…in Slayton and elsewhere in Minnesota.
Kids doing good in Owatonna August 8, 2013
ALL TOO OFTEN we are quick to see the negative, to despair about the world today, to worry about what the future holds for our young people.
But then along comes something uplifting like a project undertaken by students from Lincoln and Washington elementary schools in Owatonna and my confidence and hopefulness are restored.
While accompanying my husband on a recent stop at St. Clair’s for Men in Owatonna to pick up his suit for our eldest daughter’s wedding, I noticed a basket filled with colorful art.
Of course, I inquired about the handcrafted pins, earrings and magnets and was pointed to a sign explaining the project.
Owatonna students, upon learning about the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy and the lives lost in that fierce storm last fall along the East Coast, decided to help. Thus the “Houses for the Homeless” fundraiser, initiated several months ago.
With mat board, markers and hand-painted papers, the young artists designed mini houses, a visual of the rebuilding process.
Already, I’ve been told (although not confirmed with project organizers), the project has raised $3,000 for Hurricane Sandy relief from those $5 per artwork piece sales.
If you’re feeling cynical today, or tomorrow, or the next day, about young people, then consider this fundraiser and these elementary school kids from Owatonna.
Students today, unlike those of my childhood, are growing up in a much different and bigger world. I don’t recall ever undertaking a single compassionate project during my school days. Activities such as “Houses for the Homeless” teach kids to think beyond themselves and their wants and needs. And that is a very good thing.
FYI: “Houses for the Homeless” pins, earrings and magnets are available for purchase in Owatonna at St. Clair’s for Men, Kristi’s Clothing, Cedar Floral Design Studio and Central Park Coffee Co.
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Shopping for the father-of-the-bride at a “Main Street” men’s clothing store in Owatonna August 7, 2013
Chairs invite customers and passersby to sit a spell outside St. Clair’s for Men and Owatonna Shoe.
THERE’S SOMETHING TO BE SAID for a long-standing men’s fine clothing store like St. Clair’s for Men in Owatonna.
My husband, who was shopping for a suit for our eldest daughter’s wedding, ended up at St. Clair’s after quick stops at two large retail chain stores. In at least one of those stores, we rummaged through racks of suit coats and dress pants without a clerk in sight to assist.
Randy received attentive personal service at St. Clair’s for Men.
But the minute we walked in the door at St. Clair’s, 117 N. Cedar Avenue in downtown Owatonna, Randy received top notch personal service. I didn’t get the employee’s name, but he knew sizes just by looking at my husband, although he did pull out the tape measure for arm length. He’s worked at St. Clair’s for 27 years.
According to the business’ website, “With over 140 years of combined menswear experience, we are sure we’ll spoil you for shopping anywhere else.” They got that right.
A snippet of the fine clothing at St. Clair’s.
Since 1890—that’s 123 years—this business, owned by Greg Krueger since 1982, has served men in southern Minnesota.
Meandering through the store, I found this iron set up in the rear. Another example of customer service.
Shopping at St. Clair’s, for us, took the stress out of purchasing a suit for the most important day of a father’s life. Randy got a perfect fit, after free alterations at the in-house tailor’s shop.
Randy even brought home a leaflet on how to tie ties.
A small sampling of the ties sold at St. Clair’s.
The sales prices of the suit coat, pants, white shirt and tie made buying here no more costly than purchasing from a mega retailer.
A model business motto, “your personal men’s store,” imprinted upon a St. Clair’s bag.
If this sounds like an enthusiastic endorsement of St. Clair’s for Men, it is.
St. Clair’s for men sits next to Owatonna Shoe, a family-owned business which has been “serving the area for over 65 years, with service, quality and fit!” Catch that? Service, just like that offered at St. Clair’s.
I’m all for great customer service, a business art that seems mostly lost but for these small town independently-owned Main Street shops.
Full service independent men’s clothing stores are rare these days. I remember when two such shops, Jim & Joe’s and Ochs Department Store, existed in downtown Faribault. No more.
So I am especially thankful for places like St. Clair’s for Men which, with knowledge, individual attention and outstanding customer service, transformed my hardworking blue collar husband in to one mighty handsome father-of-the-bride.
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Mankato’s newest public art project: “Poetry Walk and Ride” August 5, 2013
MANKATO HAS LAUNCHED its newest form of public art—poetry posted on signs in parks and along recreational trails.
A scene I created to illustrate the poetry project.
The Mankato Poetry Walk and Ride is designed “to inspire and encourage poets of all ages, to provide public art in our communities and to encourage exercise,” says Yvonne Cariveau who suggested the project to the Southern Minnesota Poets Society of which she is a member.
Serving on the committee for the Mankato and North Mankato CityArt Walking Sculpture Tour, an exhibit of annual rotating outdoor sculptures, Cariveau envisioned a similar concept for poetry.
The Poets Society embraced the idea (member Susan Stevens Chambers organized a contest) and, with support from the cities of Mankato and North Mankato and numerous businesses, the project took off.
My husband and I listen to one of my selected poems, “The Thrill of Vertical.”
Today 34 poetry signs are up, mostly in Mankato, with a few in North Mankato, for reading and listening. Yes, listening. Poets recorded their poems, which can be accessed via phone, dialing (507) 403-4038 or scanning a QR code.
Me, next to my “Off to Mankato to ‘get an education'” poem posted near Glenwood Gardens.
Two of the 34 poems, 27 selected in a competitive process, are mine.
The setting in which one of my poems is posted near Glenwood Gardens.
You’ll find “Off to Mankato to ‘get an education’” near Glenwood Gardens close to the intersection of Glenwood Avenue and Division Street. The poem was inspired by my arrival in the autumn of 1974 as a freshman at Bethany Lutheran College, located not all that far from the posted poem.
“The Thrill of Vertical,” next to Hiniker Pond.
My second poem, placed at Hiniker Pond Park in what seems like North Mankato but is really Mankato, also was prompted by my college year experiences. In “The Thrill of Vertical,” I write about zipping down the curving and hilly streets of Mankato on my 10-speed bike. Interestingly, the street I remembered in writing this poem is where “Off to Mankato to ‘get an education’” is posted along a recreational trail. Back in the 70s, there was no such trail.
Reflecting on that hurtling ride, I can’t help but think how stupid I was to fly at such speeds, back hunched, hands gripping racing handlebars, no helmet and two narrow bicycle wheels separating me from unforgiving pavement.
Today that crazy college kid abandon is forever captured in words, now published for all to see and recorded for all to hear. Until next June, when the 2013 poetry signs will come down and new ones will be erected.
Likewise, the other published writers—all of whom had to live within a 50-mile radius of Mankato, who range in age from seven to over 70 and are anywhere from new poets to recognized published poets—wrote about topics such as Mankato history, the river, Fudgsicles, family, mentors and more.
The challenge in writing the poems, for me anyway, came in the restrictions of 40 characters or less per line in a poem limited to 18 lines. It is a good exercise for any poet, to write within such confines, to value every letter, every space, every word.
One hundred twenty poems, submitted in specified age categories for those in third to 12th grades and then in adult divisions of humorous and serious, were anonymously judged. Doris Stengel, past president of the National Federation of State Poetry Societies, considered the adult entries while Peter Stein, League of Minnesota Poets youth chairperson, judged the youth poems. It is always rewarding as a poet to know that your work was selected on the basis of merit and quality rather than by name recognition.
The poems are posted in locations like this, along a trail near the shelter house in Hiniker Pond Park. The unobtrusive signs are about the size of a standard sheet of paper.
In addition to the 27 winning poems, seven poems from notable Mankato area poets are among those posted.
Reaction to the poems thus far has been enthusiastic, says project initiator Cariveau, herself a poet. Her humorous poem, “Dreams of Coldstone,” was among those selected.
“People,” says Cariveau, “love the poems and are surprised by them.”
As for my reaction, I appreciate a project that makes poetry accessible. Those who may not otherwise read poetry likely will in an outdoor setting. Short poems. Easily read or heard. Non-intimidating. This is public word art at its best.
FYI: To read a list of the winning poets and the titles of their poems, click here.
For a map showing the locations of the posted poems, click here.
To learn about the Southern Minnesota Poets Society, click here.
You can hear me read my poems by calling (507) 403-4038 and then punching in 427 for “The Thrill of Vertical” and 416 for “Off to Mankato to ‘get an education’”.
Information on the 2014 Mankato Poetry Walk and Ride contest will be posted early next year on the SMPS website.
A chapbook of this year’s poems will also be published and will be available for purchase via the SMPS website and perhaps at other locations in Mankato.
P.S. I did not showcase other poems here in photos because I was unaware of their locations when I was in Mankato to photograph mine.
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Friendships forged via blogging August 3, 2013
YOU KNOW SOMETIMES how, when you meet someone, you instantly connect and feel as if you’ve been friends forever.
Well, that’s exactly how I feel about my blogger friends Beth Ann, who writes at It’s Just Life, and Gretchen, who writes at A Fine Day for an Epiphany. They are now real life friends, as in I’ve met them.
Beth Ann has been to Faribault twice, first last December with her husband, Chris, to hear me present on and read my poetry during a program at Buckham Memorial Library. Chris always worries about his wife and her “imaginary” blogger friends and whether one of us will stuff her in the trunk of a car. “Not to worry,” I told Beth Ann when she visited me at my home several weeks ago. “I’ll stash you in my basement freezer.”
Now Chris terms me “that Audrey character.”
I don’t know that Gretchen’s husband, Colin, has assigned any such moniker to me. He seems not too concerned about my character.
Driving the state line road to Gretchen and Colin’s rural southwest Minnesota home.
Last week my husband and I, while en route to Luverne in the extreme southwestern corner of Minnesota, detoured off Interstate 90 into Worthington, wound our way through construction zones and aimed south to the Minnesota/Iowa border where Gretchen and her family live on the state line. Literally. The gravel road past their rural acreage is half in Minnesota, half in Iowa. How cool is that?
I could have chosen a “perfect” family photo in which everyone in Gretchen’s family is standing nice and looking at my camera. But I love this one of Ian eyeballing the antics of his little sister, Lucy. Last summer, when visiting us, Colin also held his youngest daughter upside down for a photo and Lucy wanted to do the same pose this time. Given her sweetness, we obliged.
Randy and I were excited to visit our friends as last summer Gretchen, Colin and their three kids accepted a dinner invitation to our home when they were in Faribault for a theatrical performance. We instantly bonded.
Gretchen and me, now real-life friends. Photo by Randy Helbling.
Who says “Imaginary” blogging friends can’t become “real friends?” Not I, says this blogger.
Sweet little Lucy, who narrated on the nature walk and later read a book to me. She just finished kindergarten. That’s her blanket, appropriately named “Blue.”
Upon our arrival, I refused the handshakes of Colin and Ian, embracing them instead. The girls—Gretchen and daughters Katie and Lucy—were quick with the hugs.
A creek winds through the acreage. That’s the neighbor’s land in the background.
Then Randy and I were off on a nature walk with the kids through the 10-acre wooded and hilly creek-side property while Gretchen and Colin prepared a delicious meal of grilled pork, lettuce and fruit salads, assorted breads and the best peach dessert ever. (Click here for the recipe.)
Ian, 14, with family cat, Zephyr.
As much as I savored the food, I especially savored the time with our friends, who are warm and welcoming and kind and good and great conversationalists. Even the kids. I mean that in the best sort of way as Ian, Katie and Lucy are so well-mannered and interesting and bright and talented and funny and just the kind of children any parent would be proud to call theirs.
Standing on the state line road with Katie, left, and Lucy. Rural Minnesota and rural Iowa. Love it. Photo by Gretchen.
When we were about to leave, they all humored me when I insisted on standing in the middle of the state line gravel road for a photo opp, just to say I’d been simultaneously in Minnesota and Iowa, where, by the way, imaginary blogger real life friend Beth Ann lives.
The “Welcome to Minnesota” sign just down the road from Gretchen and Colin’s place, photographed while driving by.
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Minnesota’s church dinner season underway August 2, 2013
TIS THE SEASON of church dinners.
Diners dish up at the 2011 dinner at Trinity Lutheran Church, North Morristown.
Although I’ve never partaken in the one at The Church of the Nativity in Cleveland, I’ve attended plenty of others in southern Minnesota. Church dinner food is typically homemade, the draw for me, along with the fellowship.
If I wasn’t already busy this Sunday, August 4, I’d head west to Cleveland, which sits along State Highway 99 six miles east of St. Peter, to this Catholic church dinner and festival.
The beautiful chicken dinner sign I spotted along Minnesota Highway 99 on the edge of Cleveland.
Since I can’t review the food, I’ll award these dinner promoters five stars for creative and eye-catching roadside signage.
To learn more about the dinner, I checked out the church website (click here) where the meal is tagged as “Men’s Chicken Dinner & Parish Festival.” Now I’m certain women and children are welcome. I assume the “men’s dinner” means the men are cooking the advertised “fabulous broasted chicken.”
In addition, baked potatoes, creamy cucumbers, baked beans, pie and beverages will be served. Homemade pie. The best.
Food will be served from 10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Mass starts at 8:30 a.m.
My food plated at the annual Trinity North Morristown church dinner.
Besides food, the festival offers your usual games, beer garden (this was an initial surprise for me, a Lutheran, to discover beer at a church event) and silent auction. The Church of the Nativity also has an antique car show and a coffee bar, neither of which I’ve seen at a parish fest.
Next year this event is going on my list of must-attend church festivals.
FYI: I’d recommend attending these three church dinners:
Click here to read about the Veseli Ho-Down, Most Holy Trinity’s annual parish festival and dinner. This event is held in late August. Great food, music, games and more.
Click here to read about the annual church dinner at Trinity Lutheran Church, rural North Morristown. The dinner is served in mid-October in the church basement. Excellent, excellent food.
Also, check out the website, Church Cuisine of Minnesota, for stories and photos of other church dinners.
HAVE YOU ATTENDED an outstanding church dinner and/or festival? if so please share in a comment to this post.
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Part II: Fun at the Kletscher family reunion July 31, 2013
THE THING I APPRECIATE about a little competitive fun at the annual Kletscher family reunion are the memories built and the melding of generations.
Review the images below and those published yesterday (click here) and I expect you will agree.
I love that my extended family loves to have fun.
In this game, contestants (my sister Lanae is on the left) race to move gummy worms from a pie plate into a cup, with their mouths. The plates were supposed to be filled with whipped cream, but someone left it in a hot vehicle and, well, there was no whipped cream. Perhaps just as well.
Kegan drops gummy worms into a cup, doing his part for the Rednecks team.
Teams of all ages work together in assembling 25-piece puzzles.
Teamwork, up close.
Denver, member of the blue team.
Big sister assists little brother in the kids’ nail driving contest.
Determined, if anything.
Uncle Wally, an experienced carpenter, won a round of the adult competition in nail driving.
My cousin Sandy, organizer of the games, scrambles to pull boxcutters from the tool prize box before the kids grab the knives.
Colorful socks, colorful cups for this contestant in a race to fill the cups with popcorn.
The water spigot proved a popular spot once squirt guns were distributed.
That would be my husband, Randy, sporting “safety glasses” for the nail driving contest. He tied in the first round, pounding 9 1/2 nails into a chunk of wood in one minute.
My sister Lanae cuddles 5-month-old cousins Garrett (I think; he’s a twin), left, and Logan, right. They represent the next generation of Kletscher family competitors.
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Celebrating family at the annual Kletscher reunion in southwestern Minnesota July 30, 2013
Referees watch over the competition in which contestants fill cups, attached to their feet, with popcorn and race to fill ice cream buckets.
THIS YEAR THEY CALLED in the referees to control the competitors.
The competitors would be the descendants (and spouses) of Henry and Ida Kletscher, gathered on Sunday afternoon in the Vesta City Park for the annual family reunion. My aunts and uncles and cousins and their kids and their kids’ kids; my mom; four of my siblings and two of their spouses; and a single nephew.
Plating food at the potluck meal spread across several picnic tables in the Vesta City Park shelter.
My first plate of food. I made sure to grab a piece of the blueberry dessert, which my Aunt Marilyn brings each year. Wait too long and you miss out on a piece.
Fueled by a potluck meal, preschoolers to my 90-year-old Aunt Elaine participated in an afternoon of organized competitive activities ranging from puzzle making to relay races to nail pounding to Kletscher family trivia.
In the flag race, contestants carry flags from one ice cream bucket to another.
Laughter erupted. Legs pounded the parched and hardened lawn. Good-natured kidding abounded.
Winners in the puzzle making competition celebrate. Contestants assembled 25-piece puzzles.
Teams cheered.
My cousin Greg cheats in the popcorn game in which contestants were supposed to fill cups, attached to their feet, with popcorn. He found his hands to work much better.
Cheating ran rampant, despite the two referees, who couldn’t possibly spot every rule infringement.
That would be my Aunt Janice filling a squirt gun.
In order to protect my camera, I keep my distance from the water balloon toss.
I stepped back from the water balloon toss, dodged squirt gun fire, held my camera above the chaos to photograph the competition.
The games begin with assembling 25-piece puzzles.
To a distant passerby, the goings-on may have appeared crazy and chaotic and perhaps worthy of a call to the Redwood County Sheriff’s Department.
In the nail driving contest, entrants had one minute to pound as many nails as they could into a section of wood.
But I observed fun—a family connecting and building memories.
Team Red poses for a photo.
In many ways, the reunion took me back to decades earlier and evenings of gathering at the farms of extended family members to celebrate birthdays and anniversaries. Then I was the kid, the girl racing across a pitch black farm yard playing “Starlight Moonlight” with my cousins—connecting, building memories.
In this game, competitors soak up water with sponges and race to fill ice cream buckets.
Today I am the photographer, capturing those memories, reveling in the blessings of belonging to a family that cares enough to come together every July in a rural southwestern Minnesota city park a skip over gravel roads from acres of cropland.
My Aunt Jeanette holds one of her newest great grandsons, who traveled from near Milwaukee with his parents and twin brother to attend the reunion. At five months, Landon (or Garrett, I’m unsure which twin) is among the youngest of Henry and Ida Kletscher’s descendants. This image was shot at the Saturday evening get together. In recent years the reunion expanded to begin on Saturday evening, resuming with the Sunday noon potluck. Games were also added within the past five years to keep the young people coming and to mingle the generations.
This the land of our forefathers, the home of our hearts, the place where family memories are rooted, here on the prairie.
CHECK BACK FOR MORE photos of family reunion fun.
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Summer shadows July 29, 2013
MY HOMETOWN IS SO SMALL…
…that on a Sunday evening, as the sun slides toward the prairie, I can stand in the middle of the street by my mom’s house and photograph her shadow and that of my husband and myself.
The shadows of my 81-year-old mom, left, my husband in the middle and me on the right, on a residential street in Vesta, Minnesota.
We plant our feet on the asphalt and laugh at our 25-foot tall, long-legged selves.
As we pose and wave and I struggle to hold my camera still for the laughter, I imprint this moment upon my memory: Prairie light and prairie sky and prairie town. And two people I cherish and love beside me, laughing in the moment at our silly shadows on a splendid summer evening.
© Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Willow Street quote of the day July 25, 2013
IF I HAD A TWITTER account, I’d be tweeting this quote right now:
“When I get drunk and high, I get this weird intelligence going on.”
Be careful what you say when you walk past my Faribault home, where my office is located within feet of the sidewalk and my window is thrust wide open.
The above quote came directly from the mouth of a young woman moments ago as she chatted with a young man.
My comment on her statement is this:
“When you get drunk and high, you have no intelligence going on.”
THOUGHTS, DEAR READERS?
Copyright 2013 Audrey Kletscher Helbling
Recent Comments