Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

A bride’s story: Come hell or high water July 10, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:40 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“I TOLD HIM NO WAY IN HELL was I leaving my wedding dress behind,” Tina Marlowe Mann remembers.

And she didn’t. Nine months ago Tina defied a fireman’s order and saved her bridal gown. It was the last thing she brought out of her house during a 15-minute mandatory evacuation of flood-ravaged Hammond on Friday morning, September 24. When she exited her home, the fireman instructed her to park her 4-wheel drive Jeep on high ground, with the wedding dress inside, and walk out of the flooded town because the water had risen too high to drive out.

She refused and instead forged—with five adults, two children, a Rottweiler, two cats, a few clothes and that precious wedding dress—through water that reached the door panels and covered the exhaust pipes of her Jeep.

“We got stuck a couple times and I thought we might not make it out, but we did,” Tina recalls.

Come hell or high water, she would not allow the raging waters of the Zumbro River to snatch away her dream dress.

Two weeks ago yesterday, on June 25, Tina Marlowe married Micheal Mann at Beach Park in Wabasha wearing that rescued bridal gown. A reception followed at Slippery’s Bar and Grill on the Mississippi River.

Tina, on her June 25 wedding day, in the bridal gown she saved from a flash flood in Hammond in southeastern Minnesota last September.

As it did last fall, floodwaters once again threatened. “Ironically, this spring we spent a lot of time holding our breath, worried that Beach Park and Slippery’s might receive major damage from spring flooding,” Tina says. “For weeks we watched the hydrological reports from Wabasha with bated breath. We even made a couple trips down there just to monitor the situation with our own eyes—and we did a lot of praying.

“Then wouldn’t you know it that the week before the wedding, it rained every single day. A couple of those days the heavy rains took me right back to September…and I said to Mike, ‘Wouldn’t it be just crazy if we come home from Wabasha to find water in our house again?’”

Water from last fall’s flash flood filled their basement and rose several inches into the main level, displacing the family from their home for three months.

Tina and Micheal continued praying for the rain to stop as June 25 approached. Then on their wedding morning, the sun came out in Wabasha and, as the fog lifted from the Mississippi River valley, it looked to be a perfect day.

The weather forecast, however, called for afternoon showers. And the wedding was set for 4 p.m.

Within an hour of the ceremony, rain began falling. While Tina was slipping into her bridal gown at a Wabasha hotel, family and friends were moving everything from the decorated gazebo to the pavilion.

Tina and Mike

“Irony again prevailed because it rained from 3 until about 4:30, and then it stopped and the rest of the evening was picture perfect,” Tina says. “All of the bridal pictures were taken in the rain. Every person in my wedding party was affected by the flood in one way or another and here we were, standing in the pouring rain on the banks of the Mississippi River, having the time of our lives.

They say it is good luck to have rain on your wedding day because a ‘wet knot’ is much harder to untie. I truly feel blessed.”

#

TINA, RAIN ALSO FELL on my wedding day in May of 1982. My husband and I have now been married for 29 years.

I expect that you and Micheal, with the challenges you’ve faced, already had a tightly-tied knot. Your positive attitude in the face of difficulties continues to impress me, as does your strength.

Congratulations on your marriage. May you and Mike live a long, happy and blessed life together.

Mike & Tina at sunset along the Mississippi River on their wedding day.

READERS: I F YOU HAVE NOT READ the six-part series of stories I posted in March about Tina’s experience during the September 2010 flash flood in Hammond, you’ll want to check it out now. Go to my archives and click on these dates: March 13 – 15 and March 17 – 19. Click here to read the first post, “Part I, Tina’s story, surviving the Hammond, Minnesota, flood.”

Also, consider contributing to Hammond’s efforts to rebuild city parks. Tina, recently-elected to the city council, is leading efforts to repair the flood-damaged parks. Click here to read a blog post about how you can help.

PHOTOS BY SHERWIN SAMANIEGO PHOTOGRAPHY of Rochester and courtesy of Tina Marlowe Mann.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Reflections on Independence Day July 4, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 1:16 PM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A flag and portrait of George Washington at the former District 20 Millersburg School, now a museum.

“I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

As a child, my school days began with that pledge. My classmates and I arose from our desks at Vesta Elementary School, turned toward the American flag in the corner, placed our hands across our hearts, fixed our eyes upon the stars and stripes, and recited the pledge in unison.

I doubt we ever thought too much about the rote words we spoke. They were simply part of our routine, something we did, although I do recall feeling a sense of pride in speaking those words daily.

So much has changed in the decades since then. The Pledge of Allegiance, in most cases, has been banned from public schools in the name of political correctness. We are no longer one nation under God. While the U.S. remains one country, we as individuals are certainly divided in our views of anything and everything. That’s as it should be in a democracy. Liberty and justice have managed to prevail.

As we celebrate our nation’s Independence Day, it would be wise for all Americans to reflect on the Pledge and the words of other documents and songs that focus on the flag and freedom.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—The Declaration of Independence, signed on July 4, 1776

Vietnam veteran Joel Kukacka's patriotic garage in the hamlet of Heidelberg, Minnesota.

Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?—The Star Spangled Banner

An American flag painted on a shed in Dundas in southeastern Minnesota.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.—The Bill of Rights, Amendment I

Weeks after a devastating Sept. 2010 flash flood in Hammond, in southeastern Minnesota, an American flag marked a ravaged business.

God bless America,
Land that I love,
Stand beside her and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above;

From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans white with foam,
God bless America,
My home, sweet home.
God bless America,
My home, sweet home.

Flags decorate a vintage tractor at the Rice County Steam & Gas Engines Show near Dundas.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Oh, blessed summer eve on a Minnesota farm June 30, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:47 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

If you look closely, you will see the farm dog in front of the 1915 farmhouse to which a machine shed was added.

WIDE SWATHS OF SHADOWS sliced across the farmyard as the sun edged toward the horizon on a whisper of a summer night.

The old farm dog, tethered to a chain next to the 1915 farmhouse-turned-granary-turned storage shed, rose from his resting place on a paw-worn patch of grass. Water and food bowls rested on the single cement step nearby, within his reach.

The dog didn’t bark, didn’t lunge, just let me be as I moved into his territory. He stood, paced and then eased onto his haunches, acknowledging my non-threatening presence as I dropped to one knee to view the world from his perspective.

I wanted only to photograph this guardian of the farm on a summer evening as absolutely picture-perfect as any day you’ll get in Minnesota. Still. Serene. Colors sharp like new crayons. Sunlight, eye-blinding bright to the west, on the other side of the barn, outside the dogs’ reach.

This June evening, for these few hours, this watchdog could not roam the farmyard. He could only eye the visitors seated across the gravel drive at a picnic table. Friends gathered for pizza and lemonade sweetened with fresh strawberries and then more berries atop angel food cake and ice cream topped off with whipped cream.

Laughter punctuated conversation. Then bibles flipped open to words written upon pages thin as butterfly wings. The shrill call of a cardinal pierced the silence between ideas shared and scripture read.

Then, as the farm dog watched, the friends bowed their heads in a prayer of thanksgiving—gratitude to God for protecting the owners of this farm from serious injury in a motor vehicle accident the previous day. A rear-end collision. Truck spinning, tipping onto its side along a Minnesota highway. Glass in teeth and waistbands and hair.

None of this the guard dog knew on this most blessed of summer evenings on a Minnesota farm.

TODAY, JUNE 30, has been designated as “Maroon Day” in Minnesota, historically the deadliest day on our state’s roadways. Since 2000, more fatal crashes have occurred on this final day of June, leading into the July Fourth holiday, than on any other day of the year. Statistics show 30 fatal crashes resulting in 35 deaths.

All of Minnesota’s nearly 600 state troopers, in their signature maroon vehicles, will be patrolling today.

Buckle up. Drive carefully and be safe.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The endearing smiley face June 29, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:39 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

I URGED HIM to speed up, to catch up to that yellow jeep ahead of us.

“I want to take a picture,” I explained, and my husband obliged although he thought me a bit crazy.

And maybe I am sometimes. But that canary yellow jeep, the single visual jolt of brightness on yet another recent dreary weekend, tripped something in my brain.

If you live in Minnesota, I expect you’ll understand. I mean, honestly, weren’t you tired of all the cold and rain and gloom on the heels of a long and snowy winter? (Remind me of that tomorrow when the temperature is predicted to reach 100 degrees or higher.)

So, given that context, the yellow jeep with the smiley face wheel cover made me smile as we traveled on U.S. Highway 14 between Mankato and Eagle Lake recently.

Smiley faces, no matter where I spot them, always increase my happiness quotient.

My appreciation of smiley faces stretches back further than I’d like to admit these days. This happiness symbol popped up everywhere when I was in high school, which would be, yes, the 1970s. Oh, how I wish I still had my smiley face bulletin board and my smiley face button.

So there, that should explain why I wanted to photograph the yellow jeep on a drizzly Saturday afternoon along a Minnesota highway. The smiley face represents a link to my past, to those turbulent teen years when I needed a bright smile as much then as I sometimes still need one some four decades later.

I can’t think of another symbol with such upbeat universal appeal. Can you?

Do you, like me, have fond memories of the smiley face? I’d like to hear.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

At the WordWalk: Why I won’t eat tuna June 28, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:13 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A view of the Minnesota River as seen from Riverfront Park, looking toward downtown Mankato.

THE MANKATO PARK SEEMS, in many ways, an ideal setting for poetry.

The usually playful Minnesota River bumps against the land here, acting on this Saturday afternoon like a willful, unruly child.

On the other side of Riverfront Park, across the tracks, historic buildings stand like forlorn children, neglected, waiting for someone to care.

Overhead, moody skies pout.

I have come here at this late afternoon hour to read the poetry imprinted upon cement. Occasionally the sky spits rain at me as I follow the gray sidewalk which mimics the gray day.

"Curve around the corner/You are free/To change directions/Or your mind," reads this poem by Marlys Neufeld of Hanska.

I read:

Minnesota

Here, the river rests its elbow

before it turns north to meet

the father of them all.

Here we made 38 mistakes

we now try very hard

not to forget.

A snippet of the poem, "Minnesota." I've edited this image so that you can better read the words. The poems are, unfortunately, a bit difficult to read because of a lack of color contrast between the letters and the cement.

The poem by Ikars Sarma of Mankato refers to the hanging of 38 Dakota here on December 26, 1862. A heavy thought to match the heaviness of the sky, the raging of the river, the anger that still simmers over this shameful moment in this city’s history.

I move on.

Susan Stevens Chambers of Good Thunder writes:

Aging Benignly

Ah the terrible beauty

of the not so perfect

body.

In this edited photo, read Susan Stevens Chambers' poem about aging.

Nearby kids scramble up a rock wall as I struggle to lift my aging bones from the sidewalk where I have bent close to read and photograph Chambers’ poem.

Then I laugh at the words penned by Mankato resident Yvonne Cariveau:

Tuna

Craving lunchbox love

I slowly open the lid.

Fish smell breaks my heart.

The poem that causes me to remember all the tuna I ate during my last two years of college.

Exactly. I ate too much tuna in this college town between 1976 and 1978. I could write my own poem about cramming tuna sandwiches while cranking out stories at the Mankato State University (I still can’t call it Minnesota State University, Mankato) student newspaper, The Reporter.

Deadlines and words.

Words and deadlines.

Tuna. Words. Deadlines.

Cariveau’s writing reminds me of those years so long ago when I was young and only beginning my journey into the poetry of life.

WordWalk poems are imprinted on the sidewalk circling this restroom/shelter facility at Riverfront Park in Mankato.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about Mankato’s public sidewalk poetry, WordWalk, click here and here. At least two other Minnesota cities, of which I am aware, have sidewalk poetry: St. Paul and now Northfield.

WHAT’S YOUR OPINION on sidewalk poetry? Do you like it, or not? Would you like to see more such public poetry in Minnesota communities? Why or why not?

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Appreciating mom-and-pop businesses like Mutch Hardware June 27, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:25 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Buildings across the street reflect in the windows of Mutch Northside Hardware in North Mankato where these signs hang on a front plate-glass window.

“Grass Seed and Fertilizer.”

“We cut glass and plexiglass.”

I didn’t need grass seed or fertilizer or any glass cut. Yet, the signage drew me to the storefront plate-glass window of the hardware store along Belgrade Avenue in North Mankato. How often do you see business signs like this with letters printed in near-perfect penmanship between two penciled ruler lines on white tagboard?

After I admired the simplicity of this advertising in a world of mass-produced, flashy, signage, I noticed the old screen door. That did it. I was smitten with this place, this Mutch Northside Hardware that, from the exterior, reminded me of the small town hardware stores of my youth.

You know, the kind of store where you can buy everything and anything. The place packed with merchandise from floor to ceiling, aisles narrow as a sidewalk crack. Nails and bolts jumbled in scarred cubbies. Belts dangling from hooks on pegboard. Wooden floors that creak.

Mutch Hardware is crammed with merchandise, some of it displayed in the window fronts.

An old ACE Hardware sign decorates the front door where a handwritten sign is posted listing store hours.

I could almost hear the vintage screen door slam shut behind me as I stood outside the closed hardware store, hands cupped around my eyes, peering inside. It was late Saturday afternoon and I was hours too late to step inside Mutch Hardware, much to my disappointment.

But that didn’t stop a flood of memories from washing over me. Memories of going to town with my dad, stopping at Joe Engel’s Hardware store on Vesta’s main street to pick up a few bolts or maybe a belt or something else for the farm.

My siblings and I had another reason for hitching a ride to the southwestern Minnesota hardware store with our dad. Joe Engel’s supplied our ammo—coiled rolls of red-perforated paper pocked with gun powder for our toy cap guns. This was the 1960s, and even though not politically-correct today, an era of playing “Cowboys and Indians.” I remember those days with a depth of fondness that I doubt today’s tech-oriented kids will ever experience.

I would like to take each of them inside a business like Mutch Hardware, where I expect helpful, personal service, care and friendliness accompany each purchase. Places like this seem rare in our fast-paced world of big box stores run by corporations in far away cities. Few mom-and-pop stores can survive in today’s economy. That is reality.

I’m not a prima donna; I shop chain stores as much as anyone. Yet when I see a business such as Mutch Northside Hardware in North Mankato, I take notice. I appreciate the hardworking men and women who, as independent business owners, still offer us a shopping option.

Outside Mutch Northside Hardware, a place reminiscent of bygone days.

DOES AN OLD-FASHIONED mom-and-pop type business like Mutch Northside Hardware exist in your community, or do you know of one somewhere? I’d like to hear. Tell me about it by submitting a comment.

This image of a section of Belgrade Avenue in North Mankato shows the following businesses, from left: Like-Nu-Cleaners, Christy's Cafe, Mutch Northside Hardware, Skillings & Associates, Dino's Gourmet Pizzeria, Craft-n-Floral Center, the U.S. Post Office, Frandsen Bank & Trust and Bobby Joe's Pub.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Hail St. Mary’s of Melrose June 26, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:13 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The steeples of St. Mary's Catholic Church of Melrose.

I STOOD THERE. Just stood there. For minutes, taking in the glorious splendor before me.

The cornflower blue of the arched ceiling. The pillars. Pews—endless carved pews stretching from the fonts of holy water to the steps leading to the altar.

A view from the back of St. Mary's Catholic Church looking toward the main altar.

I didn't even try to count the hand-carved pews that grace this church. But they are many.

A stone font holding holy water at the back of the church.

Such beauty. Such holiness. Such wonderment.

Opulent, stained glass windows bedecking the sanctuary like jewels on a crown.

One of too many stained glass windows to count.

Statues fit for the finest of museums.

This statue of Jesus and Mary sits at the back of the church.

And then I moved, not sure which direction to go, wondering how I could possibly see every detail. Prayerful hands. Flickering candles. The frayed ends of the bell pull. Gold-leaf stenciled crosses. Worn wood. Angels in flight above the altar.

Clustered candles of prayer at St. Mary's.

Bell ropes dangle by the balcony stairway. Two stairways lead to the balcony.

A gold-leafed stenciled cross borders a side wall of the sanctuary.

My eyes swept across the Church of St. Mary’s, or St. Mary’s Catholic Church of Melrose. Choose the moniker you prefer.

The name and the denomination of this 1898 church mattered not to me. I cared only for the heavenly feel of this holy place.

How could I not be impressed by this multi-steepled house of worship next to the turkey plant and soaring above the landscape 100 miles northwest of the Twin Cities?

How many times, if you travel Interstate 94 in central Minnesota, have you noticed those steeples while zipping by Melrose, but never taken the time to drive into town? Placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1993, this Catholic church is worth a stop if you appreciate craftsmanship, art, history and reverent beauty beyond belief.

The church rises above the land, defining Melrose.

The 113-year-old building was constructed by the parishioners of St. Boniface and renamed St. Mary’s when St. Boniface and St. Patrick’s parishes merged in 1958.

History runs deep here. You will see it in the hitching post out front, smell it in the incense, hear it in the creak of steps leading to the locked balcony.

And if you listen closely, you can almost hear the whispered prayers of those who have come here on bended knees to lift up their sorrows to the Lord.

#

I COULD NOT POSSIBLY share my many photos of St. Mary’s with you in one blog post. Please check back for more images in a future post.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

A native Minnesotan reports from flooded Minot June 23, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 9:02 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

MY BROTHER-IN-LAW, Neil, lives in Minot.

But he ranks as one of the lucky residents of this North Dakota city. His house lies outside—albeit less than a mile away—and several hundred feet above the flood zone.

Yet, this Air Force man and Minnesota native isn’t sitting idly by because his home has not been threatened. He’s pitching in to help those who face the reality of losing their houses in the worst flooding since 1969.

In an e-mail I received from Neil early this morning, he shares information, insights and, yes, even advice about the current situation—which he terms “exhausting and discouraging”—in his adopted hometown. The overwhelmed Souris River in Minot is expected to crest on Sunday, some five feet higher than any previous flood stage in recorded history for the area, Neil says. The old record was set in 1881, before Minot was founded.

So that’s the situation facing this city, where some 12,000 residents, more than a quarter of the population, have been evacuated and where, says Neil, dikes in several neighborhoods were breached on Wednesday.

Neil has assisted two families in exiting the city.

He writes: “I helped a lady from our church on Monday night as she moved everything either to the second floor or attic. What didn’t go upstairs went into a horse trailer that her brother brought in from out of town late that night. She seemed to take things in stride. Her house was also flooded in ’69 (before it was her house), but came through it okay. It’s extremely well built, nearly 100 years old. This lady trusts that God will provide for her needs, even if her house washes down the river.”

Neil next joined efforts to help his boss’s family. His boss is deployed to Afghanistan.

“I lost track of how many people were there to help them,” Neil writes. “We also helped them three weeks ago, when we moved everything out of their sopping wet basement to the upper floor and garage. Because of the shortage of time allowed to evacuate, we left almost everything there that time. Because of the expected height of the floodwaters and the advance preparation time, we decided to clear everything out of their house this time.”

Yet, Neil continues, “There were easily several pickup loads of stuff that we left behind simply because there wasn’t enough time/energy/resources to move it all.”

At this point my brother-in-law pauses and suggests that we all re-evaluate our possessions, deciding what we really need and what we don’t. “Go through your house and garage and get rid of anything that you haven’t laid eyes on or used in the past three years.” He intends to do exactly that at his Minot home, which is currently on the market; he’s been reassigned to an Air Force base in Missouri.

When Neil and his wife, who is already in Missouri, purchased their house several years ago, they purposely stayed away from the flood zone. “A contractor that we spoke to before buying a house told us the down sides of several locations in this town. One specific neighborhood that he told us to steer clear of is the exact one that we helped my boss’s family move out of; he told us that he wouldn’t even consider building a house down there because the whole area was under water in the flood of ’69,” Neil says.

And then my brother-in-law adds this final statement: “Dikes give people a false sense of security.  No one presently living in this town will ever doubt that again!”

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The Ice Man and his dog June 20, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:37 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’LL NEVER SEE THIS GUY again, this man in the muscle shirt with hair shaved scalp-close, fingers cradling a cigarette, a can of Keystone Ice nearly knocking at his knee as he slumps, cross-legged, on a block of Kasota stone by Riverfront Park in Mankato.

Lines harden his forehead. Shadows darken his eyes. Skin exposed to summer sun has already bronzed his face, his upper body, his muscular arms.

I wonder about his life, but don’t ask. Have he and his two buddies, passing the time nearby on their own blocks of hard, hard stone, had hard lives? I can almost see it in their eyes, imagine their lives. Jobs lost. Relationships broken. Regrets. Bars. Beer and cigarettes. Maybe whiskey and women.

But I don’t pry, and only he—the guy with the Keystone Ice—volunteers any information, speaks to me after I approach the trio because I see a photo opportunity in a man and his dog, brick buildings and a riverside railroad track. My eyes sweep across the scene, pushing the view into the lens of my camera, into these images that tell a story.

Rugged life in a river town. A blue collar man’s grimy, steel-toed work shoes. Elevators. Train tracks leading away. Peeling paint. Boarded-up buildings which The Ice Man wishes were torn down and which I tell him should be refurbished.

We disagree. But he still smiles a smile as wide as the manic, muddy Minnesota River raging past the park.

He tells me then, after I snap a series of photos, that he can’t take his dog—a service dog, he claims, and says he has the card to prove it—into Riverfront Park. Dogs are banned from some Mankato parks and this is one of them.

He suggests I photograph his dog next to the white line and words sprayed onto the tar: NO PETS IN PARK.

At first I balk, say, no, I won’t do that.

But then I reconsider, give The Ice Man his defiant moment. As his dog struggles to cross the line into the park, he tugs on the leash, holding her back. He’s already told me how, a day earlier, he hasn’t crossed the line to hear a $15 outdoor concert staged here. Instead, he’s followed the trail nearer the venue site, listened to the music from there. He’s clearly proud of his evasive, I’ve-outsmarted-them tactic.

Then we part ways. I continue reading poetry imprinted upon a sidewalk circling the park’s trail head building. He returns to his hard stone to swig his Keystone Ice beer and smoke his cigarettes.

His life is so different from mine. Yet, for five minutes we’ve connected and the poetry of his life shows in these images of The Ice Man and his dog.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Rock ‘n rolling in Hamburg June 18, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:54 AM
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

LAST SUNDAY MY HUSBAND and I drove into Hamburg, just because we’d never been there. It was along the meandering path we chose for our trip back to Faribault from west central Minnesota.

We didn’t hang around in Hamburg, simply went into town, turned around and drove back out. As we passed the community hall in this town of around 500, I snapped this photo. I appreciated the vintage look of the building and wondered how many times locals have gathered here to celebrate.

I imagined dance feet scuffing oak floors, brides launching bouquets, crepe paper streamers sagging from the ceiling, gray-haired ladies sipping coffee, accordions weaving in and out.

I did not imagine Rock ‘N Roll Wrestling. Who would?

But when I later did an online search of Hamburg, I discovered wrestling at the community hall. Surprise. Tonight wrestlers will rock the walls of the community hall as pro-wrestler Rock ‘N Roll Buck ZumHofe brings his wrestling show back to his hometown beginning at 7:30 p.m.

So much for my contemplative visions of a wedding reception and dance or a 50th wedding anniversary party, although I expect those are also part of this building’s history.

Tonight it’s all about wrestling, which I may have watched when I was a kid (and even as recently as 30 years ago.) Vern Gagne, Dr. X, The Crusher, and, yes, even Rock ‘N Roll Buck ZumHofe, are names I remember.

No, I won’t be in Hamburg tonight to relive my days of pro-wrestling devotion at this town’s annual Zummerfest celebration. My interest has vanished and is now limited to the occasional glimpse I catch of wrestlers when the guys in my house are flicking television channels.

However, I expect plenty of faithful fans to fill the old hall. If you wish you could be there but can’t make tonight’s gig, Rock ‘N Roll Wrestling will be in nearby Glencoe on June 25 and in Wabasha on June 26.

According to ZumHofe’s website, you’ll be treated to “old fashion fun wrestling in a format that is nostalgic as well as new and highly entertaining.”

DO YOU HAVE MEMORIES of watching pro-wrestling on television or in person? Do you still watch/attend these wrestling bouts?

AND IF YOU HAVE memories of the Hamburg Community Hall or know anything about its history, please submit a comment. I’d like to hear your stories.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling