Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Beyond just a holiday art exhibit at the former Owatonna orphanage December 15, 2011

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A door into the Owatonna Arts Center in southern Minnesota.

BEHIND THE BACK BLUE DOOR of the Owatonna Arts Center, housed in a former orphanage, past the guardian nutcracker, up the stairs and just to your left, you’ll discover a sprinkling of holiday magic and realism in “The Story Books of Christmas” exhibit.

As OAC Art Director Silvan Durben tells me, the exhibit doesn’t specifically emphasize Christmas books—although two are holiday-themed—but rather impresses the sharing of a storybook with a child and the warm memories that evokes.

You’ll experience that bonding over books in a rotating display of Mother Goose tales crafted onto cardboard and placed next to a Christmas tree embraced by teddy bears tucked among branches.

Who among us doesn’t remember with fondness the recitation of nursery rhymes?

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick.

Hickory, dickory, dock, the mouse ran up the clock. The clock struck one. The mouse ran down. Hickory, dickory, dock.

Or the story of the “Old Man in the Moon?”

It was not lost on me, though, that the orphaned children who once tread these floors did not experience the closeness of clutching a teddy bear or cuddling on a lap while listening to nursery rhymes as they drifted into sleep.

A rotating exhibit of several Mother Goose nursery rhymes.

A close-up of art in the Hickory, dickory, dock rhyme.

Many dreamed of escaping—and some did via rail—the drudgery and abuse at the former Minnesota State Public School for Dependent and Neglected Children.

That reality struck me as I viewed an over-sized silver jingle bell and the word “BELIEVE” punched into an equally-large golden ticket at The Polar Express display. In that children’s picture book by Chris Van Allsburg, a young boy boards a train to the North Pole as the story unfolds to reveal the magic of Christmas.

The large, magical silver bell in The Polar Express display.

Although I did not ask, I wonder if the creators of “The Story Books of Christmas” considered the double-meaning of selecting The Polar Express to highlight in this place where so many children wished for a ticket out.

I found the selection fitting, touching and sad. And a wee bit hopeful.

FYI: “The Story Books of Christmas” exhibit runs through December 29 at the OAC, 435 Garden View Lane. OAC hours are from1 p.m. – 5 p.m. Tuesday – Sunday, closed Mondays. The OAC will also be closed December 23 – 26.

The display highlighting the book, Nestor, the Long-Eared Christmas Donkey.

CHECK BACK for another blog post from the art center and for a photographic tour of Cottage 11, once home to orphaned boys.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

An affordable college option for Minnesotans: Canada December 14, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:21 AM
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MY 17-YEAR-OLD BOUNDED down the stairs Tuesday morning, uncharacteristically cheerful. He’s not a morning person. I’ve learned that the less interaction with him any time before 10 a.m., the better.

So his upbeat attitude and engaging me in conversation before 8 a.m. surprised me.

While I don’t recall his exact words, they went something like this: “You know, Mom, how I sometimes listen to Minnesota Public Radio? Well, they were talking about colleges in Canada and reciprocity with Minnesota and how much cheaper it is to go to school there.”

I could see exactly where this was leading. He wanted to apply to a Canadian college.

However, I was in no mood to hear any of this. After months of attempting to persuade him to apply to shoe-in, affordable Minnesota, Wisconsin or Dakota colleges, I didn’t want him to pursue a dead-end. We’re getting to crunch time here on college apps. (He’s applied to four out-of-state colleges, three of them highly-competitive and totally unaffordable at $40K – $55K annually for tuition, room and board. My son, BTW, is academically-gifted and scored exceptionally well on his ACT test.)

I should have heard him out. But, instead, I spouted rather ridiculous responses like: “Your dad and I don’t even have passports.” And “Do you know how much it would cost to fly to and from a Canadian college?”

He slammed out the door on his way to high school classes without even a goodbye hug. I don’t blame him. I had failed as a mother to listen to my son.

Later Tuesday morning, I checked out the MPR news story, which you can read by clicking here. In summary, Minnesota and Canada, specifically the province of Manitoba, have had a tuition reciprocity agreement for 20 years. Who knew? Not me.

"Canada is closer than Colorado," my son told me.

Tuition at a Manitoban university, for example, will cost a Minnesota student around $4,000 annually. That’s less than tuition at a Minnesota community college, state-run university or the University of Minnesota, according to the MPR article.

The most recent enrollment statistics listed on the Minnesota Office of Higher Education website show 31 Minnesotans attending post secondary institutions in Canada during the 2009-2010 school year. Click here to check out information on that website.

Will my son head north across the border to the University of Winnipeg or one of six other Manitoban colleges?

I don’t know. But it’s certainly worth investigating as he considers his college options.

All of this brings me full circle to two questions raised in recent weeks by several friends:

  • Is it even worth going to college any more?
  • Does it matter where you attend college? One friend tells me her son, who went to a state-run South Dakota university, earns just as much as co-workers who graduated from more elite and expensive private colleges.

I’ve considered these same questions.

WHAT’S YOUR TAKE on going to college? Is it worth the investment? Does attending a prestigious private college give you an employment advantage? I’d like to hear your thoughts. Please submit a comment.

© 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

 

Appreciating Main Street December 6, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:01 AM
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Entering Janesville from the west along old Highway 14, you'll see this grain bin signage welcoming you to town.

I REMEMBER YEARS ago driving through the heart of Janesville along well-traveled U.S. Highway 14 in southern Minnesota. The town of 2,100 teemed with traffic following this main east-west route.

Today, as motorists bypass Janesville along the four-lane highway completed in 2006, the town barely stirs on a Sunday afternoon. Certainly, I should have expected this change when I drove into Janesville several months ago. Yet, the stillness, the boarded up buildings, the quiet Main Street surprised me. It shouldn’t have. What other result should I expect when a major highway reroutes around a town?

Janesville's downtown business district on a Sunday afternoon in August.

I possess no stake in this community nor am I critical of the Highway 14 improvement. The fixes to this treacherous roadway were necessary for motorists’ safety. I wish all of Highway 14 across Minnesota was a four-lane route, especially the deadly stretch between Mankato and New Ulm.

But back to Janesville…I’d never turned off the highway into the downtown business district, never in all the years I’d passed through this community along the old Highway 14. I’m almost ashamed to write that. But Janesville was just one more town to slow me down in getting from one destination to another.

Therein lies part of the problem. We are all in too much of a hurry, way too much of a hurry.

We need to pause, to turn off the interstates and highways and drive onto Main Street in Small-Town, U.S.A., park our vehicles and walk. Look at the buildings. Peer in the windows. Admire the character of old buildings. Stroll into a business and make a purchase. Strike up a conversation with a local.

An antique store anchors a a downtown corner across from the elevator.

The entry to a radio and TV shop.

A jolt of color in downtown Janesville.

Lovely historic brick buildings grace the downtown. So much potential exists here.

I noticed this beautiful tile outside a former bank.

More potential in this building...

The past preserved in lettering on the side of this brick building.

The intersection at old Highway 14.

I encourage each of you, wherever you live, to take the time to appreciate the small towns in your region or the Main Street in your community.

If you live in a metropolitan area, consciously choose to drive out of the city and into a rural area and onto Main Street.

If you already live in a rural area, choose to appreciate what you have, to remain positive and upbeat about your local businesses.

I expect that if I was to drive into Janesville on a week day, I’d find a busier downtown than the one I discovered on a Sunday afternoon in August. I can’t judge a community by one visit, of that I’m sure. But I do know that I can choose to slow down, look and appreciate Main Street in Small-Town, U.S.A.

So can you.

The post office, a community meeting place in small towns like Janesville.

NOTE: All of these images were taken in downtown Janesville on a Sunday afternoon in August.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Shopping local: service sells December 5, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 1:33 PM
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A candy shop in the 200 block of Central Avenue in historic downtown Faribault.

DO YOU BUY LOCAL?

Seems like a simple question, doesn’t it?

I’d like to answer, “Yes, I only patronize the Central Avenue mom and pop businesses in downtown Faribault and never set foot inside a big-box retailer.” But I would be lying.

I do shop at places like Walmart in Faribault and occasionally at other big-box stores 15 miles away.

However, I don’t run up to the Burnsville Center a half hour north on Interstate 35 except to shop at the next door National Camera Exchange.

That leads me to a little anecdote. Late Saturday morning my 17-year-old told me he was driving to Menards to purchase a sheet of plywood and other materials for a high school science team project. I put the kibosh on that, advising him to wait until his dad arrived home from ringing the Salvation Army bell. I thought perhaps my husband had materials in the garage that could be used to build a car ramp. (He didn’t.)

I asked my son why he couldn’t just buy his materials at a Faribault lumber yard, thus saving time and a 30-mile round trip. Students were apparently told they could get a better deal at the out-of-town big-box store.

That’s probably true if you just walk in and purchase materials. But, I wondered whether the local lumber yard had been approached by a teacher and offered the opportunity to price match.

By the time my husband arrived home, the local lumber yard was closed and there was no option except to go out of town.

A small-town lumber yard in nearby Janesville, not to be confused with the Lamperts referenced in this post.

Last year, when we were planning to replace five windows, two front doors and the siding on the front of our house, we briefly toyed with the idea of going to a big-box retailer. Instead, we bought from a Faribault lumber yard. Yes, we paid more for product. But the personal service extended to us far exceeded anything I’ve ever experienced through a big-box retailer. When we had a problem, John from Lamperts responded and solved the issue. He kept tabs on our project and was always there to answer questions and offer advice.

Service sells me on buying local. Ace Hardware in downtown Faribault is a stellar example of customer service. Walk in the door there and an attentive employee immediately greets you, asks if you need help, leads you to the merchandise and answers any questions. The place is always busy and it’s not because prices are lower. It’s the service. And the free popcorn is a nice small-town touch, too.

Burkhartzmeyer Shoes, a family-owned shoe store along Central Avenue in Faribault.

Several blocks away, you’ll experience equally great service at Burkhartzmeyer Shoes, a third-generation family-owned shoe store. The folks there will measure your feet and assure you get a perfect fit. Have special needs? Burkhartzmeyer has specialists on staff to assist. Service, friendliness, care and quality product sell this shoe store to me and so many others. And the shoebox tied with cotton string and a sucker attached is a nice small-town touch, too.

During the warmer months, I like to shop local for fresh produce at the farmers’ market,Twiehoff Gardens and Nursery, and Trump’s Orchards. Again, the friendly service and fresh, quality products sell themselves. The advice on baking squash or on choosing just the right apples for crisp are nice small-town touches, too.

Bottom line, service sells Main Street.

That all said, I, like most of you, live on a tight budget. Cost matters to me. But oftentimes, so does service.

DO YOU SHOP LOCAL? Why or why not? What would entice you to shop local more often?

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

An unexpected gift from Bernie December 2, 2011

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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

 

The tragic story of “The Christmas Tree Ship” November 30, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:44 AM
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THE PROMO READS:

A delightful holiday musical for the entire family. It’s the true story of a Great Lakes schooner, whose captain risks life and limb to transport Christmas trees to the German immigrants in Chicago during the late 1800’s. The result was the Christmas tree tradition spread throughout the Midwest and America.

Attend The Merlin Players’ production of The Christmas Schooner, opening Friday, December 2, at the Paradise Center for the Arts in historic downtown Faribault, and you’ll never view a Christmas tree in quite the same way. Guaranteed, you’ll appreciate your tree a whole lot more and the ease with which you can pull yours from storage, browse in a Christmas tree lot or tromp through the woods to chop down your own.

Allow me to take you 6 ½ hours away from Faribault to eastern Wisconsin, to Rawley Point, a piece of land that juts into Lake Michigan in Point Beach State Forest five miles north of Two Rivers.

Rawley Point at Point Beach State Forest along Lake Michigan in early August.

Off this point 26 ships sank or became stranded, including the steamship Vernon, which broke up in stormy waters in 1877 with 52 lives lost. Only one seaman survived.

Then there’s the Rouse Simmons schooner, widely known as “The Christmas Tree Ship.” With Captain Herman Schuenemann at the helm, the ship left Thompson, Michigan, on November 22, 1912, bound for Chicago with a holiday cargo of Upper Peninsula Christmas trees. (Sorry, but I can’t explain the discrepancy in dates between the play promo and the true date of the schooner’s demise.)

A painting of the Christmas Tree Schooner at the Great Lakes Coast Guard Museum in Two Rivers.

The schooner, with 16 crew members, never reached Chicago. Not until 59 years later was she found in 170 feet of water off Rawley Point, her Christmas trees still stashed in her hold. The schooner remains preserved in the icy waters of Lake Michigan.

The beach at Rawley Point on a Sunday afternoon in August.

Walking Rawley Point beach on an August afternoon, the only hazards are stinky dead fish and driftwood.

The U.S. Coast Guard's erector style lighthouse at Rawley Point rises 113 feet above Lake Michigan. The light is one of the largest and brightest on the Great Lakes and can be seen from 19 miles away.

This past summer my family visited Point Beach State Forest and attractions in nearby Two Rivers, all within an hour’s drive of my second daughter’s home in Appleton, Wisconsin. On that Sunday afternoon, strolling along the sandy beach near Rawley Point Lighthouse, it seemed impossible that Lake Michigan could transform into stormy waters that would become a grave for so many.

But it did.

Now you can experience the touching and tragic story of “The Christmas Tree Ship” via The Merlin Players’ The Christmas Schooner production. I saw this performance several years ago at the Paradise.

I cried.

I’ve never cried before at a play.

The historic Rogers Street Fishing Village includes the 1886 Two Rivers' North Pier Lighthouse, to the right.

Inside the Coast Guard museum, a worker points to a model of the Rawley Point Lighthouse, which was moved from a French exhibit at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 to Rawley Point.

You'll find information and artifacts from area shipwrecks at the fishing village and museum.

FYI: Performances of The Christmas Schooner are set for 7:30 p.m. December 2, 3, 8, 9 and 10 and at 2 p.m. December 4 and 11 at the Paradise Center for the Arts, 321 Central Avenue, Faribault. Admission is $14 for adults and $9 for those 12 and under. For tickets, call (507) 332-7372 or stop in during box office hours, from noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday or from noon to 8 p.m. Thursday.

I’d highly-recommend buying tickets in advance.

CLICK HERE for information about the Rouse Simmons schooner from the Wisconsin Historical Society.

CLICK HERE for info about Two Rivers, Wisconsin.

CLICK HERE for info on Point Beach State Forest.

CLICK HERE to read a previous post I wrote about the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Thoughts on the day after Thanksgiving November 25, 2011

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Thanksgiving Day dinner at my house with family.

ON THE DAY after Thanksgiving I am thankful…

  • …that I am not battling the mobs searching for bargains, even if my sister terms Black Friday shopping as “fun.” She regales me with tales of shoppers smashing shopping carts into hers and the rule she and her daughter follow: “We won’t fight anyone over anything; it’s not worth it.” I’ve figured out the real reason she shops today. It’s all about tradition and being with her daughter and not really about the bargains.
  • …that my mom could spend another Thanksgiving with me, my family and other members of my extended family. She’s 79 and not in the best of health. Last evening my husband and I drove her up to the McStop in Lakeville where my uncle and cousin met us. My mom will spend several days with her Arkansas sisters, her brother and their spouses in Minneapolis. Family time is precious.
  • …for the 60-degree temperatures Thanksgiving afternoon that prompted us to pull out the lawn chairs and sit on the patio, the sun warming our backs in a brisk wind.
  • …that my second daughter made it home for Thanksgiving, her first trip back from eastern Wisconsin since May. She’s a Spanish medical interpreter and, with only one weekend a month free of on-call status, simply can’t come back to Minnesota as often as I’d like.
  • …that my oldest daughter who lives in Minneapolis opted to sleep here on Thanksgiving, making me a particularly happy mom. I love having all three of my kids together with my husband and me for an evening and then all tucked into our beds, under the same roof, for a night.
  • …that I am going to be a great aunt for the fifth time. My nephew made the announcement yesterday that he and his wife are expecting a baby in June.

I hope your Thanksgiving was as wonderful as mine.

HOW WERE YOU blessed this Thanksgiving?

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The lists you don’t want to be on in Minnesota November 22, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:43 PM
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DO YOU KNOW someone critically-injured or killed in a motor vehicle accident who was not wearing a seat belt?

I do.

So when I picked up The Faribault Daily News and read this front page headline, “County on new motorist deaths list,” I was not pleased, not at all.

My county of Rice is already on the list of Minnesota’s 13 deadliest counties for impaired driving. (Click here to see that list.) Now we’re on that latest “State’s 20 counties with highest percentage of unbelted deaths” list, according to a recent study released by the Minnesota Department of Public Safety Office of Traffic Safety. (Click here to read that report.)

From 2008 – 2010, Rice County had 14 motor vehicle fatalities. Nine of those individuals, or 64 percent, were not wearing seat belts.

Ranking at the top of this list you don’t want to be on are rural Kanabec and Wadena counties, each with three fatalities, all three unbelted. Nearly every county on the list of 20 lies in a rural area.

A rural southwestern Minnesota highway.

Certainly, statistics do not tell the full story of these deaths. Many factors can contribute to losing your life in a motor vehicle accident. Yet, buckling up is the one simple action you can take to increase your chances of escaping death or severe injury in a crash. Common sense tells you if you’re not strapped in place, you’re most likely going to be ejected or partially-ejected from your vehicle during a serious accident.

Why would you risk traveling without buckling up?

I’d like to pose that question not only to my fellow residents in Rice County, but also to those living in Redwood County in rural southwestern Minnesota where I grew up.

Redwood County, with a population of only 16,059, ranked third on the unbelted fatalities list with five of the six individuals killed from 2008 – 2010 not buckled in.

Perhaps Minnesotans living in less-populated areas like Redwood County possess a false sense of security regarding travel on rural roads. I know that region of Minnesota well. You can sometimes drive forever without seeing another motorist. And seldom do I see a law enforcement vehicle. But that should not stop drivers and passengers from wearing seat belts.

As much as I detest the traffic congestion and often times crazy driving in the metro area, I know that I am statistically safer on Twin Cities highways than I am on rural roadways.

A rare, uncongested drive through Minneapolis.

That brings us back to Rice County in southeastern Minnesota along Interstate 35. I don’t consider my county—with a population of 63,034, the state’s 13th most populous county and an hour from downtown Minneapolis—to be rural although we certainly have plenty of farms and back roads.

Why are people failing to buckle up here? How does that relate to driving while impaired?

When a law enforcement officer stops a driver in Rice County for failure to wear a seat belt, does the officer ask why the motorist is not buckled in? Can that question legally be asked?

Recently, two Faribault High School students were ejected from a vehicle during a crash. The unbelted driver, a 17-year-old member of the FHS football team, suffered a neck injury and was released shortly after the accident, according to an article in The Faribault Daily News. His unbelted 16-year-old passenger was critically-injured.

I hope the two teens involved, and their families, will approach local school officials to use this as a teachable moment to promote seat belt usage. As parents of most teens will tell you, an experience shared by a peer can accomplish what all the lecturing in the world by a parent cannot.

Minnesota high schoolers interested in promoting seat belt usage can compete for a $1,000 prize in the “Buckle Up Teens! TV Commercial Challenge” contest sponsored by the state’s Office of Traffic Safety. Entry deadline for the 30-second TV public service announcement is April 16, 2012. (Click here for information about this competition.)

Realistically, I realize that no matter how hard we try collectively to increase seat belt usage in Minnesota to 100 percent via contests, education, laws, enforcement of laws and more, we’ll never reach perfection. But we’re getting close at 92 percent of Minnesotans now buckling up, according to the state Traffic Safety office.

Residents of Rice and Redwood counties, and all those other 18 counties on the state’s “unbelted fatalities list,” please buckle up. Honestly, I don’t like reading stories about traffic deaths that could have been prevented.

DO YOU BUCKLE UP every time you get into a motor vehicle? Why or why not? Share your personal reasons, your story.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Reaching “the nations” November 21, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 3:37 PM
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I STILL REMEMBER the derogatory label, even after all these years. “Gooks,” he called them. I lashed back, defending the Asian families who fled their war torn countries to start new lives in America in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

“Didn’t your great grandparents immigrate here?” I asked, trying to control my emotions as I confronted the Faribault man who spit out the venomous word. But I knew, even as I spoke, that I could not quell his hatred.

Now, nearly 30 years later, I hear similar disparaging terms directed toward Somalis and Sudanese and, yes, Hispanics, too.

Don’t we ever learn?

These thoughts, of anything I could have considered, passed through my mind yesterday afternoon as I photographed Hmong families participating in a “Let the People Praise!” mission event at my Faribault church, Trinity Lutheran.

Deacon Johnny Vang of New Life Lutheran Church, Robbinsdale, with his wife Tina and children, Leviticus, 10, Cecilia, 7, and Christian, 4.

I could forgive the man who nearly three decades prior had spoken with such ignorance. But I could not forget.

The organizers and participants in Sunday’s mission gathering wouldn’t expect my thoughts to wander back to that previous unwelcoming American attitude toward Southeast Asians. But I am honest and this post would not be mine if I ignored that unsettling flashback.

With that historic frame of reference, I could only admire the faith and fortitude of the men and women who stood before me in the sanctuary singing in the Hmong choir, speaking of their mission outreach to Southeast Asia and in Minnesota, specifically in Robbinsdale and the east side of St. Paul.

Members of the Hmong choir wore colorful, ethnic costumes.

The congregation, including individuals from the Hmong community, sang at Sunday's mission celebration.

Churches initially embraced Cambodian and Laotian refugees in the years following the divisive and turbulent Vietnam War. I remember, during my first newspaper reporting job out of college in 1978, writing about a Southeast Asian family resettling to the small Minnesota town of Gaylord. I don’t recall details now, but the compassionate sponsorship of this family by a local church made an impression on me.

That care and love triumph over the hateful words and attitudes of the past.

It pleased me to listen to those involved in the Hmong Lutheran Ministry speak of mission trips to the Communist countries of Laos and Vietnam and to Cambodia and Thailand. The “Communist” part certainly doesn’t please me, but the Christian outreach does.

“They are hungry for the gospel and they want to be saved,” a Hmong deacon told us.

My favorite photo of the day shows the Vang children, Leviticus, Cecilia and Christian on the floor in the narthex, the church doors into the sanctuary flung wide open. This symbolizes to me the doors that are being opened to Christianity through mission work here in Minnesota and in Southeast Asia.

Later the Rev. David Seabaugh of Bethel Lutheran Church in St. Paul, home to a Liberian ministry, used nearly the same words: “The Liberian people are hungry for the gospel.”

I considered then how complacent I’ve sometimes become in my Christian faith, even in my free access to the bible, and in my personal outreach.

I needed to hear this Scripture from I Chronicles 16: 24:

Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

God doesn’t care if we’re black or white or yellow, or even Lutheran for that matter, or where we live. He considers us “the nations.”

Today, just like 100 years ago when the Germans and Italians and Swedes and Norwegians and so many others immigrated to America, “the nations” are still arriving on our doorstep.

Are you welcoming them?

A sombrero rests in the side aisle prior to a musical performance by Hispanic children from the Le Sueur and Henderson areas.

Members of the Hispanic children's choir perform.

A representative of the Sudanese ministry spoke at the mission gathering. "Before, we suffer a lot," he said, calling it "God' s plan" that the Sudanese came to America and to Minnesota.

A musical performance by the Sudanese.

Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling