Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

What’s with all those dangling bras in downtown Fargo? November 8, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:04 AM
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SO…MY HUSBAND and I are driving through downtown Fargo Saturday afternoon, en route to Zandbroz Variety because I want to see Lake Region Review on bookshelves there. Sometimes I am vain like that. But I’ve had poetry published in the first two volumes of LRR and, as any writer will tell you, there’s a certain thrill in seeing a book, which includes your work, shelved and for sale.

I digress.

Before we reach Zandbroz, which rates as a quite cool variety store, we pass the Hotel Donaldson, locally referenced as the HoDo. This stately brick building anchoring the corner of First Avenue North and Broadway in the heart of downtown Fargo was built in 1893 as an Odd Fellows Lodge. Today it’s been transformed into a hotel, cultural and entertainment center and fine dining establishment. Not that I’ve been inside; I’ve only read this.

My first view of Bras on Broadway at the HoDo.

And for the month of October and apparently into November, the HoDo has become the canvas for Bras on Broadway.

Looking up on the First Avenue side of the bras dangling from the HoDo.

Yes, you read that correctly. The exterior of the HoDo is adorned/decorated/covered (choose your verb) in strings of bras reaching from rooftop to first floor window level.

The Bras on Broadway art installment on the corner of First Avenue North and Broadway.

Fortunately, as we approach the HoDo, the stoplight turns red, thus allowing me enough time for a quick photo shoot while we wait and then turn the corner onto Broadway. I try not to think about the mist as I stick my camera out the van window and aim the lens upward, hoping I will get a few publishable shots.

Turning onto Broadway, I shoot this scene of Bras on Broadway.

With no parking spaces available, I will figure out what the whole bra thing is about later. And so, at the variety store, I ask, “What’s going on with all the bras on that building?”

“It’s Bras on Broadway at the HoDo, raising funds for breast cancer,” I am informed, but do not press for details given Zandbroz is teeming with shoppers.

According to the Bras on Broadway website, the event “supports those in our area fighting breast cancer by providing accommodations, gas cards and wigs.” Last year $102,000 was donated to the American Cancer Society, bringing the six-year donations total to $264,000. (I couldn’t find a total for 2012.)

This October marks the seventh annual Bras on Broadway with monies raised in a variety of ways: For a minimum $5 and donation of “any old bra,” a bra can be added to the garlands of bras. Teams and individuals collect bras and monetary gifts. Sales of event related merchandise go toward the cause. Artists reinvent wearable and non-wearable bras that are auctioned off.

The Broadway side of the HoDo exhibit.

All of this Bras on Broadway fundraising apparently is finished for this year. Even so, I want to share this story and photos with you because, wow, something like thousands of bras dangling from an historic building in Fargo, of all places, grabs your attention.

And get this, Bras on Broadway hosted a “Deck the Bras” event at the Fargo Civic Center where anyone could bring bras and enhance them with bling and trinkets for the HoDo installment. The mobile mammography truck from the local medial center also showed up at the decorating party.

One final shot of Bras on Broadway as we drive past the HoDo.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, the first two volumes of the regional literary journal Lake Region Review are stocked at Zandbroz Variety, 420 Broadway, just blocks from the Bras on Broadway at the HoDo.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

“It could be cancer, but you’re too healthy” August 7, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:49 AM
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Layton Fossum, cancer survivor, poses with a luminary bag given in his honor at the Straight River Stroll in Faribault Friday night.

MEET LAYTON FOSSUM. Two years ago the Northfield man suffered from a raspy throat, a hearing loss and then a twitch in his face.

Must be a virus, the doctors initially told him. But the then 45-year-old persisted and eventually was diagnosed with a very rare form of cancer with a name he struggles to pronounce. So he simply says “head and neck cancer.”

After a 10 ½-hour surgery that was supposed to take three, he emerged with 40 fewer lymph nodes, but thankful to be alive. Next he would explore his post-operative treatment options, traveling to Houston, Seattle, Illinois and California before finally settling on radiation at Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Zion, Illinois.

Through-out his journey, this Malt-O-Meal employee who missed six months of work due to his cancer and is happier than ever now to go to work, has remained positive. Even today he can joke about his experience. “I told my wife I’m worth more. I have gold in me,” Layton tells me Friday night at the Rice County Fairgrounds in Faribault during the American Cancer Society Straight River Stroll.

Thousands gathered Friday evening at the Straight River Stroll at the Rice County Fairgrounds to raise funds for cancer research to remember, celebrate and pray for those touched by cancer.

Layton points to his right eye and the lump of gold in his eyelid. Because he no longer has facial nerves on the right side, he needs the weight to help close the lid, which will shut only when he closes the opposite lid.

Then Layton shows me his ear, which, too, was reshaped during reconstructive surgery to tighten his drooping face.

Layton has no hearing in his right ear, which was reshaped during reconstructive facial surgery.

Yet, despite all he has undergone, despite the changes in his appearance, Layton remains upbeat and eager to tell his story. He was invited back to Zion and spoke for 1 ½ hours to a roomful of suit-and-ties, he says.

Before his diagnosis two years ago, Layton was the picture of health, the last one you would expect to get cancer, a friend says.

He heard the same from doctors: “It could be cancer, but you’re too healthy.”

Still, he did have cancer. And Friday evening Layton was among those celebrating their cancer-free lives at the Straight River Stroll, a Relay for Life event to fund cancer research. As I walked beside him, switching from his right to left side so he could hear me, I marveled at this man who stopped often, bent low to read the names written on white paper bags in memory of, praying for and rejoicing with those who, like him, endured cancer.

Some lost the battle. Some won. Some are still fighting.

This team of kids set out luminaries by the wagonful.

Among the personalized bags, I discovered this especially touching one drawn by a child in celebration of a father's survival.

Words of encouragement for Mike Schulz.

A luminary honors Sandy Doehling, who died of breast cancer.

Kids and teens, even adults, lined up to have their hair spray painted at a booth to raise funds for cancer research.

A volunteer ratted and sprayed a girl's hair, all to raise monies for cancer research at the Straight River Stroll.

Kids could climb inside this race car, with a hood especially designed to recognize those who have endured cancer. The hood is placed on the car, which races at Elko Speedway, only for special occasions like the Stroll.

Faribault resident Jerry Kes led the Stroll as an honored cancer survivor.

As dusk settled, volunteers began lighting the luminaries which stretched and wound around the fairgrounds.

(This post is written in memory of my dad, who died of esophageal cancer in 2003; my nephew, Justin, who died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2001; and my mom, who is a breast cancer survivor.)

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling