Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

The humor of Hendrum November 7, 2018

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The Hendrum welcome sign is posted next to the dike.

 

WHEN MY FRIEND Tammy gave me directions to her family’s home in Hendrum, she failed to give me the exit number. Not that I expected multiple exits into this community along U.S. Highway 75. But there, on the sign welcoming me into this Red River Valley town of some 300, I read Welcome HENDRUM MINNESOTA Next 9 exits.

 

 

I laughed. Simply laughed at the absurdity of nine exits. Already I appreciated the humor of Hendrum, further expounded in the message If You Lived Here You’d be Home Now! Indeed, I would. But my home lies about five hours to the south and east in southern Minnesota, far from this community 30 miles north of Fargo-Moorhead.

 

Entering Hendrum from the south.

 

Exits into Hendrum are not exits in the sense that most would think of exits. Rather, Hendrum’s exits are the streets spoking off Highway 75 with the grain elevator, Red River and North Dakota to the west

 

 

 

 

and the business district, school, Lutheran church and residential neighborhoods to the east.

Tammy told me if we passed the dike protecting Hendrum from Red River flooding, we’d driven too far north. Only a line of trees separates my friend’s backyard from the grassy earthen dike ringing this small town. Her kids use the dike as a sledding hill. Good luck finding a natural hill anywhere near here. This place is flat.

 

Inside the entry into my friend’s house stands this statue of Bigfoot. It was a gift to her husband, who appreciates this creature that may or may not have been sighted in the area. I saw Bigfoot art on a nearby farm site. Whatever the truth, this Bigfoot art fits well with the humor of Hendrum.

 

But what Hendrum lacks perhaps in landscape appeal, it makes up for in appealing to those wanting a quiet place in which to raise a family. The median age of Hendrum residents is 37. I was delighted to see that my friend’s younger children built stick and log forts and tended chickens in a backyard coop. They’re actually outdoors, using their imaginations, playing, having fun.

 

 

This family of seven could be the poster family of Hendrum, fitting the demographic target market. The town’s website, banners EVERYTHING YOUR FAMILY NEEDS TO SHINE. That would be a low student-to-teacher ratio (although my friend’s kids are homeschooled), a strong and loyal local economy, and no traffic. I can vouch for that lack of traffic congestion.

The creative who put together the city’s website recognizes the strengths of this town:

Our commuters bask in their own quiet retreat, leaving the traffic and hustle in the rearview mirror every day as they head home.

Unlike other small communities surrounding Fargo-Moorhead, Hendrum resides on a quiet MN highway—not a thoroughfare of hurried weekend traffic.

We’re a small community of farmers, bankers, teachers and friends, and we’d love to show you around our neighborhood. We’re the first town with a speed limit north of Moorhead on Highway 75. Come take a tour… you’ll be home before you know it.

Just take one of the nine exits into town…

© Copyright 2018 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

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Beyond salad, a Minnesota Halloween horror story October 31, 2018

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I’M NOT A BIG FAN of scary anything. Reality is scary enough. So if you want to talk about things that go bump in the night, exclude me from the conversation.

Yet, when Halloween rolls around, it’s pretty difficult to avoid that which frightens. Right now, as I write, I look out my office window across the street to a Scream face. I’ve never seen the movie, or whatever, that features this character. But I recognize the image as something meant to frighten.

I can’t exactly stride across the street and yank the cloth from my neighbor’s front yard tree. That wouldn’t be nice. But if I had little kids…

Kid talk brings to mind a particularly memorable Halloween from my youth. As a member of the Junior Legion Auxiliary, I attended a Halloween party held in the basement of the local veterinarian’s house. Can you see where this is going?

 

Minnesota Prairie Roots file photo of grapes in a Minnesota vineyard. Grapes used for wine, not salad.

 

The vet’s daughter blindfolded me and then asked me to touch something. “Cow eyeballs,” she said. Now you can only imagine how horrifying that experience to an impressionable elementary-aged girl. As my fingertips landed on the cold orbs and those frightening words were uttered, I shrieked. Cold grapes feel an awful lot like cow eyeballs, let me tell you. Not that I’ve ever touched a cow’s eyeballs.

Likewise, cold spaghetti feels like guts. I don’t know that I touched anything else in that vet’s basement after that. But the experience has stuck with me as a particularly memorable Halloween.

And, yes, I eat grapes.

TELL ME: I’d like to hear your memorable Halloween stories. Keep in mind that I’m not a big fan of scary.

NOW, IF YOU’RE WONDERING about the title of this piece, flash back to November 2014 when a New York Times reporter wrote an article listing the Thanksgiving recipes that “evoke each of the 50 states.” For Minnesota, he chose Grape Salad. That unleashed The Grapes of Wrath from Minnesotans who found that an absurd choice for our state. Most of us, but not all, had never heard of, let alone eaten, Grape Salad. Oh, the horror of eating cow’s eyeballs.

© Copyright 2018 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

What’s the point of this message from Blue Point? June 28, 2018

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SOMETIMES I WONDER, what don’t I understand? What am I not getting here?

 

 

Isn’t it obvious that when you want to drink a bottle of beer, you need to twist or pop off the cap?

 

 

Maybe it’s an attempt at creative and memorable marketing via humor. That must be the reason New York-based Blue Point Brewing prints Please Remove Bottle Cap Before Drinking on a bottle neck label. Website content convinces me this may be the case. I’m not amused by some of the words published there. But then I’m not a New York brewer.

 

 

Now take a turn. Tell me why you think Please Remove Bottle Cap Before Drinking is printed on Blue Point bottles. Or tell me about an off-the-wall message you’ve read on a label or on packaging.

© Copyright 2018 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Healing & hospital humor, Part II June 26, 2018

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Me, the day before surgery, with my hair cut easy-care short. The praying woman oil painting behind me was done by my friend Rhody Yule (now deceased) and hangs on my living room wall.

 

SURGERY DONE. CHECK.

Healing and recovery. In progress.

With a plate screwed into my broken left wrist during surgery Monday morning at District One Hospital Allina Health, Faribault, I am now moving toward mending the bone I broke after falling on rain-slicked wooden steps at a friends’ house 10 days ago.

This marks my second simultaneous summer with a broken bone In late May 2017, I missed the bottom step on a hospital stairway, plunged into the concrete floor and broke my right shoulder. And, yes, that would be the very same hospital where I underwent surgery yesterday morning. That May evening a year ago, I was on my way to donate blood. Yesterday a nurse asked if I would accept a transfusion if needed. I didn’t require one. But the nurse wondered aloud if you get free units of blood if you’re a donor. Nope, not that I know.

 

 

Her comment sparked from a document I created on my computer and brought to the hospital for my surgeon yesterday. Dr. Bryan Armitage has a great sense of humor or I wouldn’t have crafted the Frequent Flyer Discount card I handed to him. He was ready with a quick suggestion to submit my “one free surgery after 10 visits” card to the billing department given he just does the surgery. I persuaded him to accept the card, which he intends to hang above his office desk.

You have to find humor in a serious situation. And, believe me, I needed laughter yesterday prior to surgery.

On a serious note, I am grateful for the skills, compassion and care of my entire medical team. Seasoned nurse Kris and about to graduate nurse Shelby provided excellent pre op and post op care. And there’s that I just do the surgery orthopedic surgeon who worked his magic. I am grateful to all the reassuring (no, you won’t be awake during surgery, I promise) staff who cared for me during my six-hour outpatient hospital stay.

And I am grateful to my husband, Randy, for his attentive and loving care. He’s the best.

Likewise, I appreciate the many prayers and well wishes; cards, gifts and food sent and delivered (thanks, especially, to my niece Amber for the meals); and for the flowers from my wonderful husband. I feel so loved.

 

Me, several hours after surgery. I’m so happy to have more of my fingers exposed.

Other than being overly tired and experiencing some pain, swelling and tingling, I am doing remarkably well. Given my dislike of pain meds, I am taking only the minimum dosage paired with icing and elevating. That plan is working thus far.

That’s the latest from here as I continue in recovery mode.

One more thing: I weighed 20 pounds less on the hospital surgery scale than I did on the ER scale nine days prior. Vindicated for the third time. Read all about that miraculous weight loss by clicking here.

© copyright 2018 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Hospital humor June 19, 2018

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My splinted and bandaged broken left arm, elevated.

 

I DON’T WANT TO DWELL on the case of the broken arm. But I thought you would appreciate some humor related to my recent fall and subsequent left radius break. I need to laugh about ruining two simultaneous summers or I’d feel overwhelmingly blue.

Let’s start with my ER visit. I offer high praise to the staff of Allina Health District One Hospital in Faribault for the wonderful care. And I love the newly redone ER, which offers way more patient privacy.

But I don’t love the scale or the importance of securing my health insurance card, photo ID and weight before getting me a room and medical attention. Upon my arrival shortly before noon on Saturday, I wanted only to keep from passing out (due to hyperventilating) and to get relief from my pain. But first things first. Get this woman a wheelchair. Get the necessary info and then wheel her onto a scale. I expect this is all procedural protocol. But when you’re in excruciating pain, you wanted help yesterday and your weight does not seem particularly important.

 

My bathroom scale. Accurate or not?

 

About now, you’re thinking there’s nothing humorous in this story. Ah, but there is. The hospital scale showed me weighing nearly 20 pounds more than my scale at home. I told the nurse so. She ignored my protest and recorded the weight. I was mad. Later I would weigh myself at home. The difference—17 pounds. I expect maybe a several-pound difference. But almost 20 pounds? I lost 20 pounds more than a year ago and have managed to keep off that weight. I weigh myself regularly. And my clothes still have a much looser fit. Plus, the scale is relatively new and has matched weights from previous clinic visits.

My husband just laughs. Although he agrees that the hospital scale is way off (or he’d be 17 pounds heavier, too), he laughs at how mad I am about it. As the saying goes, don’t add insult to injury. Literally.

PLEASE CHECK BACK tomorrow for another humorous take on my broken arm story.

Copyright 2018 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Yes, I eat ice cream in winter & here’s my new favorite in name & taste January 5, 2018

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AS A WORDSMITH, I appreciate creative marketing. And that defines a new line of ice cream sold at Fareway Foods, a Midwest grocer with a store in my community.

Fareway is unique among grocers. The business is closed on Sundays, following the company philosophy that Sunday should be a day of rest and a time for families to be together.

That business value explains the name Cookie Doughn’t Work on Sundays, a cookie dough flavor in the new Fareway Premium Ice Cream made by Blue Bunny. How clever is that doughn’t?

Other names include You Had Me At Cheesecake, Better Choco-late Than Never, my favorite (in taste, that is) Truffle Shuffle Salty Caramel and more. The salty caramel pairs perfectly with apple crisp.

Winter isn’t exactly prime ice cream season in cold Minnesota. But that doesn’t stop me from grabbing a carton of Fareway’s new, since May, branded ice cream. The names got me initially. Kudos, marketing team. But the taste and price have made me a repeat customer.

TELL ME: Have you come across an especially memorable marketing name for a food product? I’d like to hear.

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Oddities at the Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Show, Part III September 8, 2017

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Rows and rows of vintage tractors are a main attraction at the Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Show.

 

WHEN I’M OUT and about with my camera whether at an event or simply exploring a small town or other setting, I often seek out the off-the-wall, the unusual, the humorous. The Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Show in rural Dundas offers all three. I appreciate the creativity and humor displayed there. In these troubling and difficult times, we need diversions. We need laughter.

So I targeted seven scenes that grabbed my photographic attention in the categories of odd, funny, weird and, most certainly, creative. Take a look.

 

 

At the flea market, I noticed a fake bloody hand positioned next to vintage saws. Randy suggested we buy the appendage to gift to my sister at her annual Halloween-themed autumn soup party. The hand, the vendor said, was not for sale. His sister staged it next to the saws as a marketing gimmick. I’d like to meet his sister and introduce her to mine.

 

 

 

 

Then there’s Mike, who brought his 1930 Model A to the show. Typically one expects shiny restored cars showcased by proud owners. The Northfield man’s vintage Ford, though, is riddled with bullet holes. On purpose. After paying $800 for the car, Mike was advised that the decrepit Ford was not worth the $30K he would spend to properly refurbish it. Not to be discouraged, Mike and a friend shot up the Model A then created a story about Jesse James III killing two bank tellers while robbing a southern Missouri bank in 1932. The car was his get-away vehicle. Now the bullet-riddled Ford and the accompanying legend garner more interest than if Mike had spent all that money restoring his car.

 

 

Parked next to the Model A was yet another original—a customized Ford Courier pick-up transformed into a double-headed car by the crafty Andy’s Auto Body of Webster. That turned a few heads, including mine. And made me laugh.

 

 

Not everyone was laughing at the toy John Deere tractor George Pinc placed inside a jar atop his Farmall tractor. He got a less than courteous comment from a show attendee. George didn’t care. He’s not a loyal-to-one-brand type of guy. But he assuredly is a man with a sense of humor.

 

 

I don’t know the story behind the horns clamped to the top of another tractor. But the add-on caused me to smile.

 

 

And then, as I walked between rows of tractors, I noticed a boy (I think Mike’s son) on a banana seat bike towing a cooler. Again, I just had to smile at the ingenuity. Got a problem? Solve it.

 

 

Finally, there’s the water bottle. By itself, tucked in the crook of a tree, it means nothing. But there’s a story. I watched a guy stretch and place the bottle in the vee. Before he entered a porta potty. How smart is that? Got a problem? Solve it.

Sometimes in life you have to think and act beyond the expected and laugh. Just laugh.

© Copyright 2017 Audrey Kletscher Helbling