Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

At the Hjemkomst Center: A cultural melting pot of gifts November 19, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:39 AM
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The interior of the Hjemkomst, a replica Viking ship.

IMAGINE PACKING YOUR ENTIRE LIFE into a steamer trunk and sailing across a vast ocean into the unknown and a future that holds both fear and promise.

I cannot fathom this as I am neither an adventurer nor lover of water transportation. Nor would I desire to leave the familiarity of the only home I’d ever known, or loved ones behind.

To be an early immigrant to this country had to be difficult.

My ancestry is 100 percent German.

My own forefathers, both maternal and paternal, arrived here from Germany, making their way west to eventually settle in Minnesota.

A Swedish ( I think) gift shop doll.

Minnesota. Home to Swedes and Germans, Norwegians and Finns and Irish and Poles and Italians and…a whole melting pot of people in those early days of settlement. Today we might add Sudanese, Somali and Hispanic to the mix.

A gift shop doll labeled Solveig. Norwegian, I think.

So where am I going with this pondering?

In the center of the Hjemkomst Center, the mast area of the Hjemkomst ship dominates the roofline.

A visit to the Hjemkomst Center on the western border of Minnesota in the city of Moorhead, snugged against the Red River of the North, prompted all this thought about immigration. The center is, among other things, home to the Hjemkomst, a replica Viking ship constructed in northwestern Minnesota and then sailed from Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota, across the Atlantic Ocean to Norway in 1982. (Click here to read my post about the Hjemkomst.)

A Scandinavian painting on a plate in the gift shop.

It was the Hjemkomst Center Heritage Gift Shop which truly directed my thoughts toward immigration and celebrating the cultural diversity of our country. Here, in this store, you can purchase merchandise which connects to ethnicity.

A Viking helmet on display.

And because I have never traveled across the ocean, not any farther west than the eastern border of Wyoming, but as far east as New York with the Statue of Liberty within my view, shops like this allow me to experience snippets of other countries and cultures.

Hands down, I found this to be the most stunning piece of handcrafted art for sale in the Heritage Center Gift Shop. Bosnian immigrant Dzenan Becic carved this incredible cedar chest and other pieces sold in the gift shop. I tried to find more info online about this artist, but could not. His father, Izudin, is also a carver. These artists live either in Fargo or Moorhead.

I know. This museum gift shop does not hold the same meaning to those of you who are seasoned world travelers. But for me, a child of the land-locked prairie, such places hold a certain allure. I suppose it’s like reading a book. I can travel afar without actually ever boarding the ship.

More Becic carving in a wall shelf.

Just a cute little Viking I spotted for sale in the gift shop. May I call a Viking “cute?”

BONUS BUY:

Even though, geographically, you’re in Moorhead, Minnesota, and not Fargo, North Dakota, when you’re at the Hjemkomst Center, you may still be interested in purchasing this Fargo native t-shirt.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Discovering historic & vibrant downtown Fargo November 12, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:29 AM
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A view of the 300 block on North Broadway, including signage for the Fargo Theatre, built in 1926 as a cinema and vaudeville theatre. The restored theatre is on the National Register of Historic Places and serves as a venue for independent and foreign films, concerts, plays and more.

NOT EVEN THE SHROUD of gray mist and gloom which wrapped around Fargo in the late afternoon of a bone-chilling Saturday in early November could quell my enthusiasm for this historic downtown in a city I’ve only begun to explore.

This is my kind of downtown with historic buildings and a vibe that is both vibrant and subdued. I’d feel as comfortable here glammed for an evening on the town as I would kicking about in my jeans and buffalo plaid flannel shirt.

Under the protective canopy of the Fargo Theatre, I shot this street scene.

In a brief walk of not quite two blocks—shortened by the drizzle and my desire to keep my camera out of the rain—I realized that I need to revisit this downtown when time and weather allow for a more intimate look.

I swung my camera around to focus on the advertising on this stately brick building just off Broadway.

A quick visual tour revealed well-kept brick buildings with great architectural detail, vintage neon signs, advertising painted on brick walls, art in the sidewalk and a general impression that those who live and work here care about this place.

Sidewalk art featuring the Fargo Theatre.

It’s no wonder that in 2011, Forbes magazine recognized downtown Fargo as one of the nation’s top 10 most transformed neighborhoods.

If you want big box retailers and miles of cement and malls, all of which you could find in Anytown, U.S.A., Fargo has that too, over in West Fargo.

Almost anywhere you go in Fargo, you will encounter railroad tracks, even in the heart of downtown, here in the 400 block of North Broadway.

But the downtown, oh, the downtown, that to me holds the personality of Fargo as an historic river and railroad and farming community, appreciative of its past, adapting to the present and aware of its future.

Looking toward the 400 block of North Broadway, a broader view of the image above.

Signage details on buildings in the 400 block of North Broadway.

More sidewalk art, with the names Ed & Hildegarde Kraus embedded.

Across from the Fargo Theatre, O’Day Cache’ , located in the building labeled Fargoan.

Another shot of downtown, from the corner of Fourth and Broadway.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

My writing connection to a Fargo bookstore November 9, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:58 AM
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A snippet of the many bookshelves at Zandbroz Variety. So artful and colorful and inviting.

MY PURPOSE IN CHECKING OUT a downtown Fargo, North Dakota, bookstore/gift shop recently focused on a single reason—Lake Region Review.

I wanted to see this Minnesota literary journal on the shelves of Zandbroz Variety because, well, my poetry is published in volumes one and two. Recently-released LRR 2 features 34 pieces of writing by selected authors in Minnesota and the eastern Dakotas.

Lake Region Review 2, with wood print cover art by well-known Minnesota artist Charles Beck of Fergus Falls, nestles next to the first volume of LRR. Beck’s cover art is titled “Cardinals.”

Given that 430 fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry submissions were submitted to the Battle Lake-based Lake Region Writers Network for volume two, getting into the collection is an honor and accomplishment. I’m in the company of mighty fine writers, many of them with an impressive list of writing credentials.

I also happen to live in southeastern Minnesota, far, far away from most of the writers featured in LRR and also far away from events related to the release of the second volume.

The back room of Zandbroz Variety, site of readings, book club meetings and other events and gatherings.

Visiting Zandbroz Variety offered me an opportunity to connect with the Fargo bookstore which will host a Lake Region Review Two Reading Event at 2 p.m. Sunday, December 9. I didn’t know about the event when I visited Zandbroz and introduced myself. And when I photographed the delightful back room of Zandbroz, I was unaware LLR 2 contributors will soon be reading in this cozy and inviting space.

Artwork in Zandbroz Variety’s back room with a favorite quote of mine from the book, The Help.

It was pure coincidence that, two days later, I would receive an email from Luke Anderson, president of the LRWN inviting me and other LLR 2 writers to participate in the reading at Zandbroz. I wish I could, but a 300-mile (one-way) road trip to Fargo is not in my plans as I’ve been to that North Dakota city four times already since February. (My son attends North Dakota State University.) Gas, hotel and dining expenses add up.

Likewise, I couldn’t join other LRR 2 writers who recently read their works for a program to be aired November 30 – December 2 on nine western Minnesota radio stations from Worthington in the extreme southwest to Fergus Falls on the north.

So it goes. I’m not much anyway on public appearances, preferring to write rather than perform. But I’m learning, too, the value in reading poetry aloud to an audience, having done that thrice now.

Promoting is also part of this writing gig. And that, too, can be a challenge given my Minnesota predisposition not to call attention to myself.

However, I did inform the young man staffing Zandbroz Variety that I had poems in both volumes of Lake Region Review. “Perhaps you remember the first; I mentioned cow pee,” I told him. “And in the second, I mention beer.”

He laughed, considered for a moment and replied that “cow pee” sounded familiar to him. Maybe. Maybe not. But I expect he’ll remember me now.

The lines, the books, the setting…this a scene in the back reading room. Love the ambiance.

A close-up of the chair back in the photo above. I have no idea from what book these pages were pulled. But I’d place a literary chair like this in my home any day.

Jolts of color on a door in that welcoming back room.

A rug for sale in the variety section of Zandbroz where you will find an eclectic mix of funky and retro and otherwise interesting merchandise. This made me think of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”

An enchanting Christmas display near the front of the store.

Outside a front door of Zandbroz, I found this lovely tile work. I apologize for the lack of exterior store photos. But a light mist was falling at the time and I was reluctant to pull out my camera. I also limited my interior shots as Zandbroz was busy, busy and other shoppers do not always appreciate someone aiming a camera at them.

FYI: To learn more about Lake Region Writers Network, click here to reach the writers’ group website.

To see where you can find copies of Lake Region Review, published in 2011 and 2012, click here. LRR 2 includes writing by the following: Maxine Adams, Luke Anderson, Joe Baker, Frances Ann Crowley, Holly Dowds, Cindy Fox, Yahya Frederickson, Susan Gilbert, Ruby Grove, Vinnie Hansen, Audrey Kletscher Helbling, Nancy Klepetka, Karla Klinger, Elisa Korentayer, Judy R. Korn, Ryan Kutter, Julie C. Larson, Kim Larson, Linda Frances Lein, Kathleen Lindstrom, Ethan Marxhausen, Linda Back McKay, Travis Moore, Kristine Price, Candace Simar, Doris Lueth Stengel, Liz Sweder, Francine Marie Tolf, Benet Tvedten and Kevin Zepper.

Click here to see where you can listen to readings from LRR 2 airing soon on nine western Minnesota radio stations.

Finally, click here to learn more about Zandbroz Vareity, founded by brothers Jeff and Greg Danz and with stores in Fargo (420 Broadway) and in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Do you see how they came up with the clever name for their business?

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

What’s with all those dangling bras in downtown Fargo? November 8, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:04 AM
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SO…MY HUSBAND and I are driving through downtown Fargo Saturday afternoon, en route to Zandbroz Variety because I want to see Lake Region Review on bookshelves there. Sometimes I am vain like that. But I’ve had poetry published in the first two volumes of LRR and, as any writer will tell you, there’s a certain thrill in seeing a book, which includes your work, shelved and for sale.

I digress.

Before we reach Zandbroz, which rates as a quite cool variety store, we pass the Hotel Donaldson, locally referenced as the HoDo. This stately brick building anchoring the corner of First Avenue North and Broadway in the heart of downtown Fargo was built in 1893 as an Odd Fellows Lodge. Today it’s been transformed into a hotel, cultural and entertainment center and fine dining establishment. Not that I’ve been inside; I’ve only read this.

My first view of Bras on Broadway at the HoDo.

And for the month of October and apparently into November, the HoDo has become the canvas for Bras on Broadway.

Looking up on the First Avenue side of the bras dangling from the HoDo.

Yes, you read that correctly. The exterior of the HoDo is adorned/decorated/covered (choose your verb) in strings of bras reaching from rooftop to first floor window level.

The Bras on Broadway art installment on the corner of First Avenue North and Broadway.

Fortunately, as we approach the HoDo, the stoplight turns red, thus allowing me enough time for a quick photo shoot while we wait and then turn the corner onto Broadway. I try not to think about the mist as I stick my camera out the van window and aim the lens upward, hoping I will get a few publishable shots.

Turning onto Broadway, I shoot this scene of Bras on Broadway.

With no parking spaces available, I will figure out what the whole bra thing is about later. And so, at the variety store, I ask, “What’s going on with all the bras on that building?”

“It’s Bras on Broadway at the HoDo, raising funds for breast cancer,” I am informed, but do not press for details given Zandbroz is teeming with shoppers.

According to the Bras on Broadway website, the event “supports those in our area fighting breast cancer by providing accommodations, gas cards and wigs.” Last year $102,000 was donated to the American Cancer Society, bringing the six-year donations total to $264,000. (I couldn’t find a total for 2012.)

This October marks the seventh annual Bras on Broadway with monies raised in a variety of ways: For a minimum $5 and donation of “any old bra,” a bra can be added to the garlands of bras. Teams and individuals collect bras and monetary gifts. Sales of event related merchandise go toward the cause. Artists reinvent wearable and non-wearable bras that are auctioned off.

The Broadway side of the HoDo exhibit.

All of this Bras on Broadway fundraising apparently is finished for this year. Even so, I want to share this story and photos with you because, wow, something like thousands of bras dangling from an historic building in Fargo, of all places, grabs your attention.

And get this, Bras on Broadway hosted a “Deck the Bras” event at the Fargo Civic Center where anyone could bring bras and enhance them with bling and trinkets for the HoDo installment. The mobile mammography truck from the local medial center also showed up at the decorating party.

One final shot of Bras on Broadway as we drive past the HoDo.

Oh, and if you’re wondering, the first two volumes of the regional literary journal Lake Region Review are stocked at Zandbroz Variety, 420 Broadway, just blocks from the Bras on Broadway at the HoDo.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Thoughts on a weekend journey to Fargo and back under grey November skies November 7, 2012

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Westbound for Fargo on Interstate 94 near the West Union exit on Saturday morning.

NEARLY 10 HOURS in a vehicle traveling almost 600 miles round trip to Fargo, North Dakota, under the gloomiest of grey November skies can test one’s endurance.

The eyes began to wander, to lock onto the slightest patches of color in an otherwise dull and monotone landscape.

Billboards offer a diversion as do the semis which follow Interstate 94, some forking north toward Canada, others continuing even farther west into the endless grey expanse.

A section of the journey where there are still hills. My eyes focus on the brilliant red hue of the barn.

Near Barnesville, a short distance east of Fargo and Moorhead, piles of corn brighten the muted landscape.

Hunters in bright orange roam fields during the opening weekend of firearms deer hunting in Minnesota.

Red barns and piles of golden corn and deer hunters in blaze orange distract me from the barren greyness of this journey to the Red River valley. I wonder at that use of the word “valley,” for I see no indentations in the earth to suggest a valley.

This quaint country church in the distance somewhere east of Fargo/Moorhead always calms my spirits.

I am a prairie native. But even for me, the flat land west of Fergus Falls and into Fargo/Moorhead challenges my spirit. I feel insecure and diminished in this place and that unsettles me.

How can a place seem so flat that I feel as if I will step off the earth should I journey any further than the northwestern fringes of Fargo?

Downtown Fargo late Saturday afternoon under sullen skies with a light mist falling.

More gloomy skies on the return trip from Fargo to Faribault on Sunday afternoon.

Spots of orange (slow moving vehicle signs) provide a respite for my eyes on Sunday’s drive home.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

My opinion of Fargo, the film not the city, & a television series October 2, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:02 AM
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SO THEN, THERE, I watched that there Fargo movie just like I promised ya I would, albeit that promise was made, and this review written, months ago. Ya betcha.

But timing is everything. This past week the Academy Award winning writers of Fargo, native Minnesotans Joel and Ethan Coen, announced plans to executive produce an hour-long series for FX television loosely-based on Fargo. Perfect. Time to pull this review out of my draft box, update and publish it.

Since I don’t get FX, relying instead on a roof antenna to deliver several channels of programming to the single 1990s television in our house, I doubt I will ever view the new Fargo series. I have no idea what writer Noah Hawley, or the Coens, have planned for the small screen adaptation.

But, if the team can produce a show similar to the 1990s television series Northern Exposure, set in Alaska, I’d consider it a success. Honestly, I loved that geographic-centric show with strong local characters and could see the same premise working for Fargo.

That update given, let’s return to my opinion of the original Fargo film. To get you back on track, I’ll repeat the intro to this post:

So, then, there, I watched that there Fargo movie just like I promised ya I would, albeit that promise was made, and this review written, months ago. Ya betcha.

Honestly, people, I cannot write like I’m some northwoods hick. This is not how I talk either. Nor is this how Minnesotans or North Dakotans speak, although occasionally a “ja/ya” or “you bet” may slip into our conversations.

After watching the Coen brothers’ 1996 award-winning film for the second time, because I’ve visited the city of Fargo thrice already this year with the son now attending North Dakota State University, my negative opinion of the language in the movie has broadened. Now not only do I dislike the inaccurate accents and word usage, but I don’t like the bad language either. I apparently had forgotten about all the crude language written into the script.

Apparently I had also forgotten that seven—and I think I got that count right—characters are murdered. That’s a lot of bloodshed.

So what do I consider the film’s notable accuracies in depicting Minnesota?

The Coen brothers, who are native Minnesotans, got it right with the snowy highway scene, the scraping ice from the windshield, the buffet and the eggs for breakfast, the car needing a jump start and this weather phrase: “Gotta front comin’ in.”

But here’s what I really appreciate in Fargo: One of the main characters is a strong woman, Brainerd (Minnesota) Police Chief Marge Gunderson. She is gutsy and determined and she is married to an artist. That the Coens would write that key part for a woman impresses me, because, even in 2012, I am quite certain the number of women who head up police departments in Minnesota and North Dakota is relatively small.

I also like this line by Gunderson, spoken at the end of the movie as she ponders the loss of life, all because of money: “There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’tcha know that?”

That statement is enough to redeem the movie for me.

But I’m still wondering why this film was titled Fargo. Sure, the opening scene takes place in Fargo. But that’s it. From there on in, it’s set in Minnesota. I suppose Brainerd doesn’t have the same ringing appeal or instant identity as Fargo.

And then I’m a bit confused by the discrepancies between the opening—which states that the events depicted in the film took place in Minnesota in 1987—and the afterward, in which viewers are told the film is based on incidents but not a true story. Which is it?

IF YOU’VE SEEN the movie Fargo, what’s your opinion of it?  Do you think it accurately depicts Minnesota and/or Minnesotans? Would you have chosen a different name for the film?

What do you think of plans for a television spin-off of Fargo? What type of content would you like to see in that proposed series? Would you watch it?

CLICK HERE to read a previous post I wrote about a woodchipper and movie memorabilia from the Fargo film on exhibit at the Fargo-Moorhead Visitors Center.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Adjusting to college (mom & son) & reacting to a bomb threat on the NDSU campus September 15, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:11 AM
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EDITOR’S NOTE (that would be me): I was writing this post on Friday when my son called at 10:04 a.m. to tell me the campus of North Dakota State University had been evacuated due to a bomb threat. I was into the fifth paragraph of this post at the time. It is now 3:01 p.m. on Friday and I will attempt to pick up where I left off, although the content, I expect, will differ from what I’d originally intended.

My 18-year-old son, shortly before my husband and I left him in his dorm room on the campus of North Dakota State University four weeks ago. On Friday morning the entire campus was evacuated due to a bomb threat.

TWENTY-EIGHT DAYS/four weeks/one month have passed since my husband and I left our youngest at North Dakota State University, one state/285 miles/five hours away in Fargo.

Since then family and friends have asked how I’m doing. They never ask Randy, I suppose because dads typically don’t admit they miss their children so who would think of asking.

I was poised to tell you that I’m mostly fine, but then, snap, just like that I miss my boy so much I want to cry. I long for the unexpected moments when he would walk into my office and ask, “Mom, can I have a hug?” And then I would wrap my arms around him and savor the tender moment, knowing he still needed me.

I’m not so certain about that need part anymore.

But then the focus of this post changed, snap, just like that, when I thought about Jared, a 19-year-old who lost his life Tuesday afternoon in a farm accident near Janesville. He was trapped inside a grain bin and died before rescuers could release him from the suffocating corn.

I knew Jared because he and his twin brother, Jordan, once attended the same Christian day school as my children and the same church I attend. I don’t know when the family moved away, but that matters not.

I can still picture those two (then) little boys and their mother, Julie, worshiping at Trinity. And now Julie has lost Jared and Jordan has lost his twin brother and a family, and friends, grieve.

And I wonder how a mother can bear such grief.

And I wonder how I can be so selfish and think about myself and how I’m feeling.

Honestly, it’s not like I’m not going to see my 18-year-old. He’s tentatively planning a trip back to Faribault next weekend. I’m happy and elated and so excited.

Then I pause and consider my sister-in-law and brother-in-law and how their 19-year-old son died the summer before he was to start his freshman year of college. And I wonder how a mother and father, even 11 years later, can bear the grief of losing their boy, my nephew, too soon to cancer.

You never know what life will bring. I never expected yesterday morning to answer my cell phone and learn from my son that his college campus—in Fargo, North Dakota, of all places—had been evacuated due to a bomb threat. I felt helpless and desperate for information and wishing I could snatch him away into the safety of my arms and protect him from the evil that exists in this world.

Perhaps this is the dilemma of mothers everywhere, always and forever. We strive to push our children toward independence. And then, when they leave, we long to have them back, safe in our arms, close in the circle of our love.

File photo of the main entrance to North Dakota State University in Fargo.

AND NOW, YOU ASK, how is my college freshman son doing?

Initial responses to that question were limited to two words: “Fine, Mom.” And what, exactly, did that mean? I worried because my son is more reserved, most definitely not a social butterfly.

My husband and eldest urged me to give him time and stop worrying. They were right.

He’s now joined a board game club and a computer club (and will be competing soon in some competition in Illinois and he’s taking his resume because big companies like Twitter and Facebook will be there and it’s a great opportunity to network). He’s met other unicyclers and is trying to start a unicycle club. On Tuesday he starts working and volunteering for Chicago-based Bolder Thinking at the NDSU Technology Incubator as part of his Entrepreneurial Scholarship. He’s formed a limited liability company and will be doing some consulting work (sorry, can’t give you details on that).

And in between all that, he’s carrying 17 college credits.

Yes, the college freshman son is, by all reports (as of Friday), doing well.

His only real complaint thus far: living in the dorm. The reason: the noise.

File photo of a dorm at North Dakota State University.

ABOUT THAT BOMB THREAT: A reporter for the Associated Press, who follows my blog (who knew?), contacted me Friday morning to ask about interviewing my son regarding the evacuation at NDSU. You can read the AP story by clicking here.

Thank you to everyone who offered their support to me via emails, comments and phone calls as this event unfolded Friday at NDSU. I am humbled by your concern and support. Such care reinforces my belief that the goodness in this world far outshines that which is bad.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Discovering a beachfront style building in Fargo, of all places August 30, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:55 AM
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AMID ALL THE BUILDINGS—most of them mammoth brick structures—that I observed in a one-block walk-around in downtown Fargo, I never expected this one:

The 8th Street Lofts in downtown Fargo house apartments ranging in size from 465 to 1,445 square feet and renting for $560 – $1,800 a month, according to the Loft website.

Wow.

The rectangles of tangerine orange bursting in brilliant shades next to monotone gray walls set against the complementary soft blue of a summer afternoon sky caused me to pause, mouth agape.

Would you expect this in Fargo? Maybe along an ocean beachfront in Florida or California. But North Dakota?

That just goes to show that any preconceived notions of what buildings belong where can be proven wrong when you happen upon an architectural anomaly like this structure housing 8th Street Lofts.

Honestly, in the bone-chilling cold of a sub-zero, wind-flogging January morning, wouldn’t this cheery color cause you to smile? It would me.

You’ll find brightly-colored buildings in the La Boca neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Although primarily a tourist destination today, the area is surrounded by houses with painted sheet walls of different colors. Photo by Miranda Helbling.

The jolting orange shades remind me of the multi-colored buildings photographed by my second daughter in the La Boca barrio of Buenos Aires, Argentina. That rough, working class neighborhood along the banks of the Riachuelo River draws tourists to view the colorful houses built by the early Italian immigrants from cast-off ship building materials—planks, sheet metal and such—and then, as legend goes, painted with left-over paint.

I expect when my daughter saw those jolts-of-color buildings, she, too, stopped, mouth agape.

She failed to tell me, though, that the La Boca neighborhood is a rather dangerous place, especially at night. That figures given street criminals are drawn to tourists.

I wouldn’t expect the same in Fargo.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Flat Fargo August 24, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:47 AM
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This water tower is located in West Fargo, an area of shopping malls, restaurants, Big Box stores, hotels, etc. The tower is a rare vertical structure, breaking the flat, horizontal landscape of the Fargo area.

I THOUGHT I KNEW FLAT having grown up on the southwestern Minnesota prairie where the land seems to stretch far and unbroken into flat infinity.

But not until this year, when my family traveled thrice nearly 300 miles north and west to Fargo, North Dakota, and back did I truly understand the definition of flat.

A train rumbles through the northwest side of Fargo near the airport and the campus of North Dakota State University. No, this is not a hill. I simply did not have my horizon straight as I photographed this train while traveling along a city street.

I doubt I have ever seen a city as flat as Fargo. You know, when you spill a glass of milk on the table how the liquid flows fast and free over the edge of the table. Well, that table would be Fargo. The milk would be the Red River of the North. I totally understand now why this city is so prone to flooding each spring.

A herd of buffalo photographed along Interstate 94 east of Fargo, which places them in Minnesota.

I swear, if I had driven to the western edge of Fargo, I would see the world’s largest buffalo—26-foot tall, 60-ton concrete Dakota Thunder sculpted in 1959 by Elmer Petersen—90 miles away atop a hill in Jamestown’s Frontier Village. I saw the buffalo about 20 years ago while en route to a Helbling family reunion in Mandan/Bismarck, cities which actually do have hills. I think.

Inside the NDSU Memorial Union, I photographed this sculpture of a bison, the university’s mascot, in June.

About those buffalo… The flat and forever Dakota plains provide ideal grazing grounds for these massive creatures, or at least once did. Dakotans are proud of their native bison as evidenced in business names; art like “Herd About the Prairie” in Fargo; and even a bison mascot for North Dakota State University where my son is now a student.

A bus bench and sidewalk in West Fargo draw the eye west toward the horizon and the setting sun.

My apologies for momentarily edging away from that flat land issue. Even I, a girl of the prairie, find the Fargo flatness somewhat unsettling. I’d like a few more mature trees, especially on the sprawling growth west side of the city, upon which to rest my eyes. I’d like a few rises in the land, other than the rare man-made ones, to break the monotony of a straight horizontal line.

I expect that if I lived in Fargo, I’d adjust and think nothing of the flat landscape. But when you’re a visitor, you notice things like the lay of the land and the wind, oh, the winds of Fargo.

Just off Interstate 29 a flock of sheep graze pastureland as part of North Dakota State University’s Sheep Experiment Station.

Throughout West Fargo you’ll see open patches of land like this clover field next to the Fairfield Inn, where we’ve stayed twice. The hotel has strong horizontal lines like most structures in Fargo.

A fenceline and cornfield in Fargo, near (or part of, I’m not sure) the NDSU campus. More horizontal lines…

Paradise in Fargo, the Paradiso Mexican Restaurant, that is.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Welcome to Fargo, as in the “real” Fargo June 20, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:48 AM
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The official Fargo-Moorhead visitors guide reads: A warm welcome awaits you. Our Visitors Center, the “Grain Elevator,” located at Interstate 94 exit 348, has bushels of information, maps, brochures and a gift shop.

THE RAPID POP, pop, pop of tumbling popcorn, its buttery aroma scenting the air, impresses upon my senses as I enter the Fargo-Moorhead Vistors Center on a hang-onto-your-hat, grass-bending windy summer afternoon in North Dakota. (Is it always windy here?)

We’ve arrived in town around 4 p.m., five hours after leaving Faribault. I am determined on this, my third visit to Fargo—the first was 18 ½ years ago passing by on the interstate, the second in February—to see the infamous woodchipper from Minnesotans Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1996 award-winning dark comedy/crime film, Fargo.

The famous woodchipper from the movie, Fargo, is a focal point in the Visitors Center. Other film memorabilia is also on display.

In all honesty, I don’t recall the “feeding a body into the woodchipper” bit from the movie. Perhaps I shut my eyes or turned away as I cannot handle gruesome scenes. I remember, instead, the accents that made us northerners sound like backwoods hicks.

Visitors can also peruse copies of the Fargo script written by the Coen brothers from Minnesota.

But the F-M Visitors Center hypes up the film and specifically that woodchipper. And why not? Tourists embrace this kind of stuff, this opportunity to pull on furry ear flapper caps, pose next to the “real” woodchipper from the movie and then post the images on “The Woodchipper in Fargo” Facebook page.

I didn’t even attempt to persuade my husband and 18-year-old son to pose for a woodchipper photo.

A Fargo businessman started the Celebrity Walk. When his business moved, the Walk was relocated to the F-M Visitors Center. Some of the cement squares cracked during the move. Others have cracked due to weather.

We just grabbed bags of popcorn, quite fitting for the whole going-on movie theme, and munched while gathering brochures, asking questions and then, back outside, checking out the names imprinted in cement on The Celebrity Walk of Fame. The Coen brothers were noticeably absent.

Of course, you might know that I would photograph the signature and handprints and footprints of a writer, like John Updike, who several times won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction.

But you’ll find the names, and sometimes hand and footprints and art, of 113 celebrities—from authors to movie stars to musicians and more—here. Notables like The Moody Blues, Bill Gates, Toby Keith, Paul Harvey, Travis Tritt, Conway Twitty, Garth Brooks, Kiss and many more have left their marks on 150-pound squares of cement in Fargo.

Anne Bradley Kiefel’s colorful “Herd About the Prairie” public art sculpture, right, is located at the Visitors Center.

While circling the Celebrity Walk, I broke away to snap photos of the colorful fiberglass buffalo sculpture, “Aunie,” created by Anne Bradley Kiefel as part of a 2006 Lake Agassiz Arts Council public art project, “Herd About the Prairie.” The Visitors Center bison is among 19 such sculptures in the Fargo-Moorhead area.

A looking-up-from-the-ground shot of the buffalo.

Spend any time here, and you’ll soon discover that these F-M folks love their buffalo as much as they love Fargo.

P.S. I just checked out a copy of the movie, Fargo, from my local public library last night. I never intended to do so. But as I was walking past a catch-all basket for books/movies/magazines, there was Fargo, right on the top, staring up at me. Gives you goosebumps, doesn’t it? So…, I will see if I am actually able to watch the woodchippper scene this time around.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling