Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Sprinkler gymnastics on the Fourth and more family fun July 7, 2011

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The winning team in the bean bag toss is quite obvious.

NAME SOMETHING PEOPLE save money for.

How many times does your mom have to tell you to do something before it gets done?

Name something you write down to remember.

If you know the answers (see below) to those Family Feud style questions, then you should have been at my middle brother’s home in southwestern Minnesota on Sunday. We sparred in a brief version of this television game show with young family members competing against old, “old” being anyone 50 or older.

Settled onto our lawn chairs on the driveway in front of the garage, one member of each team stepped up to a cooler, introduced themselves and then poised with hands behind backs awaiting the question. Lacking a buzzer to buzz, we substituted a plastic gallon of cheese balls plopped upon a cooler. Slap the cheese ball lid cover first and your team plays first.

If I hadn’t been so intent on winning this game, I may have thought to take pictures of the cheese ball container slapping contestants.

However, I took plenty of photos of the earlier sprinkler gymnastics. I refrained from that activity until later, at the exact moment one gymnast grabbed the sprinkler and ran onto the patio spraying all non-participants, including my 79-year-old mom. Just before that happened, I had decided to join the sprinkler crew. Timing is everything.

When you view these sprinkler gymnastics images, you will understand why I hesitated initially to join the group. I did not want to risk a leap onto water-slicked grass. Nor did I want to appear too foolish in that YouTube video my nephew-in-law was filming.

My extended family doesn't just nilly willy run through a sprinkler. Oh, no. We make it into a game. In this case, follow the leader. Whatever the leader does, you do.

From the youngest participant at age 17 to...

...one of the oldest sprinkler gymnasts at age 50.

Ah, my extended family loves to have fun.

Later, not long after the sun set on the Minnesota prairie, out came the sparklers. More fun. More laughter. More memories.

Sparkler fun for the younger ones.

Combine sparklers and a slow shutter speed and you get some interesting images.

I can’t think of anywhere else I would rather celebrate Independence Day than with my extended family on the land I love most, southwestern Minnesota.

After we shoot "nice" photos, we always like to do a fun photo. I am in the back row in the grass green shirt. Can you tell which of us were teens in the 1970s? (Hint: See the symbol we're making with two fingers. You would think we could be more creative.) All family members, except me, shall remain unidentified.

HOW DID YOU CELEBRATE your Fourth of July?

HERE ARE THE TOP answers to the three questions posed at the beginning of this post:

Vacation, two times and phone numbers.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Reflections on Independence Day July 4, 2011

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A flag and portrait of George Washington at the former District 20 Millersburg School, now a museum.

“I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

As a child, my school days began with that pledge. My classmates and I arose from our desks at Vesta Elementary School, turned toward the American flag in the corner, placed our hands across our hearts, fixed our eyes upon the stars and stripes, and recited the pledge in unison.

I doubt we ever thought too much about the rote words we spoke. They were simply part of our routine, something we did, although I do recall feeling a sense of pride in speaking those words daily.

So much has changed in the decades since then. The Pledge of Allegiance, in most cases, has been banned from public schools in the name of political correctness. We are no longer one nation under God. While the U.S. remains one country, we as individuals are certainly divided in our views of anything and everything. That’s as it should be in a democracy. Liberty and justice have managed to prevail.

As we celebrate our nation’s Independence Day, it would be wise for all Americans to reflect on the Pledge and the words of other documents and songs that focus on the flag and freedom.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—The Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4, 1776

Vietnam veteran Joel Kukacka's patriotic garage in the hamlet of Heidelberg, Minnesota.

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?—The Star Spangled Banner

An American flag painted on a shed in Dundas in southeastern Minnesota.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.—The Bill of Rights, Amendment I

Weeks after a devastating Sept. 2010 flash flood in Hammond, in southeastern Minnesota, an American flag marked a ravaged business.

God bless America,
Land that I love,
Stand beside her and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above;

From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans white with foam,
God bless America,
My home, sweet home.
God bless America,
My home, sweet home.

Flags decorate a vintage tractor at the Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Show near Dundas.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The patriotic traditions of Memorial Day in Minnesota May 31, 2011

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Boy Scouts march down Faribault's Central Avenue, giving away small American flags, on Memorial Day.

A member of the Color Guard salutes at the Memorial Day program in Central Park.

YES, DEAR READERS, I have yet another Memorial Day post to share with you. But I cannot help myself. My parents reared me to respect this day as a time to honor our war dead.

Every year of my childhood, we attended the Memorial Day program in my hometown of Vesta on the southwestern Minnesota prairie. I continued that tradition with my children by taking them each year to the Memorial Day parade in Faribault.

It is a tradition my husband and I continue, minus the kids—two of whom are grown and gone and the third a teen that cannot be roused from bed for the 10 a.m. parade.

Now I smile at the young families who gather along the curb in downtown Faribault to watch the veterans and Boy Scouts, the old cars and horses, the Girl Scouts and the Shattuck-St. Mary’s crack squad, the police cars and fire truck and marching bands.

Little hands reach for American flags distributed by the walking, sometimes running, Boy Scouts.

Clutched fists wave American flags.

It’s all so patriotic.

After the parade, the crowd gathers at nearby Central Park for more patriotism and I am reminded of my dad, a Korean War vet, who marched so many times with his Color Guard in parades and programs.

In the park bandshell, the guests of honor sit, rise and tell us they have little to say before offering these words:

“Your wars aren’t all won on the battlefield. They’re also won at home.”

“If you know a veteran, just say, ‘thank you.’ It means so much to them—something Vietnam vets were short of.”

“I salute all veterans here.”

“God bless everybody.”

“God bless America.”

The Color Guard leads the way in the Faribault Memorial Day parade.

These Boy Scouts seem a bit indecisive, while other Boy Scouts race toward the crowd to hand out American flags.

Every year the Boy Scouts give away flags during the parade.

A veteran and others wait for the Memorial Day program to start at Central Park.

The Color Guard advances and the Memorial Day observance begins in Central Park.

The Color Guard soldiers salute. Emcee and radio announcer Gordy Kosfeld, on stage at the podium, will later tell us: "Memorial Day should be a time of reflection, not a holiday."

A strong wind blew the Color Guard flags set next to the bandshell stage at Central Park.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Memorial Day at Cannon City May 30, 2011

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About 30 people gather at the Cannon City Cemetery for an afternoon Memorial Day observance.

IN THE SHELTER of the spruce, of the pines, we formed a semi circle, clustered together in this small country cemetery to honor the veterans buried here, 22 of them from the Civil War.

Ezekiel and Samuel. Spencer and Charles. Henry and Theodore. Emcee Mel Sanborn read the list of names as the wind whipped his words into sometimes inaudible, unintelligible syllables at the Cannon City Cemetery.

Since the late teens or early 1920s, folks have gathered in this Rice County cemetery every Memorial Day, initially called “Decoration Day,” to honor the war dead. Civil War veteran Elijah Walrod was quoted as saying that his son Luther “would strike up the Death March and lead the procession” from the nearby Cannon City School, along the country road to the cemetery.

School children—some of them in attendance at the 2011 Memorial Day observance—once marched with flags and flower bouquets and lilac wreaths and then, afterward, celebrated at the school picnic.

When the school closed in the 1960s, the Cannon City Cemetery Board took over the annual Memorial Day observance, a tradition that continues today, minus the Death March from the country school. It is an unpretentious, informal program that is touching and moving and heartfelt. Americana through and through.

My husband and I came here on this muggy afternoon to experience a small-town Memorial Day observance. We were the strangers among those who had grown up here and had loved ones buried in this ground butted against the rich black soil of farm fields.

Yet, we were welcomed like family and I felt as if I had stepped back in time to the Memorial Day observances of my youth—the days of patriotic songs and playing of taps and reading of “In Flanders Fields.” I mouthed the words silently: “In Flanders Fields the poppies grow between the crosses row on row…” These poetic lines I knew nearly from heart, having recited them as a young girl on the stage of the Vesta Community Hall some 125 miles from this cemetery.

As Don Chester strummed his guitar and clamped his harmonica, we sang “My country, ‘Tis of Thee” “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and other patriotic songs.

Bob (didn't get his last name) sings as Don and Judy Chester lead the group in song. Bob attended Cannon City School and participated in Memorial Day programs here as a student.

Song sheets were handed out to attendees. Here Mel Sanborn sings "The Battle Hymn of the Republic."

When Steve Bonde blasted “The Star Spangled Banner” on his trumpet, we sang along, turned toward the flag at the cemetery entrance, the brass quelling voices that drifted away with the word-flogging wind.

It mattered not how well or how loudly the 30 or so of us sang. It mattered not that a young girl darted inside the semi circle to pluck a dandelion from the grass. It mattered not that the occasional airplane droned out our voices. We were focused on the songs, “The Gettysburg Address” read by Audrey Sanborn Johnson, and, finally, Bonde’s mournful playing of taps.

Long-time Cannon City resident Bob respectfully removes his cowboy hat during the playing of taps, a tribute that moves me to tears.

When the final note ended, the small group drifted, scattering across the cemetery to visit the graves of loved ones. I wandered, drawn by American flags to the final resting places of veterans. Names I did not know in an unfamiliar cemetery I was walking for the first time.

After the program, attendees visited gravesites.

Yet, despite the unfamiliarity with this place or these people, I felt connected to them by the reason I was here—to reflect upon the sacrifices made by so many American men and women in defense of our freedom. America. Land of the free and home of the brave.

A flag waves in the wind on a soldier's grave.

A star marks a veteran's tombstone.

Can anyone explain the symbolism of these clasped hands on a veteran's grave?

A flag marks the entrance to the Cannon City Cemetery.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The veterans of Vesta

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 4:12 PM
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A flag placed on a veteran's grave at the Vesta Cemetery in southwestern Minnesota.

EARTH MEETS SKY HERE.

On this Memorial Day weekend, I have come to this hilltop cemetery outside of my hometown of Vesta in southwestern Minnesota to remember.

I walk the rows, between the tombstones, lean in close, read the names, memories only a thought away.

My focus is on my father and the other veterans buried here whose names I know, whose stories of war I will never fully know.

An in-ground marker honors my father, Elvern Kletscher, a Korean War veteran and recipient of the Purple Heart for wounds he suffered at Heartbreak Ridge in Korea.

How did they feel leaving family and farm? Were they scared? Were they honored to serve their country? Did they yearn for home as they shouldered their weapons? Did they leave as boys, come home as men? Were they scarred by war, forever changed?

I wondered as strong prairie winds whipped flags attached to white wooden crosses. So many flags. So many graves of men who’ve served.

If only I’d asked them to tell me their stories, these men whom I’d never thought of as soldiers, until I saw their graves marked by crosses and stars and American flags.

The local American Legion marks veterans' graves with white crosses.

Barb Schmidt teaches her grandchildren about their ancestors as they place flowers on the graves of loved ones Saturday evening at the Vesta Cemetery.

Set atop a hill, the wind catches the flags marking vets' graves.

I was surprised by the number of veterans buried in the Vesta Cemetery, their graves marked by small flags attached to white crosses. This photo shows only one small portion of the graveyard.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Defining Easter eggs in Seattle April 21, 2011

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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

 

Time for Santa to return to the North Pole March 22, 2011

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Apparently, the elf (or Santa) to the left of the door has turned his back on winter. I love this vintage style door, the inviting front porch, the look of this house. But, time to put away the Christmas decor and decorate for spring.

HERE IT IS, three months after Christmas and already three days into spring and many houses in my southeastern Minnesota community are still decorated for Christmas.

Drive through nearly any neighborhood and you’ll spot holiday lights sagging from roof lines, once-green evergreen wreaths and garlands aging to dried, brown perfection, and reindeer prancing on rooftops.

 

A wreath well past its prime decorates the front of a Faribault house along with a string of holiday lights.

I even saw a Christmas tree tossed onto a front porch. Ours is buried somewhere under a melting snow bank.

Santa and Mrs. Claus, perhaps finding our Minnesota winter remarkably like that at the North Pole, have been vacationing here since early December.

 

Time for Santa and Mrs. Claus to pack it up and leave Faribault.

Surprisingly Mary and Joseph have not retreated to the Holy Land either as I saw them in a front yard only blocks from my home.

So what gives here? I mean, doesn’t it seem ridiculous to you that Christmas decorations are still up in late March? It’s spring, for gosh sakes.

 

The wreath has fallen from the door onto the steps, but the holiday garland and ribbons remain in place.

But this year I expect the lengthy display of Christmas holiday cheer has more to do with the weather than laziness on the part of Faribault residents. Because of the heavy snowfall we’ve had this season, residents couldn’t get to their Santas and Holy families and reindeer herds that were buried in deep, deep snow.

Who wants to trudge through thigh-high snow in sub-zero temps to rescue Santa after blowing or shoveling out the driveway, sidewalk and car more times than you can remember? It’s easier just to leave all of the holiday decorations until the snow melts and temperatures reach a comfortable level.

Well, Faribault residents, with the snow disappearing and temperatures rising into the 40s, now would be the time to muck your way across the lawn, pluck Santa from the ground and stow him away until November.

For those of you tempted to leave your Christmas lights on your house year-round, I have one word for you. Don’t.

 

And just when I thought I had seen everything, I came across this Faribault home, where Christmas lights still ring a tree trunk, flowers "bloom" in a window box and snow covers the ground. Oh, and if you look closely, you'll see Christmas bulbs strung inside, along the windows.

Now, time to fess up. On Saturday, the day before spring started, I removed this holiday decoration from my back door.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The valentines of yesteryear February 14, 2011

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MY MOM IS A PACKRAT, a saver, a keeper.

Many, many times I’ve bemoaned her saving of Styrofoam meat trays, shoeboxes, twisty ties, bread bags and other such trashable or recyclable stuff. Why does she keep this, I wonder, and then answer my own question. She lived during The Depression. She understands the meaning of “Waste not, want not” and “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

I’ll never change her ways, so it’s best, for the most part, simply to accept that she will save anything and everything.

And sometimes I’m glad she does because I’ve come to appreciate links to the past, like the valentines she displays each year in her living room.

Aren’t they beautiful? I can’t even begin to compare the valentines of today to the valentines of yesteryear.

A car valentine belonging to my mom.

 

Another of my mom's vintage pop-up valentines.

Roses define this valentine my mom received decades ago.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Who needs a sitcom January 16, 2011

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Tonight FOX 9 television news anchor Jeff Passolt provided a moment of humor in the 9 p.m. newscast.

Weatherman Ian Leonard was giving the weather forecast for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. However, the meteorologist struggled with the holiday name, calling it “Martin Luther Junior King Day,” as he predicted a one-day thaw for Monday.

He realized his error and even called attention to his mistake, which was the right and graceful thing to do considering the importance of this day honoring Civil Rights leader King.

Then, as the television camera switched back to Passolt, the anchor directed a comment to Leonard: “You might want to thaw out your mouth too.”

Thanks, guys, for making me laugh during the news. That happens so infrequently these days.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Three dumb moments December 20, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:30 AM
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HAVE YOU EVER SAID, done or believed something that ranks as stupid/dumb/unbelievable, etc., and shortly thereafter realized your mistake/stupidity/gullibility?

Of course you have, and so have I, plenty of times.

In recent days, I’ve had too many of those moments. Can I blame it on holiday stress, lack of sleep or maybe, more truthfully, myself?

We’ll start with Sunday morning church. As the offering plate is passed down my pew, I hand it along to my husband, who typically pulls our offering envelope from his dress shirt pocket and drops it into the plate.

But he’s not doing that. He’s sitting there holding the collection plate, looking at me with one of those looks that only a spouse can give his/her spouse. We’ve been married long enough that I knew exactly what I hadn’t done.

I unzipped my purse, reached inside and grabbed what I thought was the offering envelope and nearly dropped it into the plate before realizing I was offering God $10 off on a $25 purchase at J.C. Penney.

Later Sunday, apparently still in that dumb mode and while dining with my extended family at a soup lunch I hosted, I was convinced by two brothers-in-law that another brother-in-law had scooped the beets for the borscht from the highway. That would be as in sugar beets that had fallen from an overloaded truck.

Why I believed the pair is beyond me. You would think that after nearly 30 years of knowing these two guys I would realize they are sometimes full of…, well, you know. So I asked the brother-in-law who made the beet-laced borscht (soup) if this was true. Of course it wasn’t and a dozen guests had a good laugh at my expense.

Perhaps my recent dumbest moment occurred a few days ago when I was talking with my second-born, who recently moved to Wisconsin. I asked if, when she was Christmas shopping, she could look for a Minnesota Twins long-sleeved shirt for her sister. I couldn’t find any in Faribault and did not want to run all over the area shopping for one given I detest shopping.

“Um, Mom,” she replied. “I don’t think I’m going to find a Twins shirt in Wisconsin. Maybe a Green Bay Packers shirt.”

Honestly, these stories are all true. Really, could I make up anything as stupid/dumb/unbelievable?

IF YOU ARE INTERESTED in publicly sharing any of your similar memorable moments, submit a comment. With the stress of the holidays, we could all use a few more laughs.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling