Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

From shy teen to confident artist, entertainer & business woman August 21, 2012

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Jodi Gustafson of Big Shoe Entertainment begins transforming young Owen’s face into a Ghost Rider’s skull mask at the recent Blue Collar BBQ & Arts Fest in Faribault.

IMAGINING 37-YEAR-OLD JODI GUSTAFSON—also known as Lollipop the Clown, Jenius Strangeways or the proprietor of Big Shoe Entertainment and Jodelle’s Finery—as a once shy teen weaving down the hallways of Richfield and Coon Rapids high schools seems an impossibility.

But this vivacious and confident small business owner, whom I met at the recent Blue Collar BBQ & Arts Fest in Faribault where she was transforming faces through her stunning full face painting, reveals an adolescent timidness that contradicts her very public professions.

“I hated being shy,” said Gustafson, who recalls turning red if anyone so much as said “hi” to her. Determined to overcome that shyness, she eventually, and purposefully, chose a job with the United Way which involved public speaking.

“I knew I would never change if I didn’t get out of my comfort zone.”

That decision proved pivotal for Gustafson when a company wanted a carnival theme for its campaign but couldn’t afford to hire a clown. Gustafson volunteered, thinking clowning couldn’t be all that difficult. She was wrong, but continued anyway with the clowning which led to painting cheek art and then, with the encouragement of Cindy Trusty of Cindy’s Creative Celebrations, to full face painting and finally the official formation of Big Shoe Entertainment in the early 2000s.

Owen’s half-mask skull evolves under Gustafson’s skillful hands. She contracts her work for community and private events (such as birthday parties) and with corporations (such as for company picnics).

Today this mother of three (ages three to 17) operates two successful small businesses from her Bloomington home. Big Shoe Entertainment, encompassing clowning, balloon twisting, airbrushed and glitter tattoos, henna and crazy hair, but primarily full face painting, keeps her crazy busy, especially during the summer, with gigs throughout Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin. The pace slows during the other seasons.

An assortment of the make-up, all with FDA-approved ingredients and meant to be used on the body and face, which Gustafson uses for face painting.

In anywhere from one to five minutes Gustafson, with brushes and make-up pads and an array of colorful make-up, can transform a face into a work of art. She’s morphed five billion faces, she exaggerates, into butterflies, and also creates lots of flowers and princesses, and masks such as skull, dragon and Mardi Gras.

She especially enjoys painting “gore” faces, but seldom has the opportunity.

Owen sits perfectly still as Gustafson paints. Some kids squirm or won’t close their eyes, meaning she sometimes needs to adjust her work to eliminate painting around the eyes or needs to explain step by step what she is doing. Typically, Gustafson doesn’t talk while painting faces.

She’s always learning—from videos, books, classes and practice. That practice includes painting designs all over her arms and legs while relaxing at home in front of the television. Gustafson puts her own spin on existing patterns via color choices and painting style, defining her work as her own in a profession that’s becoming more saturated. Yet, most are not at her level of expertise, she says, in an honest, but not boastful, way.

Gustafson works with two agents and occasionally hires independent contractors to assist at events where she can’t handle the volume solo. She’s picky, though, and chooses only the best artists.

American Family Insurance of Faribault sponsored free full face painting by Gustafson at the recent Blue Collar BBQ & Arts Fest. Lines were long. Gustafson painted for five hours, averaging 20 – 25 faces per hour. If she returns next year, she’ll bring another painter, she says, to shorten those lines.

All of this is interesting given Gustafson early on was intimidated by full face painting. Clearly she’s not anymore as she works with the swiftness and assurance of a skilled artist. She always had an interest in art, she says, but not the confidence. She took art classes in high school and moved on to painting still lifes in acrylic on canvas, something she has no time for now.

Besides mothering and operating Big Shoe Entertainment, Gustafson also owns Jodelle’s Finery, specializing in Renaissance and Victorian “garb.” That’s her term, “garb,” referencing the durable period clothing she fashions, as opposed to “costumes,” for the Minnesota Renaissance Festival and steam punk events. (Steam punk fashion, since I didn’t know and perhaps you don’t either, is Victorian clothing with a technological, sci-fi twist.)

Even Jodelle’s Finery, in typical Gustafson fashion, has an interesting beginning. When pregnant with her middle child, Gustafson was feeling quite domestic and taught herself to sew. Her first project was a baby quilt. Today she’s advanced to sewing that garb for others and for her role as the street performer Jenius Strangeways at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival.

Yes, this once shy teen morphed into an actress too—role playing at the Renaissance and on the stages of community theaters in Faribault (where she lived until moving to Bloomington in June), Owatonna and Northfield.

“I don’t like to be still,” claims Gustafson, who before she took on the Renaissance acting gig two years ago, worked in shops at the Minnesota festival.

Owen’s skull face mask is almost done.

Yet, in the middle of all that public busyness of painting faces and clowning and acting, Gustafson says she still occasionally slips back in to the quiet, nervous and shy Jodi of years past. That happens, she explains, if she’s not role-playing and doesn’t know anyone at an event she’s working.

Mostly, though, she’s made a choice to get past her shyness, to be the strong and confident woman who paints faces, entertains and clothes entertainers via her two successful businesses.

Owen opens his eyes for the great reveal.

FYI: Jodi Gustafson doesn’t have a website for Big Shoe Entertainment, so don’t bother trying to find one. You may contact her via email at gusjodi@gmail.com or call her at (952) 215-4544. You can also check out her Jodelle’s Finery Facebook page by clicking here.

I initially developed this post idea to showcase Gustafson’s full face painting because I was so impressed by her work. But when I interviewed her about a week later and learned how she overcame her shyness, that became the real story. I hope you will be inspired, as I am, by Gustafson’s determination to overcome an obstacle, change and pursue her passions in life as her professions.

Gustafson transformed Isaac into a tiger at the Faribault festival.

Isabella, 7, of Faribault, became a dalmatian under Gustafson’s crafting. Butterflies and dalmatians proved the most popular paintings chosen by attendees at the Faribault fest.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

My thoughts written on day two as an empty nester August 20, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:57 AM
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“YOU SHOULD CARRY ME across the threshold,” I suggested as I waited on the back stoop for him to unlock the door.

He inserted the key into the lock, then turned and looked at me. “It’s like starting over, isn’t it?”

And so a new phase begins in our lives. At this precise moment I am not embracing it, this becoming an empty nester after 26 ½ years of children under our roof.

I am sad and tired and exhausted from lack of sleep and am a bit of an emotional mess. How did my husband and I, 30 years married, arrive, snap, just like that, at this point of coming full circle back to only the two of us?

The son, moving into his dorm room at North Dakota State University.

Saturday morning we delivered our 18-year-old and his van full of belongings to the second floor of Johnson Hall at North Dakota State University in Fargo. (Or, more accurately, the energetic NDSU move-in crew carried everything from the lawn, down the sidewalk, up the stairs and to our son’s corner room at the tunnel end of a hallway.)

Leaving Fargo late Saturday morning, 285 miles from our Faribault home.

As cliché as it sounds, this truly marked for me a bittersweet moment of mixed emotions—realizing I’d done my part to raise our boy and now I had to trust him to make it on his own in a town, at a school,  5 ½ hours away.

I don’t care how many children you’ve left at college—and I’ve already seen my daughters, 26 and 24, through four years of post-secondary education and entry into the workforce—it is not easy to leave your kids, these children you’ve nourished and loved and held and cherished for 18 years. Not easy at all.

I’ve even been known to say, “I should have locked you kids in the basement and not let you go anywhere.”

Of course, I don’t mean that. I wouldn’t want any of my children to feel afraid or insecure or unable to set out on their own because I selfishly desired to keep them close. I have raised them to be strong, independent, venturesome adults.

When my eldest announced during her first semester of college that she would be going on a mission trip to Paraguay during spring break, I may have used that “should have locked you in the basement” phrase in the same breath as asking, “Where the heck is Paraguay?”

Then when her sister, several years later, said that she would be studying abroad in Argentina for fall semester, I muttered, “…should have locked you in the basement.”

When the son decided to join his high school Spanish class on a spring break trip to Spain, I mumbled to myself “…locked you in the basement.”

Humor helps when you are parenting, in those times when you don’t want your child to realize just how difficult it is to let go. I doubt, though, that I’ve ever totally fooled my three.

I am proud of myself, though, for never leaving a college dorm room in tears. I can be strong when I need to be, when my child needs me to be.

But I cried twice in the weeks before the son’s college departure date and he assured me, “Mom, it’s OK to be sad.” He was right.

My sons’ empty bed, which caused me to break down upon my arrival home Sunday afternoon.

And then I cried on Sunday, upon our arrival home from that weekend journey to Fargo. I walked into my boy’s upstairs bedroom and saw the rumpled sheets, his matted white teddy bear…and reality struck me. He’s gone.

I walked downstairs, told my husband I’d had my sad moment. Then I broke down and cried, deep wrenching sobs, and Randy wrapped his arms around me and held me.

Perhaps tomorrow he will carry me across the threshold.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Remembering the quotes of 35W bridge collapse survivor Garrett Ebling August 4, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:39 AM
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YOU’VE LIKELY SEEN HIM on the news this week, perhaps read about him in a newspaper article. He would be Garrett Ebling, survivor of the 35W bridge collapse.

I’ve never met Garrett, although we have communicated, first after my son was struck by a hit-and-run driver near my Faribault home in May of 2006. Garrett was managing editor of The Faribault Daily News then and showed such compassion and concern for my son and our family.

The following year, not long after the bridge collapse, Garrett and I would reconnect. This time I was on the other end, offering him compassion, concern and prayers as he battled to recover from severe injuries sustained when his car plunged from the bridge into the Mississippi River.

His fortitude impressed me then and still does.

Shortly after, I asked Garrett if he would share his experiences and thoughts with me for a magazine article. He agreed, granting me one of only a few interview requests he accepted. The result was a feature story which published in the November/December 2007 issue of Minnesota Moments. Garrett answered my questions via email given his jaw was wired shut or had recently been unwired, I can’t recall now which. That interview process worked best given his tenuous physical and emotional condition.

The story also included information and quotes from phone interviews with his rescuer, Rick Kraft of St. Paul, and his fiancee, Sonja Birkeland, to whom he’d proposed only four days before the bridge collapse. (They married on August 3, 2008, one year and two days after the bridge collapse and now have a young son, Cooper.)

Garrett’s responses to my long list of questions showed me his incredible strength, determination and positive attitude. He shared his excitement after he stood for the first time in these words:

This morning I stood up—STOOD UP—for the first time since the accident. I was so excited I screamed to my therapist: “Monica, look! I’m standing! I can’t believe it!” But with my jaw wired shut it sounded like “”Wonka, ook! Aye andin! Aye ant eave it!” For a brief moment I didn’t care that I’m muzzled.

Sir Edmund Hillary—the first person to climb Mount Everest—once said “It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.” When this is all said and done, I will be standing—STANDING—at the top of the mountain.

But I will not have conquered the bridge. Rather, I will have bested the uncomfortability, the uncertainty, the pain. I will have realized from which the depths I can rise up.

It’s the top of the mountain that puts us closest to heaven.

That last sentence, particularly, has stuck with me through the years. This week I worked the quote into a poem I submitted to The Minneapolis StarTribune which issued a call to readers for 35W poems. Mine, “Quotes from a survivor,” was accepted for online publication and was also published in the Variety section of the August 4 print edition. You will find it, and several other poems, by clicking here. Poems were limited to 35 words.

Garrett, the former journalist and now a small business owner of a sandwich shop, recently published a book, Collapsed: A Survivor’s Climb From the Wreckage of the 35W Bridge. Notice that use, again, of the word “climb.”

I have not yet gotten a copy of Garrett’s book. But I expect inspiring words from this man who has overcome seemingly insurmountable physical and emotional obstacles during his climb to the mountaintop.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Oh, baby, are these people really my relatives? July 8, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:21 AM
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Sweet baby Hank, 11 days old.

HANK MET THE RELATIVES recently. And even though he was only 11 days old then, he definitely had an opinion.

“You’re all looking at my t-shirt, but can’t you see my left foot is stuck? Dad?”

Or perhaps it was the opinion of a certain aunt, who shall remain nameless.

For the most part, though, my great nephew kicked back and took everything in stride—

Just a sampling of the family members who welcomed Hank, including his great grandma, my mom.

…all the cooing, the attention, the shuffling from one relative to the next…

These boots, a gift from a great aunt and uncle and cousins, upped the cuteness level.

…even the modeling of adorable patriotic boots.

Not quite a fist.

Hank kept his long fingers curled…

This was the most endearing thing to watch, little Hank tipping his head toward his mother when she spoke.

and a watchful eye on his mother, just in case.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A summer evening in my Minnesota backyard June 23, 2012

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The setting in my southeastern Minnesota backyard Friday evening.

GIVE ME A PERFECT summer evening in my Minnesota backyard.

I set my margarita on a vintage TV tray and settled into a lawn chair next to the fire.

Mix it with a margarita or a bloody Mary.

Add a dash of fire flaming from the fire pit and from tiki torches.

I purchased this garden art at a dollar store many years ago. Tea light candles can be placed below each flower head. It’s one of my favorite pieces of garden art.

Toss in the soft glow of candlelight flickering on a whisper of wind.

My husband relaxes with the local daily newspaper as we enjoy the evening in our backyard.

Give me a magazine or a book and the man I love relaxing next to me, the two of us, side-by-side in our lawn chairs. Quiet conversation and the rustle of papers.

Fireflies court, flitting across the yard on an uncharted course to find love.

Fireflies glow in the sculpture I just purchased in memory of my nephew Justin.

We observe them. I wish aloud to photograph their magical light and my husband rises to capture a firefly, to clasp it between his hands. I try, without success, to photograph a bug I cannot see. “This is impossible,” I say, and settle back into my lawn chair near the fire.

I resume reading, thumbing through recipes for cheesecake until pinpoints of intermittent rain splatter upon my magazine.

It is time to put away the reading materials, to grab the ingredients for smores and roast marshmallows. Just as I extend the marshmallows over the fire, the rain begins falling at a rapid rate, soaking my bent back.

My husband picks up lawn chairs and tiki torches and tends the fire.

I hurry along the toasting and then rush inside to assemble the smores.

Even with the rain, it’s been a perfect summer evening in my Minnesota backyard.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Remembering Justin, with love June 16, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:07 PM
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An overview showing a portion of a beautiful western Minnesota memory garden graced with flowers and garden art and a bench for quiet contemplation, photographed Friday evening.

SUNLIGHT DAPPLED THROUGH the trees as the summer day transitioned into evening during that magical hour(s) of light beloved by every photographer.

I was cognizant of the fleeting, perfect light as I meandered, camera in hand, along the stone path in the garden edged by swamp grasses on two sides, by manicured lawn on the other borders.

The buttercup yellow of a columbine.

I admired the columbines and Russian sage, the zinnias and the day lilies, the promise of daisies, the sedum and the ground-hugging creepers that crept between the stones laid as a walking path.

A bee sips in the early evening.

Beautiful angel. Beautiful light.

Once I bent close to photograph a busy bee and then an angel, hands clasped in reverent prayer, wings spread wide, stones from Montana ringing her feet.

For the love of playing baseball and watching baseball with Dad.

Half way through the garden I paused beside four baseball bats laid end to end in a rectangular shape honoring the boy who loved baseball.

The newest addition to the garden, a solar-powered sculpture of a boy holding a jar of fireflies.

I circled along the back edge of the garden and knelt before garden art of a boy holding fireflies captive in a jar. I returned later, when darkness crept into the day, to photograph the fireflies aglow. I smiled at the memory of the boy catching fireflies.

And when darkness began to descend upon the prairie, the fireflies were aglow. I plan to get a sculpture just like this for my flower garden.

I read the marker at the garden entrance, before entering and then again upon leaving. I wondered how a mother and a father could bear such grief.

The entry to Justin’s garden.

And the next day, I hugged the parents of the boy—my nephew—who would have celebrated his 30th birthday. Today. And my husband and son and I gave Justin’s mother half a dozen red roses and a blue balloon to release with the other blue balloons she and my brother-in-law will send heavenward today. To celebrate the young man whose life held such promise, such love, such hope for the future.

THIS POST IS WRITTEN  in loving memory of my nephew, Justin, who was born on June 16, 1982, and died at the age of 19 on August 20, 2001, from Hodgkin’s disease. His parents created a beautiful memory garden in their yard honoring their son.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

My Minnesota hometown celebrates summer with its famous chicken, dancing in the street & more June 14, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:20 AM
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I’LL NEVER FORGET the summer the neighbor boy coaxed me into riding with him on the Octopus during V-Esta Daze, my hometown’s annual summer celebration. What was I thinking as I settled into the amusement ride with Keith? What was he thinking?

I screamed the entire dizzying ride, scared out of my teenaged wits.

The same chicken dinner sign goes up every year inside the Vesta Community Hall. The price is updated when necessary.

While a carnival is no longer a part of V-Esta Daze, one aspect of the Vesta Commercial Club-sponsored celebration has remained constant. Since 1963, the Club has served its “famous barbecued chicken.”

It’s considered “famous,” I suppose, because V-Esta Daze became known for its chicken, just like Sauerkraut Days in Henderson is noted for its sauerkraut and Barnesville Potato Days is known for its potatoes.

The chicken dinner I enjoyed last summer at V-Esta Daze.

It is such comfortable familiarity, the same year-after-year offering of savory chicken grilled by the same volunteer men over a long pit of coals next to the old brick Vesta Community Hall that keeps locals and natives and those from neighboring towns returning.

This Friday, June 15, the crowds will be back, lining up at the hall between 5 – 8 p.m. for that famous chicken dinner.

The Lucan Community Band played under the shade trees outside the community hall and across the street from the elevator at last year’s celebration.

Outside the hall, members of the Lucan Community Band will settle onto battered folding chairs to entertain the crowd with old favorites while folks listen and visit, catching up on the latest.

Area residents brought their vintage tractors to town for a tractor and car show last year. This year the show has been expanded to include “anything with wheels.”

Over on Main Street, tractors and cars and more will line up for the “Anything with Wheels” show between 4:30 – 8 p.m.

My cousin Dawn’s son, Kegan, enjoyed a pony ride at the 2011 celebration.

The Vesta Vikings 4-H Club is sponsoring a petting zoo and will be selling root beer floats.

Kids picked up hoses in water fights at last year’s V-Esta Daze.

Kids will engage in water fights near the hall from 6 – 8 p.m. I remember, when I was growing up, how fire departments from neighboring communities competed against one another to push a barrel along a cable with water shooting from a fire hose. I can still hear the pounding of water against metal, feel the excitement as the barrel flipped and turned and rode the cable until one team slammed the barrel into a post.

The only contests this year are the bean bag tourney beginning at 6 p.m. and the pie eating contest at 10 p.m.

In between and after, from early evening until 1 a.m., two musical groups will entertain at the street dance. And let me tell you, there’s nothing quite like dancing on the pavement of your one-block-Main-Street hometown while drinking beer on a sweltering summer night.

At least that’s what I remember, from years ago.

The Vesta Community Hall, center of the V-Esta Daze celebration. To the left is the covered BBQ pit.

Along Minnesota Highway 19, this sign marks my hometown, population around 330 and home of the nation’s first electric co-op.

FYI: Vesta is located in southwestern Minnesota, half way between Redwood Falls and Marshall on State Highway 19.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Meet blogger Gretchen O’Donnell & her family June 10, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 1:35 PM
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So we’re a bit camera shy…bloggers Gretchen O’Donnell, left, of “A Fine Day For an Epiphany” and “The View From my Window” and Audrey Kletscher Helbling of “Minnesota Prairie Roots.” In other words, of the several frames my husband shot, this is the only one that was in focus and publishable.

MOST OF US have been there—met someone and instantly clicked.

I’ve felt that way about Gretchen O’Donnell of rural Bigelow, whom I “met” last fall. We didn’t actually meet-meet until Saturday when Gretchen and her family rolled into Faribault.

They were in town to attend the musical, A Year with Frog and Toad, in which their friend, Eric Parrish of Worthington, is starring. It was the perfect opportunity for me to meet Gretchen, a talented writer who is among my favorite Minnesota bloggers. She was one of 10 bloggers I profiled in a recent article published in Minnesota Moments magazine.

Gretchen has been blogging for a little more than a year now at “A Fine Day For an Epiphany.” And she also recently began blogging for The Worthington Daily Globe at “The View From my Window.” She is a blogger who writes for the pure joy of writing. And anyone with that type of passion is destined to become a friend of mine.

Read Gretchen’s posts and you can sense her love of language and of storytelling. She writes with honesty and humor about everything from growing up on Orcas Island in Washington to a skunk perfuming the family cat to her attempt at canning tomatoes. She’s also writing a book.

What you read on Gretchen’s blogs are Gretchen in person. She is warm and friendly and engaging and caring and exactly the type of person you would want to call a friend.

The O’Donnell family, clockwise from left, Gretchen, Ian, Colin, Lucy and Katie.

Her family—husband, Colin, and children Ian, Katie and Lucy—are equally as likable. My husband, Randy, and I loved having them for supper on Saturday. Now Gretchen would argue that we dined together for “dinner.” She hasn’t adopted the rural southwestern Minnesota terminology of “supper” for the evening meal.

Nor has this Washingtonian (is that a word, Gretchen?) adapted totally to the flat prairie landscape of southwestern Minnesota where she’s lived for about 15 years. She misses the mountains and trees and ocean. I told Colin on Saturday that I’m working to convince his wife that the prairie possesses its own beauty. She may be coming around.

Let me tell you a little more about the O’Donnell family. They love theatre. I suppose that is obvious since they drove nearly three hours from Bigelow (on the Iowa/Minnesota border) to Faribault for the Saturday evening musical at the Paradise Center for the Arts. Last summer the O’Donnells acted in Beauty and the Beast in Worthington. This August all five are performing in The Music Man.

When I asked for a fun photo, this is what I got. Love it.

I just want to interject here that when the O’Donnells drove to Faribault on Saturday, they did not take the interstate. “That would be boring,” Gretchen said. Precisely the way I think when it comes to travel, Gretchen. Their more back roads route took the family through Mankato where they caught a glimpse of The Blue Angels. Had they traveled the interstate, they would have missed the U.S. Navy precision flying team.

And now, thanks to Ian, eldest of the three O’Donnell children, I am going to try raw asparagus. I know this has nothing to do with planes or theatre, but when the kids were plucking black raspberries from wild bushes in my backyard, we got on the subject of gardening. Ian told me how much he likes raw asparagus. I promised I would try it. (But I never promised this physics-loving boy that I would ever like physics.)

Can you believe these O’Donnell kids even eat horseradish? Yes, I put out a jar of the homemade condiment and they, along with Colin, ate, and enjoyed it. Gretchen passed. She’s tried it once and that was enough. I understand. I feel that way about lutefisk.

Then there’s Katie…she likes reading and science and apparently singing since she has a solo in The Music Man. I asked her about being the middle child and, well, let’s just say she and my middle sister could commiserate over shared middle child experiences.

And finally, there’s little Lucy, darling, sweet, adorable curly-haired Lucy, a five-year-old who chalked a swimming pool onto my driveway, clung to her crocheted blanket (named “Buddy,” not a boy, but a girl blanket) and her mom for all of about five minutes before she felt right at home and who, the last time the family dined at the Rainforest Cafe at the Mall of America, was terrified of the gorillas.

It is details like these that endear me to a family like the O’Donnells. They are real and honest and good people who possess strong family values and a strong faith in God and a strong work ethic. Gretchen and Colin even limit computer time for their kids and, gasp, don’t allow the television set to be switched on on Thursdays. And, yes, their kids are polite and well-behaved and fun and absolutely wonderful.

When we parted on Saturday evening, it seemed as if we’d known the O’Donnells for years rather than for only three hours.

O’Donnell family, you’re welcome back to our home anytime.

FYI: To read Gretchen O’Donnell’s personal blog, “A Fine Day For an Epiphany,” click here.

To read her other blog, “The View From my Window,” click here.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Discussing the economy and jobs at a Faribault thrift store June 5, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:03 AM
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“THE ECONOMY WILL only get worse and this time it will be world-wide,” he warns, he being an unemployed, former military man.

“But I think things are getting better,” I counter. “I’ve seen more jobs openings posted in the paper, more houses selling.”

He disagrees, says he has military friends in Europe. Times are tough there and only getting worse.

I am surprised by the doom-and-gloom economic forecast delivered by this 50-something-year-old job seeker during a brief conversation at The Clothes Closet, a used clothing store in downtown Faribault. I don’t know him, but he’s squeezed past me several times, carrying clothing from the back of the store to the check-out counter.

Finally, I can no longer contain my curiosity and comment, “You’re sure buying a lot of clothes.”

“I’m looking for a job,” he says, then begins spilling his story like we are long-time friends.

He can’t make ends meet on his military pension, although he’s grateful for that income, he says. So he’s looking for a job in security, maybe with the border patrol. He’ll travel soon to Corpus Christi in search of work that pays more than $9 an hour.

His 15-year-old daughter, who has been living with her mother, is coming with him. He’s relieved to no longer be paying $900 in monthly child support to a woman he says did not spend the money on their daughter. He seems genuinely happy to have his girl back.

But he’s not so cheerful about the process of applying for a job. “It’s not like it used to be where you can walk in and sell yourself,” he says. He doesn’t like the online resume job-screening process, preferring instead the personal one-on-one contact with a potential employer.

He looks like the type of fellow who could, face-to-face, easily sell himself as a security guard. Ex-military. Big guy. I expect he appears intimidating and authoritative in a uniform.

But for now, for this day, he is an unemployed and worried American buying clothes at a second-hand clothing store in Minnesota.

I was searching in my files for an image to illustrate this post. This particular photo has nothing to do with the man I engaged in conversation or the thrift store where we talked or even his job search. Yet, I consider it fitting for this story, and here’s why. To me, this shot from Main Street in tiny Norwalk exhibits this southwestern Wisconsin community’s optimism. Against the backdrop of weathered and shuttered buildings stand two symbols of optimism: those gorgeous hanging baskets and the American flag. Norwalk, along the Elroy-Sparta Bike Trail, calls itself “The Black Squirrel Capital of the World.”

WHAT’S YOUR OPINION on the economy? Is is improving or, as the ex-military man predicts, going to get considerably worse here and world-wide by this fall?

According to “employment situation” information released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics on June 1, “the unemployment rate (for May) was essentially unchanged at 8.2 percent.” Currently, 12.7 million people are unemployed. The unemployment rate for adult men is 7.8 percent. To read the full report, click here.

ARE YOU LOOKING for a job? Share your experience by submitting a comment. How do you feel about the online job application process used by most businesses?

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A Minnesota high school graduation in snapshots June 4, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:42 AM
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Faribault High School graduates enter the gym for commencement Sunday afternoon as family and friends look on.

ALL ACROSS THE U.S., high school students are graduating or have graduated. Families and friends pack bleachers to witness commencement ceremonies, to listen to talk of the past and of the future.

It is a bittersweet time for parents.

For students, the day is one of of mixed emotions. Happiness. Sadness. Excitement. Perhaps a bit of trepidation about life ahead.

On Sunday afternoon, the youngest of my three children, my son, graduated from Faribault High School. I didn’t cry, didn’t get all emotional and introspective. I expect the tears will come later, when we drop him off at his North Dakota State University dorm nearly a five-hour drive away.

In the meantime, in these final two months, I will embrace each day I still have my boy home. For I know that not only will his life change, but so will mine.

The seven valedictorians, with GPAs of 4.0, speak at the graduation ceremony.

The class of 247 students toss their caps after diplomas are awarded.

My eldest daughter checks to see if her little brother’s diploma is signed.

The typical pose in front of the school photo, of my son.

The ever-changing/growing diversity of Faribault as seen in this post commencement gathering outside the school.

My family in our backyard after commencement.

Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling