides where there are dead elms or where elms once grew.

I didn’t realize just how serious my brother-in-law is about this morel business until he sat down at his laptop and clicked onto morels.com, an online community bulletin board/information center for “Morel Madness 2012.” Here you can see photos of the latest morel finds and, surprisingly, even find out where to find morels. Or you can inquire about buying and selling.

Dale tells me morels were selling recently for $20 – $35 a pound on Craig’s list and eBay.

While earlier this spring my sister and her husband bought morels, they have plenty of their own now. A week ago Saturday Dale harvested some 65 morels from one location. Morels are sprouting two weeks earlier and are more abundant than normal this year, probably due to the unseasonably warm April, he speculates. The season has nearly ended now.

But this morel-loving couple will still be eating mushrooms into the summer and beyond as Dale dehydrates them. For now, this pair savors fresh morels, sauteed in butter. Lanae even saves the butter and reuses it to fry eggs, to make grilled cheese sandwiches and to put on asparagus. The butter has a “nice nutty flavor,” she says.

All of this morel show-and-tell got me interested in morels, which I found once perhaps two decades ago in the woods behind my house. I’ll admit, though, to a bit of nervousness over identifying morels.

Dale showed me a photo of a poisonous false morel and then offered this advice: “If it ain’t hollow, don’t swallow.”

Translate that to mean that edible morels are hollow inside. If you click here to Mushroom-Appreciation.com, you’ll find even more useful identification tips. I wouldn’t want you heading into the woods uninformed.

Perhaps next year my brother-in-law will allow me to join him on a morel hunt, if I promise not to photograph anything specific to give away his secret location.

Dale’s latest stash of morels, harvested on Saturday morning near his Waseca home.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A mother’s perspective on the Amy Senser hit-and-run case May 8, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:09 AM
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YOU NEVER FORGET. That day. That defining moment when your world stops and panic sears your soul.

My moment occurred six years ago, the morning my then 12-year-old son was struck by a car while crossing the street to his school bus stop within a block of our Faribault home.

May 12, 2006. The day I became all too familiar with the term “hit-and-run driver.”

At approximately 7:40 a.m. a blue 4-door car, possibly a Chevrolet Cavalier or Corsica, struck my boy whose body slammed into the side and/or front of the vehicle, somersaulted through the air and landed alongside the street.

The driver never stopped. Nor has the driver ever been found.

Fortunately my son suffered only minor injuries, although we do not know what the long-term impact will be on his physical health as he ages.

And what about that driver? Why did he/she fail to stop? It is the question which occasionally still haunts me, which early on angered me. It is the question which led me to ask a local philanthropist and the head of the local bus company to contribute money toward a $1,000 reward (which BTW has expired as has the statue of limitations on the hit-and-run).

Why did the driver of the car fail to stop after hitting my child?

I don’t ask myself that question all that often anymore, except around the anniversary date or when I hear of a hit-and-run. Like the case of Amy Senser, wife of former Minnesota Viking Joe Senser, convicted last week in the August 2011 hit-and-run death of Anousone Phanthavong. She was found guilty of leaving the scene of the accident and failure to promptly report an accident, both felonies, and of misdemeanor careless driving.

Ten days after the accident, Amy Senser finally admitted that she was the driver of the vehicle. Senser maintained during her trial, however, that she thought she hit a construction barrel or a pothole around 11 p.m. on that fateful night. Instead, she struck Phanthavong who had pulled to the side of an interstate exit ramp when his car ran out of gas. He was filling the car’s gas tank when he was hit and killed. By a hit-and-run driver. Amy Senser. Who thought she hit a construction barrel or pothole?

Early on in the investigation into my son’s 2006 hit-and-run, local police investigators maintained that the driver of the car fled because he/she had something to hide: driving drunk, driving without a license, driving without insurance, prior conviction…

Six years ago I couldn’t fathom those as “good enough” reasons to drive away from a child you’d just slammed into with your car. I still can’t justify those excuses. As the years have passed and I’ve heard of more and more hit-and-runs, I’ve come to believe the police theory that the driver in my son’s case had something significant to hide.

Yet, I will never, never understand how anyone, in good conscience, can strike someone with their vehicle and then simply drive away. Drive. Away.

#

SEVERAL YEARS AFTER my son’s hit-and-run, I wrote a poem about the incident and eventually entered it into The Jackpine Writers’ Bloc annual writing competition. “Hit-and-Run” subsequently earned an honorable mention in poetry and published in 2010 in The Talking Stick, Volume 19, Forgotten Roads. That book title seems so appropriate.

My poem focuses on my emotional reaction, making this poem especially powerful.

#

Hit-and-Run

In that moment, I know,
as the rivulets of water course down my body,
as I step from the tub
dripping puddles onto the linoleum,
that the sirens wail
for you,
my boy, my only son.

You, who tossed your backpack
over your bony shoulders,
then hurried
toward the street,
toward the bus stop.

While I showered,
you crossed carelessly,
your fragile body bouncing
off the car
you had not seen,
flailing in a somersault,
landing hard on the pavement.
Sirens scream, and I know.

Panic grips,
holds tight my heart,
my very soul,
as I race from the bathroom,
wrapped in a bath towel,
stand immobile,
watching the pulsating red lights
of the police car
angled on the street,
blocking the path to you.

#

ANYONE WITH INFORMATION on the May 12, 2006, hit-and-run case involving my son should contact the Faribault Police Department or Crime Stoppers of Minnesota at 1-800-222-8477. A local investigator told me a year ago that the case remains open and that police will follow up on any tips and leads.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Discovering gnomes, a vintage cookbook & more at a used book sale May 5, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:19 AM
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AS I DREW OPEN the interior glass door into the Faribo West Mall, the offending odor of a hundred musty, damp basements stung my nostrils, mixing with the distinct aroma of Chinese food.

The moldy smell pulled me like an invisible string, past the Great China Buffet and the pet supply store, toward a vacant storefront, recent home to a variety store and years before that, a bookstore.

I stepped inside the former retail space into a temporary bookstore packed with thousands of books lining tables and shelves. I aimed straight for the Minnesota-authored titles while my husband veered toward the cookbooks.

Books I selected from the “Minnesota table,” albeit Prairie Perpendicular (one of my all-time favorite fiction books) is set in a small North Dakota farming community and written by a North Dakotan.

For 45 minutes we perused the selections, me picking How to Talk Minnesotan, A Visitor’s Guide by Howard Mohr, In Search of Lake Wobegon by Garrison Keillor and Prairie Perpendicular by Marston Moore (a North Dakota writer) from the Minnesota table.

I wasn’t searching for anything specific, only that which might interest me or others. The Minnesota language book will go to the oldest daughter’s boyfriend whom I will meet in a few weeks. He’s a California native, still living there, and likely could use a few tips about hotdish and bars. I’ll earmark page 16 for him in Lesson 3, “Eating In in Minnesota.”

If he wants to borrow Keillor’s book, I suppose I could lend it to him. But then again I don’t want to leave him with the impression that Minnesotans are, well, a bit off-kilter. I mean, if you didn’t know anything about ice fishing, what would you think of a photo of St. Joseph Rod & Gun Club members sitting on overturned buckets and playing cards while fishing on a frozen lake? Yeah, perhaps I best keep that Lake Wobegon book tucked away.

A snippet from the cover of Gnomes written by Wil Huygen and illustrated by Rien Poortvliet.

After discovering those gems, I moved on to the garden books and then the poetry and art and children’s titles. Somewhere in between I found a book about gnomes, complete with humorous stories and art that I just know my gnome-loving floral designer sister will appreciate.

But it was my husband who uncovered the find of the evening, a 1967 Minnesota Valley Cook Book. The 55-page supplement to The New Ulm Journal offers an interesting and amusing glimpse into the past in ads and recipes.

The cover of the 1967 Minnesota Valley Cook Book printed on news print. The cover photo of Mrs. Reuben Mammenga of New Ulm (sorry, no first name given) was taken by Ron Grieser. Mrs. Mammenga won the $5 prize in the pies category for her Chocolate Angel Pie.

I will share more about this 45-year-old southwestern Minnesota cookbook in an upcoming post. Just to pique your interest, did you know that (in 1967) “one of America’s largest department stores is just 11 inches high?” Can you guess which one?

Have you heard of Sauerkraut Cake and Tomato Surprise Cake?

Yes, the entertainment value in this old cookbook rates five stars. So does the Faribault chapter of the American Association of University Women’s annual book sale. Proceeds from the sale go to the AAUW Educational Foundation, local scholarships and community programs.

As I see it, everyone benefits through this book recycling process. Several months ago my 18-year-old son asked, “Mom, when’s that book sale?” He and a friend were at the sale when doors opened Thursday. He came home with a dozen science fiction (including one of his favorites, Vernor Vinge’s A Deepness in the Sky) and fantasy books and a thermodynamics college textbook. Total cost: $12.

The sale continues from 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. Saturday; noon – 5 p.m. Sunday; and from 3 p.m. – 7 p.m. May 7-9, next to JC Penney. Hurry in for the best selection. Expect to pay @ $1 per book with newer and mint condition books priced higher.

#

P.S. Please do not think all of the books at this sale smell musty. They don’t. I try to discreetly do a “sniff test” before purchasing.

HAVE YOU EVER shopped a used book sale? What gems did you find? Share your experiences in a comment on this post.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling