Minnesota Prairie Roots

Writing and photography by Audrey Kletscher Helbling

In which I meet Wilson, a member of the fun-loving Schrot family July 25, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:21 AM
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JIM SCHROT WORRIES about his relative, Wilson Schrot. After all, Jim caught Wilson attempting to steal gas from the gas barrel at Jim’s rural Faribault home last Thursday evening.

Jamie, Jim’s grown and married daughter, figures Wilson simply ran out of gas for his lawnmower and decided to help himself. She appears willing to overlook Wilson’s latest antic.

“He (Wilson) gets into a lot of trouble,” Jim says. The two don’t elaborate, but say Wilson shows up in the most unexpected of places at the most unexpected of times.

Jamie once discovered Wilson inside her tent, curled up in her bed. He’s climbed into family-owned tractors and trucks, but stopped short of stealing them.

Not that he could. Wilson, you see, is a dummy. You know, a mannequin.

See Wilson Schrot sitting there in the front passenger seat of Jim’s 1940 Ford. (I noticed several dummies in the storefront window behind the car. Wilson’s friends, perhaps, keeping a watchful eye on him?)

The Schrot family has, for the past several years, embraced Wilson and his shenanigans, ever since a cousin dragged him home from somewhere. No one seems to remember details. Or at least they weren’t sharing that information with me when I first spotted Wilson in the front passenger seat of Jim’s 1940 Ford at last Friday evening’s Faribault Car Cruise Night.

My first photo of Wilson, taken shortly before Jamie showed up to snap pictures with her cell phone.

I was photographing the Hawaiian shirt clad dummy with the blonde mullet wig when Jamie showed up to snap photos of him, too. I engaged her in conversation and that’s when I was introduced to Wilson, named after the volleyball in the Tom Hanks’ film, Cast Away.

Not that Wilson is a castaway. I mean, Jim didn’t abandon Wilson after he caught him trying to steal gas. Instead, he brought him to the car show in an apparent half-hearted attempt to find a date for Wilson.

But, Jim admits, “He doesn’t get too many chicks because of his mullet.”

Jim and Jamie suggest Wilson switch out his hair piece—he has several—to improve his appearance and likelihood of landing a date.

I’m not sure Wilson needs the Schrots help, though. He seems to draw plenty of attention on his own. An unidentified man backing his classic car into the space next to Jim’s Ford asked Wilson, “I’m not getting too close to your car, am I?” Then he noticed that the freckled Wilson with the duct taped arm was a dummy. “I’m glad no one was there to hear me.”

Jim reposed Wilson, who recently had carpal tunnel surgery (thus the duct tape), so the story goes.

The Schrot family has given Wilson a life, even going so far as to establish a Facebook page for him. Ask Jamie if she set up Wilson’s Facebook account and her quick, snipped response of “maybe” is enough to tell you she did.

Based on Wilson’s Facebook page—the public part that I can read because I’m not on Facebook—he is a country boy who likes his beer. He also likes singer Johnny Cash; the movie, The Adventures of Bob & Doug McKenzie: Strange Brew; the book, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell; and the tv show, Richard Bacon’s Beer & Pizza Club. He also enjoys the sport of beer darts.

Wilson certainly keeps the extended Schrot family entertained, laughing, making up stories and plotting his next adventure.

It is the stories, Jamie says, which make the whole Wilson gig fun, if not crazy. For example, when Wilson was caught trying to steal that gas, Jamie got the story rolling about his lawnmower running out of gas.

Ask if their family is kind of crazy and Jamie shoots back: “Everybody else is crazy, but we’re normal.”

Uh-huh, Jamie. What’s that story about the time Wilson was dismembered at a party, or as Jim corrects, a “social gathering?”

Meet Jim Schrot, not to be confused with Wilson. I first spotted Jim in September 2009 at the Rice County Steam and Gas Engine show and dubbed him the flamboyant John Deere guy. It fits. See why this family embraces the likes of Wilson Schrot.

© Copyright 2012 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

An April Fool’s Day legend April 1, 2012

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 10:09 AM
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TWENTY-TWO YEARS AGO on March 30, 1990, my cousin Jeff married Janet at the St. Louis County Courthouse in Duluth, MN. It was a small affair with only Janet’s daughters, Heidi and Amber, attending.

Jeff, who hadn’t even told his parents he was dating Janet, shared the news via a printed announcement that proclaimed “And four shall become a family.”

To say Jeff’s parents were surprised would be an understatement. Shocked would be more accurate.

As the story goes, my uncle apparently paled upon reading the news of the marriage and my aunt reacted by picking up the phone. First she called her daughter to see if she knew anything of the unexpected marriage. Dawn didn’t.

Then Marilyn phoned the Floodwood school where Jeff was teaching. I’ll let Jeff tell the story from here. And remember, this was 1990, in the days before telephones in classrooms, so Jeff was pulled out of class to take the call from his mother.

There I sat, the secretary at her desk to my right, the principal at his desk in his office to my left, both just feet away, overhearing one side of this awkward conversation about my recent wedding.

Mom, of course, had many questions—about Janet, about Heidi and Amber, about planning a wedding reception. Well, I was able to calm Mom down enough to tell her to look at the back of the card and remember what day it was, or what day had just passed.

That would be April Fool’s Day. On the back, the new groom had written: “rehcstelk ffej morf gniteerg sloof lirpa na.”

From right to left, Jeff’s message read: “an april fools greeting from jeff kletscher.”

Yes, my creative cousin had just pulled off one of the best family April Fool’s Day jokes ever, the stuff of legends. His marriage to a northwoods bride was pure fiction.

My cousin Dawn, with the help of daughter Megan, made two beautiful anniversary cakes for her brother. My Uncle Wally and Aunt Janice made and decorated the other cake with the beanie baby bears.

Twenty years after that fake marriage, we celebrated Jeff and Janet’s 20th wedding anniversary at the annual Kletscher family reunion in 2010. We decorated the shelterhouse at the park with anniversary banners, crepe paper and tissue paper bells. Relatives came bearing gifts. And there were even three anniversary cakes to celebrate the occasion.

CAN ANYONE out there top Jeff’s April Fool’s Day prank? I’d like to hear. (BTW, my cousin is still single.)

April Fool’s jokes during my childhood consisted of these:

Your toast is burning!

The bus is here!

The cows are out!

I know. Not at all creative.

© Copyright 2012 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

 

A flat tire, an upgrade & a crime October 20, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:29 AM
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OUR DAUGHTER, the one who lives 5 ½ hours away in eastern Wisconsin, had a flat tire on her car Wednesday morning. Four days after she bought four new tires. What are the odds?

“I can’t believe it,” she texted.

I couldn’t believe it either. But then I remembered the lemon colored Mercury Comet I bought in 1978. It got two flat tires the same day I purchased it. The hue of the vehicle should have clued me in. Later, I would rename it “The Vomit.” An appropriate moniker, I might add.

YESTERDAY WE BOUGHT a new van. New to us. To replace the 1988 Plymouth Grand Voyager. We really had no choice. The ‘88 needs tires. At an eye-popping $400 – $500 for four tires, it is not worth the investment in a hail-pocked, paint-peeling, rusting vehicle that has seen better days.

I suggested that perhaps we could sell the wood-grain paneled van as a collector’s vehicle. Then my husband mentioned that the Smithsonian has a Dodge Caravan in its collection. I did not believe him.

But then, as all truth-seeking journalists/wives will do, I googled the Smithsonian and learned that, yes, indeed, he was right. A 1986 Dodge Caravan exists in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History as a symbol of suburbia.

Now an affordable 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan, with 95,000 miles and right front fender damage from a deer strike rests in our driveway. It is a symbol of lower middle income Americans who are not all that particular about the age or beauty of a vehicle as long as it runs well and gets you (and college students and 20-somethings moved) from point A to point B.

The husband only wishes the van color was not white. Better than yellow, I say. Better than yellow.

ALL THIS CAR TALK reminds me of a little incident back in 2003. We sold our 1989 Dodge Aires to a young man for cash. A month later, the police came knocking on our door on Memorial Day weekend. We were out of town, so they went to our next-door neighbor’s house at around 10 p.m. asking questions.

Upon our return, our neighbor told us about the inquiry by law enforcement and handed us a business card from a Northfield police investigator. That evening we settled in to watch the 10 p.m. news. The lead story reported on a drive-by gang shooting at a Northfield trailer park.

I wasn’t surprised when the investigator showed up at our doorstep the next morning. Turns out the gun used in the shooting was stashed in the trunk of “our” car. Seems the reputed Minneapolis gang member, now charged with attempted murder, had failed to change the car title still registered in our names.

SO THERE, can you top that final car story?

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

From a small Minnesota town: “My dad got shot” August 10, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 12:13 PM
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WEEKS LATER, I STILL can’t shake her haunting words. “My dad got shot,” the darling pixie of a 6-year-old with brown eyes and long, spaghetti-straight auburn hair tells me.

I don’t want to believe her and even question the truthfulness of her statement.

But she is too quick to respond, to say that her dad, Bill, is dead, “buried in the ground.” The father who stole a car and went to jail was shot by someone who came to the house when she was only one, she says. I don’t know if she has her story spot-on correct, but I figure she’s heard it too many times to mess up the truth.

Recently, the police stopped by her house—the one across from the park with the boxspring leaning outside the front door and the stockade of a fence enclosing the back yard. “I don’t know why they came,” she says. I can see the hint of fear in her eyes.

I don’t pry. But I want to swoop her up, hug her, take her away from the bad memories and the stories of the violent death of her father, away from a life that seems not all that stable even now.

Yet, I’ve only met her as my husband and I are in a southern Minnesota small-town city park on a Sunday afternoon. I want to advise her and the boy, who isn’t her brother but lives with her because her mom and his dad “are in love,” that they shouldn’t talk to strangers in the park.

But she has already told me the dead father story and rolled her eyes at the living arrangement between parents. I can’t just tell her and the little boy to go home. Be safe. Don’t talk to strangers or accept food from them. She’s already caused my heart to ache.

So instead, we offer them food. She refuses any. But the boy, about four, gobbles up the potato chips and grapes we give him. It is 1:00 and they have not eaten lunch, although the six-year-old says they ate a late breakfast.

I’m not so sure. Maybe she’s heeding advice she once heard about not accepting food from strangers. Yet, she’s the one who approached Randy when we first arrived, when I was using the porta potty, and told him he looked like her friend Emma’s grandpa.

They seem hungry, not only for food, but for someone who cares.

“I have a dad,” the boy shares between mouthfuls of chips. And that’s when the mite of a girl tells us about her dead father.

Soon the boy’s older sister, by a few years, arrives at the park, apparently sent over to check on the other two.

“Do you want some potato chips?” I ask. She accepts a handful.

“She stole a peach,” the redhead accuses.

“From the grocery store?” I ask, thinking I may now need to teach them right from wrong.

No. The peach was stolen at home.

“I stole pop tarts,” the talkative six-year-old confesses. “She told me to.” She looks directly at the other girl, the one who may someday become her sister if the two in-love parents marry.

I don’t understand her word choice—“stole.”

“We’re supposed to ask (for food),” she explains or “get in trouble.”

Now I am worried. “You don’t get hit for taking food, do you?”

They say “no” and I inwardly breathe a sigh of relief.

Then, after we give cheese slices to the little boy and his sister, with the pixie girl still refusing food, she obeys a summons to come home. The boy is still standing near the picnic table, his sister a short distance away. He struggles to unwrap the single cheese slice.

“Here, let me help you,” I say. He hands me the cheese and I unwrap it. He shoves the slice into his mouth and runs home. His sister declines my offer to remove the cheese wrapping, determined to do it on her own. She does.

I leave the small-town park unsettled and worried about the future of these three children. Already they’ve experienced so much in their young lives: Violent death. Police knocking on the door. Food they feel they must steal.

My heart aches for these children. Will they grow up tough, hardened by the life they’ve already lived? Will they overcome the pain they’ve already experienced? Will they continue to approach strangers in the park…to talk about the dad who was shot, the food they must “steal?”

I wonder. I worry.  Should I have done something more?

THE NAMES IN THIS STORY have been changed to protect these children who thought nothing of walking up to strangers in a park. That also is the reason I am not revealing the Minnesota town where I met them. The rest of the story, sadly, is true.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Summer showers in the sweltering heat July 19, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:41 AM
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A hose was for more than watering the garden or cattle when I was growing up on the farm. Read on.

WITH THE CURRENT HEAT WAVE we’re experiencing in Minnesota, I’ve been thinking a lot about the weather of yesteryear. And here’s what I’ve concluded. Unless the weather impacted some major event in my life or ranked as exceptional, I really can’t specifically remember one summer to the next or one winter to the next. Fall and spring sort of get lost in the mix of seasons.

That is the reality of my long-term memory.

For me, the summers of my youth on a southwestern Minnesota crop and dairy farm were defined, not by the weather, but by playing “cowboys and Indians” (yes, I realize that is not politically correct today, but it was the reality of the 1960s), by after-chores softball games on the gravel farmyard and by evening showers with a garden hose.

Let me explain that last one. I lived for the first dozen years of my life in a cramped 1 ½-story wood-frame farmhouse with my farmer-father, my housewife-mother and four siblings. The third brother was born later, after we moved into the new house.

The old house didn’t have a bathroom. That meant we took a bath once a week, on Saturday night, in an oblong tin bath tub that my dad lugged into the kitchen. Yes, we shared bath water. And now that I consider it, given we labored in the barn daily, we must have really stunk by Saturday night.

Sometimes in the summer, when the weather was especially hot and humid, we showered. After my dad finished milking cows, he would thread the green garden hose through an open porch window outside to the east side of the house. Then, with one of us “standing guard” where the driveway forked, within a stone’s throw of the tar road, we began the process of showering.

One-by-one we took our turn standing naked on the grass, soap bar in one hand, garden hose in the other, scrubbing away the sweat and animal stench, the bits of ground feed and hay and silage, the dirt that clung between our toes.

And all the while we showered, we worried that a relative or a neighbor might turn into the farmyard or an airplane might fly overhead, as if a pilot could see us from high in the prairie sky.

So during a hot stretch like we’re experiencing right now in Minnesota, I remember those primitive summer showers on the farm. I recall, too, the single turquoise box fan we owned—the one reserved for my hardworking farmer-father who endured heat and flies as he bent to wash another udder, to attach another milking machine, all to earn money to feed his growing family.

And I think, as I sit here at my computer in my air-conditioned office just around the corner from the bathroom with the combination bathtub and shower that I have it good, darned good.

Growing up on the farm, we had one box fan similar to this one.

DO YOU HAVE summer memories like mine, or another weather-related story? Submit a comment and share.

Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Looking for work in a (still) challenging economy May 24, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 6:44 AM
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Back in the day, transients rode the rails looking for work.

IS THE ECONOMY IMPROVING? Maybe. Maybe not. That depends on whom you ask and on what day.

Several months ago I would have said, “Yeah, I think the economy is starting to look up.” More “Help wanted” ads were publishing in my local daily newspaper. I sensed an overall mood of optimism in the media and among people in general. It simply seemed to me that our economic situation was improving, if ever so slightly.

But then, boom, we were socked with outrageous prices at the gas pump and in the grocery store and I felt like we’d been punched, like we’d all been knocked to the mat. Again.

Yet, even though higher prices are hitting my family’s pocketbook, we aren’t struggling to make ends meet, to put food on the table, to pay the bills.

Not like some many people.

A knock on my door several days ago showed me the personal side of a dire economy. A man in his late 40s asked if he could mow my lawn. I declined his request, explaining that I planned to mow the yard that afternoon.

“Lookin’ for work?” I inquired before he nodded his head and walked away to the next house with an overgrown lawn.

I now regret that ridiculous question. Clearly he was seeking work or he wouldn’t have asked to mow my lawn. I also regret that I didn’t take the time to step outside, sit down on my front steps and listen to his story. I wonder what he would have told me.

Just like I wonder about the carpenter who lives nearby and has twice asked about working for me. When we met in January, I was shoveling snow and he was walking past my house in shirt sleeves. I told him he should be wearing a jacket. He brushed off my motherly concern and said he was headed to my neighbor’s place just up the hill.

We chatted for awhile and he commented on a pile of demolition debris lining the edge of the driveway. We had recently begun a home improvement project. He wondered whether I had any carpentry needs. I told him about a closet I planned for an upstairs bedroom, but I didn’t hire him.

Recently that same unemployed carpenter approached my husband to inquire again about work and that closet project. I admire his determination. Here is a man who needs a job and he’s not afraid to seek it out. (I sometimes wish I had hired him for another home improvement project which is now dragging into its sixth month.)

These two unemployed men remind me of the stories my Grandma Ida told me of hobos riding the rails, looking for work in the farm fields of southwestern Minnesota back in the day. If I recall correctly, these transients occasionally helped on my grandparents’ farm.

These were men down on their luck, in need of good, honest, hard work.

Although I am way too young to have lived through The Great Depression, I have those stories impressed upon me by a grandma who understood the value of hard work and “making do.”

My own parents also worked hard, lived within their means and set an example of being content with whatever you have. I’ve tried to live that way too and pass along to my children that family, faith, love and happiness are more important than material possessions.

Yet, we all need an income to pay the bills. In the 27 years I’ve lived in my Faribault home, I’ve never had local strangers approach me, looking for work. Until this year.

That’s as strong a statement as any about the challenging state of our current economy.

WHAT ABOUT YOU? How are you/your family handling this current challenging economy? Have you changed your lifestyle, your spending? Have you had unemployed individuals come to your door looking for work?

What’s your take on the current state of the economy?

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Blogging in April April 1, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 7:59 AM
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DEAR READERS,

After much thoughtful consideration, I have decided to stop blogging. This writing endeavor is sucking up too much of my time for little no pay.

OK, if your heart skipped a beat there for a moment, good. If you panicked at the thought of missing your daily dose of Minnesota Prairie Roots, good. If you wonder what prompted this decision, good.

Stop. You needn’t worry. That first paragraph is an absolute falsehood/lie/lame attempt at an April Fool’s joke.

I could no more stop blogging than I could cut off my hand.

So you are stuck with me and my writing. I have no intentions of closing up shop at this blog.

Why do I keep doing this day after day when I’m not earning a nickel penny from publishing here at Minnesota Prairie Roots? (OK, sometimes my blogs end up revamped as articles published, for pay, in magazines.)

I blog because I “have to.” I love language and writing and telling a good story and sharing my thoughts that much. Think about the single thing that is your passion in life and you will understand mine. Writing.

Clearly, trying to pull off a joke on April Fool’s Day, and most any day, is not my talent. I am too honest to continue a charade for more than two sentences.

Even as a child, I struggled to, with a straight face, attempt an April Fool’s joke. My siblings failed to believe “The school bus is here” or “Your toast is burning.” I could have thought of something more creative like “The cows are out.”

Or I could have been really, absolutely, undeniably creative like my cousin Jeff, the mayor of Floodwood, who 21 years ago today announced in an announcement mailed to his unsuspecting parents that he had gotten married. He hadn’t married a northwoods woman. Let me tell you, that fib didn’t go over too well with the parents. I think they laugh about that April Fool’s joke now. Maybe.

How about you? Have you pulled off the ultimate April Fool’s joke. I’d like to hear your stories. Submit a comment. We’d all like a laugh or three on this gloomy Friday morning in Minnesota with snow in the forecast for the weekend. And that’s no April Fool’s joke.

© Copyright 2011 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

Beauty shop dog January 13, 2011

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:30 AM
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Main Street in West Concord, photographed several months ago.

WHAT DO YOU KNOW about West Concord? I’m not talking Massachusetts here. I mean West Concord as in a community of 836 in southeastern Minnesota.

Up until this past fall, I had never set foot in this small town. But, while en route to the historic Dodge County seat of Mantorville, my husband and I detoured into West Concord. The fact that we had never been there prompted the stop. It was as simple as that.

Many times when we travel back roads and drive into small towns, we discover sweet surprises. West Concord was no exception. I found Fonzie there.

While my husband was exploring whatever men investigate when they’re getting impatient, I ducked into Colleen’s Salon & Gifts on West Main Street. There I met Fonzie, the beauty shop dog. He was lounging in a chair next to patron Charlotte Lurken, who was drying her hair under one of those old-fashioned bubble dryers.

Instantly, I knew this would be a story. And the photo ops, well, let’s just say I was nearly giddy when I considered the possibilities.

I wasn’t sure, though, how the women would react to my request to photograph them since they were in curlers. But, no problem. I snapped away.

Here are the results:

 

Fonzie relaxes in the morning sunshine next to beauty shop patron Charlotte Lurken.

Fonzie didn't even blink an eyelash when I moved in for a close-up.

Salon owner Colleen Snaza, framed by a welcome sign in the gift shop, curls a customer's hair.

Pretty sweet, huh?

Fonzie’s been hanging out at the beauty shop for about two years now, ever since owner Colleen Snaza’s husband, John, passed away. Prior to that, the Shih Tzu had spent five years at home with John, who suffered from a heart condition. And before that, the canine stayed home with Colleen for a year while she recovered from breast cancer.

Colleen began taking Fonzie to the beauty shop because she couldn’t leave him alone. He was too used to company.

Now Fonzie’s just part of the beauty shop. “He gets a lot of lovin’,” Colleen says.

And that’s the story I learned when I took the time to check out a small-town beauty shop on Main Street in West Concord.

FYI: An article I wrote about the beauty shop dog just published in the winter issue of Minnesota Moments magazine. Readers often wonder how I find my stories. It’s as simple as going off the beaten path, snooping around, asking questions and finding the simply extraordinary in the seemingly ordinary places of our lives.

WATCH FOR MORE from West Concord in upcoming blog posts.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling

 

The snow angels of rural Minnesota December 22, 2010

Filed under: Uncategorized — Audrey Kletscher Helbling @ 8:38 AM
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THEY ARE THE ANGELS of rural Minnesota.  The volunteer firefighters. The volunteer first responders. The volunteer ambulance crews.

If you don’t believe me, then spend some time in a place like Vesta, population around 330, on the southwestern Minnesota prairie where I grew up.  In small towns like this, the nearest clinic and hospital are often a 20-mile drive or more.

My mom still lives in my hometown and, because she’s getting up there in age, I worry about her. But that concern is offset somewhat by the knowledge that first responders will come to her aid in a medical emergency. And they have.

So when I read an article in the December 16 The Gaylord Hub, a community newspaper where I worked decades ago right out of college, I knew I had to share a story by reporter Lisa Uecker. She wrote about an ambulance trip from Gibbon to New Ulm during the December 11 blizzard.

Uecker is graciously permitting me to retell that story here. It’s worth your time to read for the lessons it teaches in dedication and care and how those in small towns will go the extra mile to assist their friends and neighbors.

In this instance, the miles, literally, were extra and a trip which should have taken perhaps 30 minutes became a 3 ½-hour ordeal.

The incident begins at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, December 11, during the height of the two-day blizzard. The volunteer Winthrop Ambulance Service receives a call to Gibbon some eight miles to the west. Once the crew reaches Gibbon and the patient, they backtrack to Winthrop knowing they must travel the longer, but safer, state highways rather than follow the shorter route along county roads. From Winthrop, they are headed 16 miles south along Minnesota State Highway 15 to the hospital in New Ulm.

A paramedic intercept is impossible, the crew learns, so snowplows are dispatched to meet the ambulance at the intersection of Highway 15 and Nicollet County Road 1 near Lafayette. One plow goes into the ditch. Another is low on fuel. The third has mechanical problems. None of the plows make it to the appointed rendezvous site.

 

If you're unfamiliar with Sibley and Nicollet counties, here's a map photo to show you the roadways and towns highlighted in this story.

The ambulance crew is on its own, traveling in white-out conditions near Klossner. The rescue vehicle soon becomes stuck on the shoulder. Because snowplows have been pulled off the roads, the Lafayette Fire Department comes to the rescue, freeing the ambulance with its pumper truck.

After passing Klossner, the ambulance gets stuck again, but the driver–ambulance captain and assistant Sibley County attorney Donald Lannoye–is able to rock the vehicle free.

Finally, at 6 p.m., the patient, who has been stable throughout the ride, is delivered to the New Ulm Medical Center.

The four-member volunteer ambulance crew spends the night in New Ulm.

In an interview with reporter Uecker, Lannoye says that once he passed Sibley County Road 8 right outside of Lafayette, he could never drive more than five miles per hour due to poor visibility and road conditions. The crew saw 11 – 15 cars in ditches and 4 – 6 cars stuck in traffic lanes near Lafayette.

Then Lannoye also reveals that his crew began their day at 5 a.m., transporting a patient on icy roads to Hutchinson.

If ever there was an outstanding example of the care and concern residents of rural Minnesota have for each other, then this would be it. We should all be thankful for volunteers like Lannoye, ambulance crew members Lisa Klenk and Todd Storms,  EMT-in-training Katie Uecker and Lafayette Volunteer Fire Department members who braved a blizzard to help their neighbors.

They are, indeed, snow angels.

IF YOU HAVE A STORY to share about how volunteers have helped you or someone you love, submit a comment. I’m certain there are many such stories out there.

© Copyright 2010 Audrey Kletscher Helbling and Lisa Uecker