Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Poetry and cheesecake October 1, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:01 AM
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My daughter's homemade chocolate cheesecake, my birthday cake.

I FELT JUST LIKE a queen, waiting patiently at the dining room table to be served a slice of decadent chocolate cheesecake.

I must say, it’s a wonderful feeling to be on the receiving, rather than the giving, end. And that’s how it is now when I celebrate my birthday.

On Monday, a day after my birthday, my daughter drove down from Minneapolis for an appointment and later dinner out with me, her dad and her brother. But afterward, ah after that meal, I really enjoyed the celebration.

My first-born had baked a from-scratch, all-chocolate cheesecake. She clued us in that the recipe called for melted peanut butter chips mixed into the chocolate batter. But she scorched the peanut butter chips and had to substitute chocolate chips. That produced some gentle teasing about a many-years-earlier chocolate pudding cake disaster.

Clearly, she’s learned a thing or two about cooking and baking as the cheesecake was pure chocolate perfection.

As much as I enjoyed the rich creamy dessert, even more I appreciated that my daughter chose to make a cheesecake. She knows it’s my favorite dessert.

Then I opened my gift from her and appreciated even more that my eldest had chosen items perfectly suited for me. She didn’t buy just any old thing just to give me a present. Rather, she shopped at a south Minneapolis antique store—one with lots of antlers and a place she nearly walked out of due to all those antlers on the walls.

Inside the antique shop, she found a slim volume of poetry, Minnesota Skyline, published in 1953. The book wasn’t priced, she said, and clerks discussed, in front of her, the price she should pay.

Minnesota Skyline, a vintage poetry collection I think worthy of reprinting.

I flipped through the pages and knew I would enjoy this collection with poems like “Wind in the Corn,” “Pioneers of Southern Minnesota,” and “Spring on the Prairie.”

I haven’t had time yet to indulge in the anthology. But that evening, after I opened my daughter’s gift of poetry, I read aloud a verse from “Delano on Saturday Night” by Margaret Horsch Stevens of Montrose:

Men, bent, with toil, feel younger in the glare

Of lights, exchanging jokes and arguments;

And women brighten as they meet and talk

Of recent births, and brides, and home events.

We laughed as we pictured families gathered in downtown Delano on a Saturday night in the 1950s. How times have changed.

After that impromptu poetry reading, I pulled four slim yellow trays from my birthday gift bag. Once again, my daughter had selected an ideal present for me. I collect vintage metal trays and these were unlike any I have or any I’ve seen. For now I’ve propped two atop a shelf—art leaning against a wall.

My daughter gave me four vintage metal trays for my collection.

There’s something to be said for aging, when you can see your children as grown adults, who are caring and loving and giving and who know that you love poetry and cheesecake.

My husband also remembered my birthday with a colorful daisy bouquet.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

The Lund Press, Inc., of Minneapolis published Minnesota Skyline.

 

An attack in Argentina and how I’m dealing with the crime in Minnesota September 29, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:50 AM
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WHEN THE PHONE RANG early Tuesday afternoon and I picked up to a dial tone, I didn’t think much of it. Just another telemarketer, I figured. But then, the phone sounded again and my 20-something daughter was on the line, speaking to me from Argentina.

“It’s good to hear from you,” I say, surprised really that she is calling given we spoke only several days earlier.

“Well, uh, Mom, I was robbed last night,” she tells me.

I am shocked, momentarily speechless, until I spit out the dreaded words, “Are you OK?”

She is. But her purse and all of its contents are gone—her debit and credit cards, and other important identification, her cell phone and camera. She is stranded, without money, or access to money, with only her passport, in northern Argentina, hours and hours away from her temporary home in Buenos Aires and 6,000 miles from her Minnesota home.

I am thankful, first, that she has not been physically hurt. She sounds fine; she’s had more time than me to digest what’s happened.

Then I ask for details because I need to know how this happened. My daughter shares how she and her friend Ivanna were walking through a “nice neighborhood” toward downtown around 8:30 p.m. Monday when a man came out of nowhere from behind them. He grabbed for my daughter’s purse and as she fought off her attacker, Ivanna screamed for help. Eventually the man got the purse as my daughter fell to the ground. Her assailant, in his mid 30s, sprinted away, hopping onto the back of a motorcycle driven by his accomplice.

Then my second-born tells me she saw no gun, no knife, and I am relieved, yet scared all over again thinking about the possibilities.

All I want is to see my daughter, to hug her, to feel her hair brushing against my cheek, to tell her I love her, to keep her safe.

But for now I can only listen and offer words and lay out a plan to deal with the aftermath of this crime. She and Ivanna immediately went to the local police station. My daughter tells me they waited for an interminable time to speak to the single employee who was working. Several other employees there were simply joking around, she says, and offered no assistance.

Vicariously I am already angry with the police system in this large northern Argentine city. I wonder what today will bring when the two must return to the police station to work on a composite sketch of their attacker.

Back here in Minnesota, I have already spent hours on the phone contacting companies and agencies about the stolen cards. Everyone I’ve talked to has been kind and understanding when I explain what has happened. That reduces the stress level some. Yet, all the phone calls, all the directives to do this and that are wearing on me. During several conversations my voice cracks and I struggle to keep from totally breaking down.

I know this could happen to anyone, anywhere. My oldest daughter, who lives in Minneapolis, tells me this, that this crime could happen on the streets of Minneapolis. She is right. Yet, when an assault like this occurs in a foreign country, 6,000 miles from Minnesota, the whole situation becomes more complicated by distance and communication issues.

I have no doubt that my daughter will recover. She is a strong woman.

As for me, I am counting the days now—23 of them—until she arrives at The Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. I cannot wait to have my daughter back, safe in my arms, far from the men who would rob her, and me, of our security.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A birthday treasure September 26, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:42 AM
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TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY. I need to think for a minute exactly how old I am. Take 2010 minus 1956 and you get 54. Yeah, that would be right.

Funny how the years pass and you lose count after 40, or 50. Where did time go?

I bet my mom wonders that, too, today. How could her second-born of six already be “that old?” Yeah, how?

Birthdays back when I was growing up aren’t like birthday celebrations today. Years ago, we gathered with extended family—grandparents, aunts and uncles and cousins—a whole houseful crammed into a farmhouse. Pans of bars. Red Jell-O. Summer sausage sandwiches. Homemade dill pickles. Coffee brewing in the kitchen. Bottled pop and Schell’s beer.

And when we left for home around midnight, we wished the birthday girl, or boy, “many more birthdays!” Tradition. Sweet words, sweet wishes.

Because my birthday fell the day after my parents’ wedding anniversary, I seldom “had company” on my birthday. The relatives would come the night before to celebrate the anniversary, then forget all about my special day.

But my mom made my birthday memorable by baking an animal-shaped cake, chosen from a slim book of cake designs. There was no present from my parents—they didn’t have the money for a gift—and I didn’t really know I should expect one. My animal-shaped cake was enough, although my godmother always sewed an outfit for me. She knew I needed new clothes more than anything.

One year my Aunt Rachel gave me a greeting card with an adjustable green-stone ring tucked into a treasure chest. An emerald in my eyes. I slipped the ring onto my skinny girl finger. I wore the ring every day, all the time, until one day I lost it.

Of all the birthday cards I’ve received in my life, I remember that one and how I cried when the mock emerald became buried treasure in our farmyard.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A ray of sunshine on a rainy, rainy day in Minnesota September 23, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 2:34 PM
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IN BETWEEN ALL the rainstorms that have defined today and yesterday and so many days here in Minnesota this September, I offer a ray of sunshine.

I am sitting here in my office typing this as the preschool neighbor boy I’ve never met, because our busy, busy street seems as wide as the mighty Mississippi, splashes in water puddled on dips in the uneven sidewalk.

Until this moment in this rainiest of days, I have thought only of how very sick and tired I am of all the non-stop rain, the gloom, this weariness that has descended upon autumn.

And then I see this boy, this happy, happy boy dressed in his sunny yellow t-shirt, khaki pants and flip flops splish-splashing through the water.

Father and son have been outside for more than 15 minutes now. Together they’ve run through the puddles, stomped their feet, splashed and jumped. Run and leap. Turn around and race again through the pooled waters.

I cannot stop watching them.

On this day when I’ve heard of flooded roads and flooded basements, closed schools and rising rivers and more rain in the forecast, I am smiling.

I am smiling at the young father, clad in a tank top and shorts and flip flops. He doesn’t care whether his boy gets his clothes dirty or his feet wet. With the wave of his arm, he encourages his son to forge through the water.

For a moment I have forgotten about the gloom of the day. I see only sunshine.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A child’s perspective on 9/11 September 11, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:29 AM
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SOMETIMES A PICTURE truly is worth 1,000 words. In this instance, a child’s drawing is worth 1,000 words, maybe 10,000, maybe even 1,000,000.

Eight years ago my then 8-year-old son drew this image for a religious class assignment at the Christian day school he was attending.

The directions instructed: “Think about a time when it is hard to trust God…pray to God. Ask Him to make your faith strong.”

So my third grader, out of all the trying moments he could have depicted, chose to replicate 9/11. He drew his version of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York one year and one month after the actual tragedy.

As a mother, I remember feeling deeply saddened (but also a bit proud) that my son, my elementary-aged boy, who should have been thinking about a quarrel with a friend or something more mundane, would choose to draw this. Clearly, even at his young age, this devastating moment in our nation’s history had made a monumental impact.

Today, on the ninth anniversary of 9/11, please honor those who died and remember these reassuring words from Psalm 100:5: “The Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever.”

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Back at school: new bathrooms and new computers September 7, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:56 PM
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HE’S HOME FROM HIS FIRST DAY of his junior year at Faribault High School.

My 16-year-old doesn’t talk much. Prying information out of him is akin to pulling teeth. So I try really hard not to pepper him with questions. But I can’t help myself as I attempt to phrase questions that don’t require a simple “yes” or “no” answer.

Initially I fail miserably.

“How was your first day of school?” I ask.

“Good,” he says.

I follow him into the kitchen where he is downing a glass of milk. He loves milk, always has.

“What classes are you taking?”

He rattles off a list that includes AP physics, pre-calculus, chemistry, psychology, American government and computer aided drafting.

“You’re taking a lot of hard classes,” I observe.

He shrugs, doesn’t really answer. I know that for him, my scientific, mathematically-inclined, computer-oriented son, who scores way above average on those assessment tests that everyone else whines about, these classes are a perfect fit. I am glad that I am not him; I wouldn’t like, or do well, in most of his classes. I am not the science and math type.

He settles in with his laptop on a corner of the sofa while I continue working on a travel feature in my nearby office.

“They got new bathrooms,” he says, offering his first real take on his first day back at school. “And new computers.”

I rush into the living room. I’m not going to let this moment of conversational opportunity pass.

“What do you mean new bathrooms?” I ask.

“They got new walls, new toilets, doors,” he briefs me.

“They didn’t have doors?” I probe.

Not in one of the bathrooms, the one no one used, he says.

I’m dismayed at the lack of respect for students’ privacy. But I don’t tell my son that, only think it. He doesn’t particularly like his mom to have an opinion on school “stuff.”

Instead, I ask, “What kind of computers did they get?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been in the computer lab.”

That ends our short exchange. He’s focused now on his computer screen, not really caring if I hear anything more about his first day of his junior year of high school.  After all, he’s told me the important “stuff” about new computers and upgraded bathrooms with new toilets and doors.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Build it and they will ride September 6, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 5:04 PM
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WHEN MY BROTHER-IN-LAW showed off the flatbed trailer he and his family recently built and then suggested we all pile on for a ride down the field driveway, I hesitated. Tom sometimes can be a bit of a daredevil with his toys.

So I passed on the maiden voyage that carried 11 family members along the grassy pathway between soybean fields, up the hill, around and back to the farm site.

Then my 78-year-old mom decided she would ride, up front on the all-terrain vehicle, sandwiched between the driver and my oldest brother, who once gave me a ride on his snowmobile and then left me stranded in a gravel pit.

I figured with Mom on board, the boys would behave, drive responsibly and get us all back safely. So I slung my camera around my neck, pulled myself onto the wagon and sat next to my oldest daughter, legs dangling over the edge.

Off we went, bouncing along the field road under a beautiful blue sky scuttled with white clouds. Honestly, September days in Minnesota don’t get much better than this—sunshine and soybean fields, country air and spacious skies, princess waves and smiles as wide as the horizon, dog hugs and happy kids, laughter and the love of family, my family.

My niece practiced her princess wave as we rode between the soybean fields.

I sat next to my oldest daughter. We were all smiling and laughing.

Two of my siblings sit side by side on the edge of the trailer.

One happy boy (my nephew) and one happy dog.

My Mom sits safely between my brother-in-law and my oldest brother in the all-terrain vehicle.

Feet hung or dangled over the sides of the flatbed trailer as toes nearly touched soybean leaves.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Wishing I could open doors to childhood memories in Redwood Falls September 4, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:50 AM
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HAVE YOU EVER HAD one of those moments when you drive by a place from your childhood days, desperately want to get inside, but can’t?

That happened to me twice on a recent visit to Redwood Falls, where my maternal grandfather lived, where I attended junior high school and where my family shopped when I was growing up.

The first tour took my husband, son, mom and me past my Grandpa Bode’s house, located across the street from the hospital. Several years ago I had seen grandpa’s rambler and nearly cried at its dilapidated condition. Since then the house has been re-sided, so I felt better on this recent stop.

Yet, simply viewing the exterior didn’t satisfy my yearning to get inside. Had I been alone, I may have jumped from the car, run up to the house and knocked on the door. Honestly, I really wanted to see if the bathroom walls are still tiled in pink.

Caring so much about a bathroom may seem odd to most of you. But I grew up in a house without a bathroom (at least until I was about 12). I fondly recall bathing in grandpa’s pink bathroom, where my Aunt Dorothy would grab a bar of gold Dial soap, lather the soap into a washcloth and scrub and rub and scrub and rub and tickle my toes and feet until I giggled. Dial is still my favorite soap and the only brand I purchase because of those sweet, sweet memories.

After pausing briefly in front of grandpa’s house, we headed toward downtown. I had no desire to see the school where I attended seventh and eighth grades. My memories of junior high are of bullying and of tears. Those are two years I would rather forget. Besides, students now attend classes in a new building and for all I know, or care, the old building could be gone.

But I was interested in seeing Gilwood Haven, a columned, shuttered brick building in the downtown. I remembered, while on childhood shopping trips, going to the bathroom at Gilwood.

Are you seeing a common theme here? Bathrooms. I suspect this is tied to years of indoor bathroom deprivation.

As the story goes, C. O. Gilfillan donated money for Gilwood Haven after observing mothers and their children without a warm place to go into during the cold winter months while in downtown Redwood Falls.

Anyway, Gilwood Haven was built specifically as a lounge for women and children to use while their husbands/fathers were doing business. City offices and a public bathroom were located on the lower level. I don’t recall really lounging at Gilwood, but I remember walking downstairs to use the bathroom in this haven. Haven—what a name, huh?

C. O. Gilfillan, a wealthy and generous community-minded landowner from nearby Paxton Township donated money for the public lounge which opened in 1940 at 219 South Mill Street. He also gave 80 acres of rental land to finance building upkeep and to hire a matron attendant.

An exterior plaque on Gilwood Haven honors C. O.'s father, Charles Duncan Gilfillan, a pioneer farmer.

So there I was on a recent week day afternoon, longing to get inside the locked building. Not that I needed to use the restroom, I just needed to view this place of childhood memories.

But that wasn’t going to happen. This haven now serves as a meeting place rather than a public facility.

I had to settle instead for snapping photos of the exterior and wondering whether the fruit above the entry door is original to the building. And if it is, why didn’t I remember the apples, bananas, grapes, pineapple and pears?

Has this fruit, which looks like plastic, always been above the doorway entry? And, if so, why fruit?

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Plaid in Paradise August 13, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:29 AM
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I KNEW HE REALLY didn’t want to attend the show. I’ve been married to my husband long enough (28 years) to gauge his interest.

So when I asked Thursday evening at the supper table whether he wanted to go to Forever Plaid by The Merlin Players at the Paradise Center for the Arts, I didn’t expect (and didn’t get) an “Oh, yeah, I can’t wait to see the play,” jumping-up-and-down reaction. Randy isn’t that sort of emotional guy.

I purposely failed to mention one little fact to him. Forever Plaid is a musical. If I want Randy to attend a musical production with me, I won’t let the “m” word slip from my tongue. That’s almost a guarantee that he’ll balk at attending.

But apparently he’s caught on to my lack of full disclosure. As we settled into our seats, among the few remaining for Thursday evening’s nearly sold-out performance, I turned to him: “Oh, I didn’t tell you this is a musical.”

“I thought so,” he said.

The Paradise Center for the Arts theatre during last summer's production of South Pacific.

For the next 90-plus minutes we listened to Forever Plaid, a quartet of actors/singers, croon and belt out songs from the 1950s and 1960s in a high-energy show. From “Chain Gang” to “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing” to “She Loves You,” these guys could sing and dance and move in nearly perfect unison. What a show. They made me tired simply watching them perform, and sweat.

They also made me smile, non-stop. After awhile I realized that I had been smiling from the moment the quartet, and their back-up band, set foot on the Paradise stage. It’s that kind of musical.

I especially enjoyed their three-plus minute interpretation of The Ed Sullivan Show. The Plaid Boys zipped on and off the stage as jugglers, ventriloquists, a singing nun and more representative of the Sunday night television variety program. Wow, that brought back memories.

Mostly, though, Forever Plaid, the story of a male quartet killed in a tragic accident and come back to life for the performances of their lives, entertained me. And isn’t that what theater is, should be?

I just have one little confession. I dislike plaid—really, really, really dislike plaid.

Plaid, no favorite of mine, and the reason I couldn't print this photo in a larger size, although this plaid is more subdued and OK with me, as far as plaids.

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The Merlin Players will present two more productions of Forever Plaid at 7:30 p.m. on August 13 and 14 at the historic Paradise Center for the Arts at 321 Central Avenue in historic downtown Faribault.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Minnesota heat wave, Argentine polar wave…what’s with this crazy weather? August 12, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:19 AM
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WHEN MY DAUGHTER e-mailed recently from Argentina complaining about the cold weather, I wasn’t too sympathetic. It’s winter there. What does she expect?

Plus, I’d welcome a blast of chilly air right now to ice down this interminable, steamy hot summer we’ve had in Minnesota.

But then I started thinking, as I’m apt to do, and sent her a list of questions, as I’m apt to do. Fortunately, my second-born indulged my curiosity and replied with an informational e-mail about South America’s recent “polar wave.”

Even that phrase, “polar wave,” makes me smugly smirk as I think of “Arctic air” and “Alberta clippers” in Minnesota. What do these South Americans know about frigid temperatures anyway? Have they ever endured temps or windchills in the double digits below zero like us hardy northerners?

Once I overcame my oversized Paul Bunyan attitude of superiority, I attempted to objectively consider my daughter’s southern weather report.

She wrote: “The polar wave, or La Ola Polar, supposedly is cold air that comes up from Antarctica. It may last for a few days or a whole week, it depends. I think they start calling it a polar wave when it’s around 0 degrees Celsius or lower (32 degrees F). People usually just put on heavier jackets. Gloves and scarves are common, too. You won’t see a large amount of people with hats, though.”

OK, no stocking caps, no ear flaps, no wool coats or parkas or winter boots. And, for gosh sakes, don’t those Argentines know that your fingers will stay warmer if you wear mittens instead of gloves?

Then, surprise, surprise, “some places in Argentina even got snow,” my 22-year-old daughter continues. “For my friend Sam in Tucuman, it was his first time seeing snow! An article in the Clarin (Buenos Aires daily newspaper) from August 4 said that on August 3, it got to  -7.1 degrees C (around 19-20 degrees F), with a windchill of -11.5 C (about 11 F) in San Antonio Oeste in the Río Negro province, and that was the lowest temp recorded for the day. Another Clarin article said that on Aug. 4 the coldest place in the country was in Río Mayo in the Chubut province, where it got to -25 C (-13F). This was the coldest temperature recorded in the past 5 years. In the Mendoza province, they had to suspend classes in 23 schools b/c the pipes froze.”

About then I realized that maybe this polar wave isn’t all that humorous. Likely, these South Americans don’t have the heating systems or insulated homes to deal with such unexpected frigid air. And, certainly, they don’t have the seasoned, inbred knowledge we Midwesterners have for comfortably surviving harsh winters.

After a bit of online research, I discovered that this recent cold weather has claimed many lives—in Bolivia, 18; Paraguay, 10; and Argentina, eight (in a single weekend), according to a July 20 CNN World report.

Thankfully, weather conditions are improving in South America, including Buenos Aires where my daughter lives. “After a week in the 35-40 degree range, it’s now around 55-60 degrees,” she tells me.

The warmer weather arrives in Argentina just in time for the arrival of her older sister today from Minneapolis.

I’ll be curious to hear: Which does she prefer, Minnesota heat wave or Argentine polar wave?

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling