Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

From backyard barbecuing to competitive barbecuing May 23, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 11:39 AM
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An example of the barbecued meat prepared for the Minnesota in May BBQ Contest.

Tom Mcintosh of Appleton, Wisconsin, shows off bacon-wrapped pheasant with raspberry chipotle sauce for the open class division.

THEY START OUT innocently enough, barbecuing in the backyard.

Then, before they know it, they’re competing in barbecue competitions, driving all over the country with their gargantuan grills loaded into trailers.

Some have created their own rubs and sauces, while others doctor up purchased sauces.

They spend hundreds of dollars on meats, entry fees and travel expenses. Maybe, eventually, if they win enough contests, they’ll break even.

I met several of these die-hard barbecue contestants Saturday while walking the grounds at the Minnesota in May BBQ Contest in Faribault. By the time I arrived in the early afternoon, the teams had already turned in their mandatory entries—chicken, pork ribs, pork and brisket. Teams of judges evaluate the food on taste, tenderness and appearance in this Kansas City Barbeque Society sanctioned event.

The competitors had been grilling for hours—under tents in pouring rain—when I got to the contest site at the Rice County Fairgrounds. Now they were relaxing, some of them kicking back with bottles of beer, others visiting with attendees and/or packing up.

As I wandered the soggy grounds with my husband, sidestepping puddles, I spied grills that looked more like space age inventions than grills. Mighty impressive. The Q Crew from Waldorf has even appropriately named its grill “the pig casket.”

Since I’m a word person, I noticed the creative names these teams of barbecue enthusiasts have given themselves: BurntOut Smokers, Rebel Fire Que’n Company, The Monkeys’ Uncles Competition BBQ Team… I didn’t pause to ask the stories behind the names and logos; I simply snapped photos.

At least one group of guys, from western Wisconsin, had time to talk. Not about their team name, which I don’t remember, but about the reason they do this: “To get a break from the wives and kids.” Not that they don’t love their families, but…

These buddies especially enjoy the fun of small town BBQ contests, like the one in Gilmanton, Wisconsin, where they start the day with Bloody Marys.

They’re an easy-going, laid-back bunch, these barbecuing fanatics. Or at least they are once the meats are turned into judges. Before that, I’d guess the atmosphere under those team tents rates as tense. After all, they’re in it to win it.

BBQ sauces and rubs were for sale.

Contestants arrived with mega-sized grills.

Creative team names were posted on tents and trailers and vehicles.

The Q Crew from Waldorf appropriately calls their grill, in the background, the "pig casket."

The team trailer for spitfire, one of many creative BBQ team names.

WATCH FOR MORE BBQ images in one more blog post.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Iowegians bring their barbecuing passion to Minnesota May 22, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 2:50 PM
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Bubba'Q's logo and slogan on the side of their BBQ trailer.

MEET BUBBA AND SABRINA.

They’re from Ottumwa, Iowa. That’s “A-ttum-wa (short “a”), not “Oh-ttum-wa (Minnesota long “o”).

They’re about as cheerful and friendly a couple as I’ve met. Talkative with a definite accent that I would have placed as more southern Missouri than southeastern Iowa. They set me straight, in a kindly way, on the pronunciation of Ottumwa, a community of 25,000 along the Des Moines River.

Big smiles accompanied their language lesson and an intro to barbecuing at the Minnesota in May BBQ Contest in Faribault Saturday. Nearly 60 teams competed for about $10,000 in prizes in the two-day Kansas City Barbeque Society-sanctioned event.

While Bubba and Sabrina didn’t win a prize this time—they have taken grand champion honors in other competitions—they seem content simply to barbecue, win or not. Clearly, this is their passion.

They own Bubba-Q’s, a restaurant and catering business in Ottumwa that features traditional pit style barbecued meats. The dessert menu of scratch made pies, triple chocolate fudge espresso brownies, banana delight pudding and more sounds mighty tasty too.

I wasn’t able to sample any of Bubba-Q’s meats, but Bubba tells me their style is “a little sweet, a little heat.”

I’ll take his word for it.

The ribs they prepare for competitions differ, they say, from the ribs prepared in their restaurant, where customers prefer them falling-off-the-bone tender. The judges, want tender, but chewable, still on the bone ribs.

The two agree that no matter how often and where they compete, and they’ve traveled to many competitions as far away as New Mexico and Las Vegas, they never quite know what will please the judges. Bubba says that’s OK. Then he smiles. Again. He’s just that kind of guy—with a face that shows he’s happy to be barbecuing, whether in Iowa or Minn-e-soooooo-ta.

Bubba and Sabrina's home on wheels and traveling BBQ central.

Even their pick-up truck advertises their barbecuing passion.

WATCH FOR MORE photos from the Minnesota in May BBQ Contest in future blog posts.

For the first time ever, Faribault hosted the Minnesota in May BBQ Contest at the Rice County Fairgrounds.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Pancakes for paper May 13, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:57 PM
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MY KNEE JERK REACTION went something like this: I pay taxes and now the school is hosting a pancake breakfast to buy “needed supplies.”

Because things aren’t always as they seem, I called Faribault High School to inquire about the Pancake Breakfast flier which was mailed to me on Thursday along with my son’s mid-quarter grades and information about ordering a $75 high school yearbook.

When the woman who answered the phone couldn’t help, she transferred me to Assistant Principal Dennis Germann’s voicemail. He explained everything to me in two return phone calls and now I feel much better and more informed.

Faribault Masonic Lodge #9 and Faribault Eagles Club #1460 are teaming up to raise monies for school supplies for students at FHS. Notebooks, inexpensive calculators, paper, project supplies, etc. will be given to students who can’t afford to purchase those basics, Germann told me. He added that nearly 50 percent of FHS students qualify for free or reduced school lunches. Translate that into families that could use some extra help with school expenses. The United Way has provided some assistance in the past with school supplies.

Germann welcomes the monies that will be raised at the Sunday, May 15, Pancake Breakfast from 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m. at the Faribault Eagles Club. Cost of the breakfast, which includes all you can eat pancakes with a serving of sausage and eggs and milk, coffee or juice, is $7 for adults, $5 for students and free for those five and under.

It’s the first time apparently that the high school has been selected as the recipient of this Pancake Breakfast fundraiser. That’s why the flier caught me by surprise and I really didn’t understand the definition of “needed supplies.”

As the parent of a high schooler, and two FHS graduates, I’m happy to see secondary students benefiting from a fundraiser like this. Typically the focus is on elementary age kids. I know how quickly costs add up to buy school supplies for a teen. Last year, if I remember correctly, I forked out $100 for some fancy schmancy calculator my son needed for a math class. Students won’t get fancy calculators like that through this program (I think the school has some available to borrow). But at least they’ll get basic school supplies.

So much has changed in the decades since I graduated from high school and we really only needed 3-subject notebooks, pens, pencils, folders and loose leaf paper.

Now it’s way beyond paper, to needing computers and internet access at home. I bet many families out there can’t afford internet service. Thankfully free internet is available at the public library. But it isn’t always easy for students to get there when they need to do online research.

I wonder also about the cost of class field trips, if some students can’t afford even basic school supplies. I recently wrote a $27 check for my son to go on a field trip to the Science Museum to view the King Tut exhibit. I gave him another $15 for lunch, which even he told me was expensive. How do families with already stretched budgets manage these additional costs?

We shouldn’t need pancake breakfast fundraisers to supplement the cost of education. But we all know times are tough. So thanks, Eagles and Masons, for doing your part to organize this event that will help Faribault families.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Tilt-A-Whirl tradition continues in Faribault

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:29 AM
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The Mural Society of Faribault created and placed this Tilt-A-Whirl mural on the side of Jim's Auto & Tire along Fourth Street in downtown Faribault in the fall of 2010.

AN AMERICAN ICON amusement ride made in Faribault since 1926 will remain here despite the sale of Sellner Manufacturing to a Texas company.

Jim Hermel and Mike Featherston, co-owners of Gold Star Manufacturing, recently purchased the fiberglass and staging portions of Sellner, I learned in a recent e-mail exchange with Hermel.

That’s good news for Faribault, where the Tilt-A-Whirl, perhaps America’s best-known carnival ride, has been made by the Sellner family since 1926.

If you didn’t realize the Tilt-A-Whirl was produced in Faribault, don’t fret your lack of knowledge. Not until I moved in 1984 into a house blocks away from the carnival ride maker, did I even know this icon ride was made in Minnesota, let alone Faribault.

Local State Representative Patti Fritz tried to get the word out in 2007 by introducing a bill to make the Tilt-A-Whirl Minnesota’s official amusement ride. However, that legislation failed.

My community has also missed the mark on tapping into this home-grown carnival ride as a tourist attraction. But now that the fiberglass ride car portion will continue to be produced here, I believe the opportunity still exists to promote the Tilt-A-Whirl. I’ve always envisioned a fun-focused carnival atmosphere museum and gift shop complete with Tilt-A-Whirl rides, cotton candy, popcorn, activities for kids and more.

Given the current economy, I doubt my vision for a Tilt-A-Whirl tourist site will happen any time soon, unless…

For now I’m content with the fact that Faribault-based Gold Star Manufacturing is contracting with Larson International, Inc., of Plainview, Texas, to manufacture the fiberglass cars for the Tilt-A-Whirl and for other amusement rides. The working machinery part of the business went toTexas.

Gold Star Manufacturing shipped its first carnival ride, Bear Affair, to Toronto, Canada, earlier this month.

Dizzy Dragons, one of the carnival rides that Gold Star will continue to manufacture.

Gold Star will also continue to make the fiberglass bodies for other Sellner-created carnival rides: the Bear Affair, Dizzy Dragons, Ships Ahoy and Pumpkin Patch. Another ride is in the works, Hermel says, and three other fiberglass products are in the development stage.

If anyone can succeed at revitalizing a company which fell into financial hardship, Hermel and Featherston would be the men.

Hermel comes to Gold Star Manufacturing with nearly 30 years in the tire business (selling almost 2 million tires, he says) and with 14 years as executive secretary and manager of the Rice County Fair.

“I wanted to get into something that would offer me a challenge,” the 59-year-old Hermel says.

His partner, Mike Featherston, brings a life-time of experience in the outdoor amusement industry to the new company. Featherston and his family own GoldStar Amusements, Inc., a traveling entertainment business with amusement rides, food and games based in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, and Louisiana. GoldStar contracts for the midway at the Rice County Fair.

Featherston was recently elected second vice chair of the Outdoor Amusement Business Association which aims “to encourage the growth and preservation of the outdoor amusement industry through leadership, legislation, education and membership services.”

Now, as co-owner of Gold Star Manufacturing, Featherston is certainly fulfilling one of those missions by keeping an iconic American carnival ride in production, in Faribault. He and Hermel are continuing the legacy of Herb Sellner who built the first nine-car wooden Tilt-A-Whirl 85 years ago.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Bear Affair photo courtesy of Gold Star Manufacturing

 

Five years after a hit-and-run driver struck my son May 12, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:16 AM
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I live on one of Faribault's busiest residential streets, also a main route for the ambulance.

FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY on May 12, 2006, my then 12-year-old son was struck by a car as he crossed the street to his school bus stop.

Less than a block from home, his slender body slammed against a car and then somersaulted through the air. He landed dazed, shaken and injured along the side of the street.

Fear, unlike any I had ever experienced, gripped my heart and consumed my very being on that cool and drizzly May morning two days before Mother’s Day. In the minutes between my awareness of the accident and the confirmation that my son was OK, I feared the worst—that I had lost my boy.

I had not. He suffered only a broken bone in his hand, a bump on his head, scrapes and a possible rib fracture. Minor injuries, really, compared to what could have been.

For too many parents, the tragic death of a child is reality and I wonder how they cope. Via faith, family and friends? Somehow they manage to go on living.

In my son’s case, I also wonder how the driver copes. He/she fled the scene and has never been found. How can that driver of a blue, 4-door Chevrolet Cavalier or Corsica live with his/her actions?

It is incomprehensible to me that anyone could strike a child with a vehicle and then simply drive away.

Faribault police, early on, suspected the driver had a reason—ie. driving without a license, driving drunk, no insurance, prior record—to leave.

Despite numerous leads, including one which came via an anonymous letter penned by someone with a personal vendetta against a named suspect and another which led investigators to a prison cell, a credible suspect has never been found.

On several occasions police thought they were close to finding the driver. I have not given up hope that the driver can still be found—if conscience finally prevails and/or an individual with knowledge of this too-long-hidden secret chooses to do the right thing and step forward with information.

While the statute of limitations expired three years after the hit-and-run, Neal Pederson of the Faribault Police Department tells me that the case remains open and that his office will follow up on any tips or leads. He noted, however, that if the driver lived out of state for a period of time, the clock stops and the crime could still be investigated and charged.

Anyone with information about the hit-and-run can anonymously call the Faribault Police Department tip line at 507-334-0999 or Crime Stoppers of Minnesota at 1-800-222-8477.

I don’t dwell on finding the driver. A $1,000 reward offered several years ago for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the hit-and-run driver is no longer valid. I always hoped that honesty and decency, not a monetary reward, would be the motivating factors in solving this case.

As five years have passed, many, many times I have thanked God for protecting my son from worse injury.

Sometimes still—when I hear the screaming wail of an ambulance as it passes my house along our busy street or when I read a news story about a hit-and-run or drunk driving death—I think of that May morning when my son was struck.

I try to forget. But a memory like this remains forever.

LAST YEAR I WROTE the following poem, which won honorable mention in the poetry division of a state-wide anthology competition. “Hit-and-Run” printed in The Talking Stick, Volume 19, Forgotten Roads, published by The Jackpine Writers’ Bloc.

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.

#

Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Another reminder that I don’t live in Mayberry May 11, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:37 AM
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YESTERDAY MORNING I was obliviously writing on my computer when I noticed a young man standing directly in front of the sidewalk leading to my front door. Now, lots of pedestrians pass my home. But, typically, they do not stand and stare at my house. And typically, they are not wearing black baseball caps tipped to the side nor do red bandannas sprout from their back pockets.

I was not born yesterday. I am well aware of gang colors and attire.

But this man was committing no crime by standing there on a public sidewalk.

However, my intuition told me to keep an eye on him and to let him know I had seen him.

So I walked into the living room, making sure he spotted me through the open front door. I considered slamming the interior door and locking the dead bolt in place. But I figured with a locked screen door, traffic passing by and my cell phone within reach, I was safe. Besides, I didn’t want him to think I was intimidated or afraid.

So I returned to my office, until I heard voices. I walked back to the living room to find the man, now joined by a young woman, sitting on my front steps within feet of me.

I didn’t really think, just strode over to the screen door and boldly blurted, “What are you doing on my front steps?”

The guy said something I couldn’t hear due to the traffic noise and my hearing loss.

But the woman sneered, “Sitting here.”

They didn’t move.

I didn’t budge.

For a split second I worried that I had made a grave mistake by confronting them.

But then they slowly got up and ambled across the street. I watched as the man grabbed at the woman’s arm and she pulled back. I was fully prepared to call 911 to report an assault if the situation escalated. But it didn’t and the couple continued on, separately, until they entered a nearby house.

My husband and I have called 911 before—once in the dead of a cold winter night during an assault and once when a young man pounded on our door seeking protection from a throng of would-be attackers pursuing him.

We don’t live in a high crime neighborhood, like Faribault has a high crime neighborhood. But our community is certainly not immune to serious crime.

Many years ago, two blocks from my house, a man was stabbed in a drug-related case. I watched as a SWAT team searched my block for the murder weapon, a knife.

Last year the SWAT team drove past my house en route to a meth house bust three blocks away.

For years, suspected drug dealers lived across the street from me.

Gang graffiti has been painted onto buildings, fences, stop signs and more as close as directly across the street from me.

I’ve attended several level three sex offender meetings with one of the offenders moving in two blocks away.

Faribault is not Mayberry R.F.D. And yesterday I was reminded of that once again.

ACCORDING TO INFORMATION published in the 2010 Faribault Police Department’s annual report, the Rice County Gang Suppression Unit “has identified 50 gangs and approximately 350 gang members with ties to the City of Faribault. Of the 350, 150 are confirmed gang members, meaning they meet at least three of ten state defined criteria.”

READERS, HOW WOULD YOU have handled the situation I faced yesterday with the suspicious young man staring at my house and then sitting on my front steps with the young woman? Should I have ignored them, done something differently?

Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Tossing the Christmas tree and welcoming spring May 6, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:46 AM
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The remains of our dried up Christmas tree, now properly disposed of at the local composting pile.

ON WEDNESDAY EVENING we tossed the Christmas tree which has been buried under snow for, oh, about six months. Well, not quite, but winter seemed to linger into half a year.

I’m serious. As recently as this morning, we had temps in the 30s and several days ago wisps of snowflakes whirled in the sky.

But enough of that. With the official disposal of the Christmas tree at the finally-opened Faribault Compost Site, I can declare that spring has finally arrived here in southeastern Minnesota.

You don’t have to simply take my word for it. Join me on this photographic tour of my yard, where spring has clearly, finally (I hope) ousted winter.

Hostas push through the soil, unfurling bright green leaves. Why does green always seem brighter in the spring?

Most of my tulips are clasped shut yet, waiting for more sun and more warmth.

A plump red tulip about to burst into bloom.

A yellow tulip edges ever closer to full blossom in the spring sunshine.

Unfurling wild raspberry leaves hold the promise of summer.

Dainty violets, so easy to overlook in the splendor of spring.

Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Faribault’s famous (formerly forgotten) flier May 4, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:00 AM
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LAST WEEK DALE “RED” JACKSON joined aviators Elizabeth Wall Strohfus, Charles Lindbergh and some 150 others in the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame.

If you’re like me, you are surprised to hear that our state has a hall of fame for aviators. I only recently learned that when Jackson was about to be inducted.

So who are Jackson and Strohfus and what qualifies them for an aviation honor?

They are two famous aviators with roots in my community of Faribault. Strohfus, who was inducted into the hall of fame in 2000, was a member of the Women’s Air Force Service Pilots during World War II. She taught instrument flying to male cadets and later ferried B-17 and AT-6 warbirds around the country, according to the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame website. Today she is a noted speaker.

As  for Jackson, he was a stunt pilot and barnstormer during the late 1920s and early 1930s. In July 1929, Jackson and St. Louis flyer Forrest O’Brine circled the city of St. Louis for some 420 hours, refueling 48 times in flight. That broke an aerial endurance record. Later they remained in flight for 647 hours (27 days), setting their second record.

On January 6, 1932, at the age of 25, Jackson was killed while stunt flying over Miami. Nicknamed the “Flying Fool,” Jackson had apparently been warned not to try stunts in the tiny Curtiss Teal amphibian he was piloting on that fateful day. As he tried to straighten the plane after a loop and dive, a wing tore off. Jackson died in the wreckage, reportedly with one hand hooked into the ripcord of his parachute.

When Jackson’s body arrived in Faribault by train from St. Louis, where an earlier memorial service had been held, an estimated 3,000 people gathered at the Rock Island Depot, according to a January 11, 1932, article in The Faribault Daily News.

Jackson is the single word on a tombstone marking the Jackson family graves in Section K, Lot 61, at Maple Lawn Cemetery in Faribault.

I nearly missed this in-ground marker for Dale Jackson, which lies about 12 feet from the family gravestone. I had to pull back the grass to reveal his first name and middle initial.

Dale Jackson's marker lies flush to the ground about a dozen feet from the Jackson family marker, between two cedar trees. I had expected a more opulent and noticeable gravesite.

Dale Jackson is buried here along with his parents, Henry and Josephine, and his wife, Selma. The Jackson family headstone stands between the two cedar trees to the right in this photo.

Given Jackson’s national and international notoriety in the aviation world, I wondered why I had never heard of him before last week. He was born in Iowa, moved here with his family and graduated from Faribault High School.  Faribault has not, as far as I am aware, shone the spotlight on this daring stunt pilot since his barnstorming days and untimely, sudden death.

Why?

I think he would be worthy of more than a marker, half covered with grass, in Maple Lawn Cemetery. I’m thinking tourism possibilities here.

For now, his Minnesota remembrance comes via that Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame induction last weekend. That’s a good start.

I wondered where this museum of sorts is located. After substantial googling, I discovered that an actual museum doesn’t exist. Rather the hall of fame consists of plaques honoring the inductees. Those hang in a secure section of the Duluth International Airport in an area inaccessible to the general public. Huh?

But that’s not all. Once a terminal renovation is completed at the Duluth airport in 2012, the plaques will need to be moved.

The Albert Lea City Council, in a motion passed in late January, has expressed an interest in bringing the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame to its community. No commitment. Just an interest right now.

In the meantime, if you want to check out aviators like Faribault’s Flying Fool, Dale “Red” Jackson, who have made it into the Minnesota Aviation Hall of Fame, you best do that online or visit Maple Lawn Cemetery.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Count me in on Roadside Poetry April 26, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:53 AM
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“We’ve selected YOUR poem for our spring Roadside Poetry installment!”

For nearly a month now, I’ve kept that exciting, boldfaced news mostly to myself, sharing it with only my immediate family, my mom and a few select friends and extended family members.

But now that the billboards are up—yes, I said billboards—I no longer feel obligated to keep this a secret.

I won the spring Roadside Poetry competition and my poem now sprawls across four billboards, Burma Shave style, 50 yards apart in Fergus Falls.

That’s it, my poem, the winning poem, which is posted along North Tower Road west of Minnesota State Community and Technical College in Fergus Falls, just down the road from Fleet Farm. Take exit 54 off I-94 on the west edge of Fergus.

Paul Carney, the project coordinator who delivered the good news to me via e-mail in early March, tells me that 100,000 vehicles drive by the billboards each month. “How’s that for readership?” he asks.

Well, mighty fine, Paul. Mighty fine.

Getting my poetry out there in this unusual, highly-public venue really is an honor for me, adding to my poems already published in two magazines and four, soon-to-be five, anthologies.

The mission of The Roadside Poetry Project “is to celebrate the personal pulse of poetry in the rural landscape,” according to roadsidepoetry.org. The first poem went up in September 2008 and was, interestingly enough, written by another Faribault resident, Larry Gavin, a writer and Faribault High School English teacher.

The poems, all seasonally-themed, change four times a year. Mine will be up through the third week of June when a summer poem replaces it. Yes, entries are currently being accepted for the summer competition.

About now you’re likely, maybe, wondering how I heard about this contest. I honestly cannot remember. But I do remember thinking, “I can do this.” So one night I sat down with a notebook and pencil and started jotting down phrases.

Like most writers, I strive to find the exact/precise/perfect/right words.

I scribbled and scratched and thought and wrote and crossed out and jotted and erased and counted and filled several notebook pages.

These poems do not simply pop, like that, into my head, onto paper.

To add to the complexity of this process, poets are tasked with creating poetic imagery that describes the wonderment of the season, all in four lines. But there’s more. Each line can include no more than 20 characters.

Now that character limitation, my friends, presents a challenge. Just when I thought I had nailed a phrase, I counted too many characters. Again and again, I had to restart until, finally, I had shaped and molded the poem I would submit.

“I love the language and the imagery,” project leader Paul said of my winning spring poem.

Honestly, when I wrote this poem, I could feel the sun warming my back as I stooped to drop slips of zinnia seeds into the cold, damp earth. Visualizing has always been a part of my creative process. Choosing the words “vernal equinox” simply seemed so much more poetic than the single, plain word, “spring.”

Even though Paul loved my poem and it fit the contest guidelines, there was a problem: Audrey Kletscher Helbling. Count and you get 23 characters and two spaces in my name, putting me five over the 20-character limit.

I understood the space limitations, but explained to Paul that I really wanted Audrey Kletscher Helbling, not Audrey Helbling, on the billboard because that’s my professional name. He agreed to see if the sign-maker could fit my full name and keep it readable. From my experience years ago writing newspaper headlines, I knew that the letters “l” and “i” took less space than other letters. The sign-maker was able to honor my request.

I haven’t been up to Fergus Falls yet to see my poem and Audrey Kletscher Helbling splashed across four billboards. But a trip will be forthcoming.

FYI: Paul Carney hopes to expand Roadside Poetry, supported in Fergus Falls by the Fergus Area College Foundation, to other locations in Minnesota. However, additional funding is needed to finance start-up, printing and other costs. If you would like to support this public art venue, have questions, need more information or wish to enter the seasonal contest, visit roadsidepoetry.org.

© Text copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Photos courtesy of Paul Carney

 

Defining Easter eggs in Seattle April 21, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:39 AM
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I spotted these over-sized Easter eggs in the front yard of a home along Second Street Northwest in Faribault.

HAVE YOU HEARD about “spring spheres,” the latest politically-correct terminology—at least on the West Coast—for Easter eggs?

Apparently a Seattle teacher would allow a high school volunteer to bring candy-filled plastic eggs into her classroom only if she called them “spring spheres.”

Now, how ridiculous is that?

As soon as the volunteer pulled the eggs out of a bag and after the teacher pronounced them “spring spheres,” the third graders promptly called them “Easter eggs.”

You can’t fool kids into believing an oval is a sphere and Easter isn’t Easter. These Seattle students clearly know their shapes, and their holidays.

More Easter decorations in that Faribault front yard.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling