Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

My Christmas gift wish list December 22, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 11:27 PM
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IS MINE THE ONLY husband who leaves his Christmas gift shopping until nearly the last minute? I mean, there it was Wednesday evening and he was asking what I want for Christmas.

Honey, if you’re reading this, maybe just click off the computer screen right now. Or, go ahead, keep reading. I simply find it amusing how you dally and dawdle with this Christmas gift buying nearly every year.

I suppose, in your defense, I should tell my readers that you asked several weeks ago for a wish list from me and I failed to deliver.

So Wednesday night I pulled my list from the e-mails I’d sent our daughters and then scratched a few more items onto the bottom: a telephoto or macro lens for my camera and that thing like the professional photographers have with the cord that you can attach to your camera to click the shutter button when you have your camera on a tripod.

I handed the list to the husband and explained about the camera items and other stuff I really want like a new living room chair, a different kitchen sink to replace the vintage 70s brown one (or an entire kitchen re-do), a new boxspring and mattress, new kettles to replace the vintage 70s brown ones and, oh, maybe earrings.

I then qualified that I really didn’t expect him to buy me anything for my Canon EOS 20-D SLR camera because that would kind of be like me walking into an auto parts store and trying to purchase a tool he wants for Christmas (which I did because he wrote down precisely, exactly, what he wanted; he knows because he saw my entry in the checkbook—I am not sneaky, not at all).

By the looks of the small, flat, wrapped box the spouse slid under the Christmas tree, it appears I am not getting a camera lens, chair, sink, mattress, kettles or kitchen re-do.

I’d put my money on earrings.

However, Santa (not my husband), if you’re reading this, I have one other wish: for families everywhere to truly appreciate, value, respect, listen to and love each other this Christmas and into the new year. Amen.

READERS, WHAT’S your wish for Christmas this year whether practical and personal or more of a prayer?

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Dispelling a Mayberry myth in rural Minnesota December 16, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:33 AM
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Man in custody after shooting in Gaylord

Two men arrested after incident with police officers in Winthrop

Three years since rural Green Isle homicide

These disturbing headlines all published recently in a single issue of a 10-page small-town Minnesota weekly newspaper.

How life has changed in the 31 years since I pounded out news articles there, for The Gaylord Hub, on a vintage manual typewriter. The biggest news stories during my 1978 – 1980 tenure as a reporter were fires and motor vehicle crashes and the controversy over the expansion of local chicken barns.

I didn’t write about eight bullets fired into a Gaylord home in an alleged gang-related shooting or a scuffle between police and a suspect or a three-year unsolved homicide.

And I didn’t have to report on a courthouse shootings like the one which occurred Thursday in quiet Grand Marais, an artsy get-away destination along the shores of Lake Superior.

Thirty years ago, small towns were still relatively untouched by violent, drug-related or other crime. Not so anymore. One need only pick up any weekly newspaper to read about major crimes that rock even the most rural regions.

Just this week in Redwood County in rural southwestern Minnesota, warrants were issued for 31 individuals on felony drug charges following a year-long, five-county investigation, according to information published in The Redwood Falls Gazette. Most suspects have been arrested and charged.

That’s my home county you’re talking about here, a place of small towns, grain elevators, farm sites, and corn and soybean fields—about as rural as you can get.

This isn’t Mayberry anymore.

While I can wax nostalgic about how things “used to be,” the reality of life is this: Times have changed. People have changed. Respect for parents and authority and laws have eroded.

Crime, once considered a big-city problem, reaches deep into the most rural of locations.

It is sad.

But it is the truth.

IF YOU LIVE in a rural area, have you see increases in crime? Explain. How have you, personally, or your community been impacted? How is your community dealing with crime? Please submit a comment and share.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The white elephant gift no one wants December 12, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:01 AM
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KUDOS TO MY FRIEND Jesse.

He truly outdid himself at the annual Family Game Night Christmas party at Trinity Lutheran Church in Faribault this weekend. And he wasn’t even there. Rather, Jesse was hermited away in his grandpa’s farmhouse near Barrett, without internet or more than four television stations, writing his dissertation.

Jesse left his wife, Tammy, behind to carry out his mission. Initially, it couldn’t have gone any better had he been there himself to execute his plan.

But he missed the moment when my husband selected the gaudy holiday picture frame from among the wrapped white elephant gifts. From the shape of the package, I knew immediately that Randy had chosen the wrong gift—the garish Christmas-themed frame which each year is returned to the exchange pile. No one wants the darned thing. It’s that ugly.

Last year, Jesse took the frame home after I brought it back for the exchange. Apparently since then, my friend has been plotting his revenge.

He got it Saturday. Randy opened the gift to find my face smiling back at him. Jesse had taken my outdated 2005 photo from this blog, enlarged it and tucked it into the frame underneath mini photos of his family, another family and my family. It’s tradition that whoever gets the frame must tuck a photo into it. Jesse started this by placing Tammy’s high school graduation picture into the frame. That image has mysteriously disappeared.

This year, though, Jesse tweaked the tradition by blowing up my image. (BTW, I don’t look much like this anymore, readers. My hair is shorter and graying and my glasses are rectangular, not oval.)

The frame no one wants.

Anyway, party-goers doubled over in laughter when they saw my framed photo in the hands of my loving husband. I waited to see if he would keep my picture or trade it away in a snap.

But Randy hung onto the photo until the very end, when he traded Tammy for a decorative rolling pin (equally as ugly as the frame).

I can only imagine the look of surprise on Jesse’s face when he arrived home from Barrett to see my lovely face staring at him from that gaudy picture frame.

DO YOU HAVE a tradition like this, where you keep passing the same unwanted gift around to family or friends? I’d love to hear about your shenanigans via a comment.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Expecting better customer service December 9, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:55 AM
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EVERY FOUR TO SIX WEEKS, my husband and I make a major grocery shopping trip with a divide and conquer plan. It’s easier that way.

With two lists and two carts, we work the store. He handles most of the meat and fruit selection, the snack aisle and dairy products. I take the rest. The tag team approach gets us in and out of the store faster. Less time in the store, less money spent.

Wednesday evening, however, after all 68 items had been scanned, my husband slid a gift card through the payment system and our plan disintegrated. The computer locked up. We wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon.

I realize these things happen. But the manager, rather than deal with the situation in a calm, professional manner, became visibly and verbally flustered. His agitation only added to my frustration.

I didn’t need to hear that this lock-up has happened previously on this computer with gift cards. Fix the darned thing then, alright.

While we stood there, the check-out clerk and two other employees moved, unbagged, rescanned and repacked all 68 items at an adjacent check-out lane.

Meanwhile, the manager directed other shoppers away from the “bad” lane and simultaneously paged for assistance. He finally realized that flicking off the lane light would effectively steer shoppers away from the malfunctioning computer.

When the final grocery bill of $118.02 was rung up for the second time, I expected perhaps a discount or a gift card as a good will expression of apology. That didn’t happen. We were simply reminded, for about the umpteenth time, that this problem has previously occurred and that, had we waited for the frozen computer to be fixed, we would have stood there at least 10 minutes.

Like we weren’t anyway. Waiting for more than 10 minutes.

Let’s all repeat these two words together umpteen times: “Good customer service.”

SHOULD THE MANAGER have responded differently? Tell me about an experience with customer service–good, bad or otherwise. Just keep your comments family-friendly and libel-free.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Feeling like a Grinch December 8, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:05 AM
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WITH LESS THAN three weeks until Christmas, I truly need to pull myself out of my pre-holiday funk.

Here’s the deal. I haven’t sent out a single Christmas card, although the annual holiday letter has been drafted and awaits final editing.

I haven’t baked Christmas cookies. I don’t need the sweets and the guys in the house don’t have a sweet tooth. Eventually I’ll bake the cream cheese roll-out cookies that have been part of my Christmas since childhood. And I’ll pull together some date pinwheels for my husband, part of his childhood tradition.

No presents in my sleigh yet.

As for shopping, the lists have been compiled. But since I dislike shopping, the task looms before me.

Decorations? If you count the holiday painting by my father-in-law hanging in the dining room, the six Christmas cards we’ve received and the peppermint candies in a dish, then, yes, I’ve started my decorating.

I’m not the type who goes all out with holiday decorating because, visually, I dislike clutter. I also live in a relatively small house.

Then there’s my husband, who worries about the Christmas tree drying out and creating a fire hazard (a legitimate concern) if we buy it “too early”. Once we waited so long to purchase a tree that we had five pathetic choices in the tree lot. We got a heckuva deal, though, by buying only days before Christmas. True story.

So there you have it. I am feeling more Grinch-like than holiday-ish. For me, the important part of Christmas lies in celebrating Christ’s birth and in gathering with family.

Gathering with family...one of the most important aspects of Christmas for me.

I expect therein exists the partial reason for my melancholy. My second daughter, who lives in eastern Wisconsin, will not be home for Christmas. She’s on-call both holiday weekends at her job as a Spanish medical interpreter. She has missed Christmas before, while living in Argentina. So I should be used to this. I am not.

I have no right to complain. None. Many families are separated by greater distances or war or illness or death, or even by choice.

Eventually I’ll pull myself out of my holiday blues. Perhaps I’ll start with addressing Christmas cards and work my way up to mixing cookie dough. The shopping, though, I never have been able to embrace no matter how hard I try.

Although I'm struggling right now to pull everything together for Christmas, I will. Here's the complete holiday painting by my father-in-law, Tom Helbling of St. Cloud, MN.

SO…WHERE ARE YOU at with your holiday preparations? Do you struggle with any aspect of preparing for Christmas? Submit a comment and share.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

More than a collection of vintage drinking glasses December 7, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:06 AM
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Vintage glasses stashed in my kitchen cupboard.

THE BOTTOM CUPBOARD SHELF to the upper right of my kitchen sink is crammed so full of drinking glasses that they threaten to tumble out and onto the counter.

But I have not the heart to stash a single one away in storage.

These glasses serve as more than practical vessels for the milk my 17-year-old son gulps by the gallon or the cranberry juice I favor to quench my thirst.

Rather, these glasses represent my appreciation of the past. All 27 drinking glasses are vintage, culled from family and friends, from thrift stores and garage sales.

I uncovered these glasses in the attic of the home where my friend Joy grew up. After her parents died, Joy invited friends to shop for treasures. These glasses always remind me of Joy, whose spirit matches her name.

Details on the glasses from Joy. Fun fact: I don't like roosters.

An Archie Comic "Betty and Veronica Fashion Show" 1971 jelly jar/juice glass from my maternal grandfather.

These glasses belonged to my bachelor uncle, Mike, who farmed with my dad and was like a second father to me. He passed away in 2001 and these remind me of him and his love for me.

You could rightfully say that I collect vintage drinking glasses.

Like most collectors, my collection is rooted deep in the past. I can trace my glassware obsession back to the day I walked into Marquardt’s Hardware Store on the corner of Main Street in Vesta and selected four amber-colored glasses for my mother as a Mother’s Day gift. I can’t recall which siblings were with me, how much we spent or the year we purchased the glasses. But the simple act of us pooling our coins to buy Mom this gift remains as one of my sweetest childhood memories.

The amber glasses my siblings and I purchased for our mother more than 40 years ago.

Recently my mother gifted me with these glasses. I pulled them from the china cabinet where she’s always stored them—reserving them only for special occasions—snugged paper padding around them and carted them back to my home 120 miles away in Faribault.

Her gift to me is bittersweet. While I certainly appreciate having these memorable glasses, the fact that my mom has begun dispersing of her possessions makes me all too cognizant of her failing health and mortality. She is a wise woman, though, to part with belongings now, gifting children and grandchildren with items she knows hold special meaning.

Each time I reach into the cupboard for a glass, I find myself choosing an amber-colored one from Marquardt’s Hardware. It is the glass that reminds me of my mother and of her deep love for me. I want to drink deeply of her love. Today. Forever.

The four glasses that remind me of the love my mother and I share.

DO YOU HAVE a collection or a single item that means as much to you as my vintage drinking glasses mean to me? I’d like to hear. Please submit a comment.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Thoughts after the season’s first snowfall December 4, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 1:58 PM
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The snowy woods adjoining my backyard in Faribault late Sunday morning following about a five-inch snowfall.

WELCOME TO MY BACKYARD after the first significant snowfall in Faribault this season.

It is a world of mostly black-and-white, like vintage photos in an album.

Branches laden with the first significant snowfall.

I’m trying to be poetic here because, as disloyal Minnesotan as this sounds, I don’t particularly like snow. I dread the resulting icy sidewalks and parking lots.

I realize I possess the attitude of  “an old person” here. No offense meant to any of you who are older than me. But, at age 55 and with an artificial hip implanted in my right side three years ago, snow and ice threaten me. I fear falling, so I inch across ice with trepidation.

Just to clarify, my hip replacement did not result from a fall. I suffered from osteoarthritis and reached the point where surgery was the only option to deal with near immobility and chronic pain.

So here we are, in the season of snow and ice in Minnesota. If I don’t exactly embrace it, now at least you understand why. I suspect it is the reason many Minnesotans flee to Arizona and Florida during the winter months—not only to escape the cold, but to escape the danger.

Yet, even I can see the beauty in a fresh snowfall that layers branches and seed heads and the entire world around me in a surreal sort of peacefulness on a Sunday morning.

That, for me, redeems winter.

The blessing of winter lies in its beauty, seen here in a snippet of time-worn fencing in my backyard.

An unobtrusive patch of color in a mostly black-and-white world Sunday morning: Snow capping a hydrangea.

HOW DO YOU feel about snow and winter in general? The truth, please.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

An unexpected gift from Bernie December 2, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:15 AM
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Bernie

I’VE NEVER MET Bernie, never even spoken to her. She lives in Billings, Montana, with her husband Roy and their cats.

She’s the modern-day version of a pen pal who has become a friend.

It all started when Bernie discovered my Minnesota Prairie Roots blog and began commenting on my posts. Naturally, I had to check out her One Mixed Bag blog.

There I found a former Minnesotan who writes with honesty and humor in a voice that keeps drawing me back. This woman is laugh-out-loud funny. She makes me smile. She makes me giggle. She makes me think. And sometimes she even makes me cry. More on that later.

At some point, and again I don’t recall specifics, our friendship extended beyond blog comments to the occasional e-mail.

After reading an especially touching post penned by Bernie, I suggested she submit it to Minnesota Moments magazine.  This woman can write. The story will publish in our winter issue.

Then, when I created a “Snapshots of Love” contest, with results publishing in Minnesota Moments’ winter edition, I thought of Bernie and the handcrafted vintage style greeting cards she creates and sells through her online shop Budugalee. Even the name makes me laugh. I asked Bernie if she would contribute perhaps a half dozen greeting cards to our prize package.

Well, this artist wanted to give more—a card a month, plus. Bernie’s that kind of person. The type who’s giving and caring and kind and generous all rolled into one.

That brings us to this week and to the unexpected package that arrived Thursday morning from Bernie. I figured she was sending me some of her handcrafted cards. She did. One. It’s a beauty.

The card Bernie handcrafted for me, celebrating my mother's gift of birthday cakes. That's me in the photo, on my second birthday.

She remembered how, several times in blog posts, I wrote about the birthday cakes my mom created for me and my siblings when we were growing up. My parents didn’t have money for gifts; the cake was the gift, I wrote.

Those stories of birthdays without presents and the loving gift of a cake touched something in Bernie. She made it her mission to find a copy of the 1959 General Foods Corporation’s Baker’s Coconut Animal Cut-up Cake booklet that my siblings and I thumbed through each birthday to choose the cake our mother would create.

Thursday morning I unwrapped the slim package from Bernie, expecting a packet of her cards. Instead, she gifted me with memories of birthdays past in that cake booklet she found on eBay.

The birthday cake booklet from my childhood that Bernie found on eBay.

I couldn’t help myself. I started crying in what my friend would surely term “big, blubbering, snot-bubble kind of sobs.”

Bernie could not have possibly known this, but her gift came at a time when I needed uplifting and something to make me smile. When I told Bernie this in an e-mail, she shared that, despite her husband’s suggestion to mail the cake booklet shortly before Christmas, she insisted, “No, I really need to send it out this week.”

She’s had the booklet for several weeks.

Bernie was right. This was the week I needed to receive her gift. Somehow she knew…

That we should all have a friend like Bernie…

TELL ME. When has a friend touched your life with an unexpected, just-right gift given at precisely the right moment?

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Too much pre-holiday consumerism? November 29, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:28 AM
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DURING THE PAST WEEK, we’ve been bombarded with news stories and advertising campaigns aimed at Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday, all with the underlying theme of spending.

Honestly, I am tired of the greedy, materialistic consumerism that grips us during the pre-holiday season.

Are we so materialistic that we have to skip or cut out early on family gatherings, fight each other in the aisles and buy items simply because they are on sale?

I get nostalgic for those days when we weren’t quite so materialistically-inclined.

But, if I’m honest, I can look back and see that even during the 1960s, when I was growing up, we, too, focused on the gift aspect of Christmas more than we should have.

Remember “the Christmas catalog?”

I could not wait for the mailman (not carrier) to drop off the J.C. Penney Christmas catalog in our mailbox at the end of our southwestern Minnesota farm driveway.

My siblings and I fought over who got to look at the Christmas catalog first. By the time all six of us had thumbed through the wish book numerous times, the pages were worn and creased. We drew up Christmas lists from the catalog, wishing for the doll or the Army tank or the spotted Twister mat featured in the photos.

Rarely did we get any of those requested items; our parents simply did not have the money. Even though we certainly dreamed and wished and dreamed and wished some more, we were content with whatever gifts we received.

Today, however, I think many parents feel obligated to give their kids whatever they ask for. I don’t agree with that line of thinking. Kids need to learn and understand that they cannot have everything they want when they want it.

But first, we as adults need to curb our own greedy consumerism and our desire to have everything we want when we want it.

WHAT’S YOUR OPINION on consumerism this time of year, or in general? Let me hear your thoughts.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Following your heart, or not November 28, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 4:25 PM
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Me and my camera, a tool in the writing profession I love.

ARE YOU FOLLOWING your life’s passion in your chosen profession?

That topic came up for discussion at a weekend gathering with extended family.

I was surprised to learn that my uncle always wanted to be a college history professor dressed in a tweed jacket with elbow patches. I looked at him through fresh eyes, wondering why I never knew this about a man who recently retired after decades of driving a delivery truck.

He wasn’t discontent in his job, simply wished that he could have pursued his love of history as his life’s work.

It wasn’t all that long ago when I learned that my maternal grandfather, my uncle’s father, wanted to be a lawyer, not the farmer his father expected him, and pushed him, to become. Today his grandson, my youngest brother, is an attorney.

A sister who always wanted to teach initially chose another profession because a high school counselor told her she wouldn’t find a teaching job. She listened to his advice and attended technical college to become a travel agent. When that didn’t work out, she found herself working at a bank. Later she would enroll in a four-year college and today teaches special education. She still regrets those wasted years of failing to follow her heart.

Likewise, the father of a friend advised her to choose a practical career as a nurse rather than pursue her dream of a career in art. Today she’s still a nurse, pursuing her artistic interests on the side.

My father, upon returning to his southwestern Minnesota farm from a tour of duty as a foot soldier/infantryman during the Korean War, desired a job as a highway patrolman. With only an eighth grade education and likely because it was expected of him, he stayed on the farm to milk cows and work the fields.

I have to applaud my parents for never once pushing any of their six children into a career. Today my siblings are engaged in diverse occupations as a parts manager at a southwestern Minnesota implement dealership, a floral designer, the CEO/GM of an ethanol plant, a special education teacher and an attorney.

I’m the writer, following my passion for language and the written word. In all honesty, though, my husband’s job as an automotive machinist pays the bills and keeps the roof over our heads. My spouse enjoys his work, but he always wanted to be a rural mail carrier and even took a U.S. Postal Service exam some 20-plus years ago to try and break into the postal ranks. That never happened.

I cite all of the above examples because I suspect the majority of us are working at jobs that are not true to our passions in life.

Perhaps it’s circumstances or money or geographical location or a parent who pushed or a counselor who misguided—whatever the reasons, something has kept most of us from working at jobs in which we are truly content, that make our hearts sing.

TELL ME. Are you working at a job that follows your passion? If you aren’t, why not, and what job would allow you to follow your heart?

Let’s hear what you have to say.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling