MINNESOTA Moments

Busy week

By Mike Nistler

It's been a busy week in my life and for my youngest daughter, Kelly, who turned 21 on Wednesday, graduated from the University of Minnesota-Morris on Saturday and earlier in the week landed her first "real job" which she will begin in a week.

It all happened so fast that I'm not sure I realize what has happened. And I'm sure she doesn't, either. Yesterday, she said good-bye to many of her friends and housemates and moved her belongings back home. Well, sort of. Tomorrow we will head to the Twin Cities to look for an apartment for her. And then, we'll have to help her move and get situated. I see a huge shopping trip at Target on our to-do list with stops in between at Ikea and Bed, Bath & Beyond.

When the dust settles and she's at her new place and in her new job, I wonder what life will be like for her and for me? It's one thing having your youngest child away at college. It's another entirely to have her moving to a new city, starting a new job and a new life.

When you're child is at college, there's this implied understanding that your home is still her home. Not so when she moves to her own place and starts a job.

One event from this last week will stand out in my mind, however. On the night of her 21st birthday, Kelly wanted to celebrate with a "Great Gatsby" party. Kelly is a wonderful writer, and avid reader and got the idea from reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's book by that name. So, her family decorated a park shelter with white twinkle lights and white tablecloths. We all dressed to the nines, as did her 20 or so guests. It's fun to see college kids in dresses and sport coats and ties. We played music on the boom box by Norah Jones and Michael Buble and John Mayer. We served some fancy appetizers and, as my daughter called them, "girl drinks" (Arbor Mist wine and flavored Smirnoff coolers) to those old enough to drink.

It was a fabulous night, one I'm sure I'll remember for many years and one that I'm sure Kelly will, too.

Bread baking made easy

By Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Skepticism best describes how I approached a book titled Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Minnesotans Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë Francois. Today I’m a believer.

That followed a bread-baking session at my house yesterday. Of the nearly 100 recipes in the book, I selected Soft American-Style White Bread, the bread I know best. My skepticism lay not in the ingredients—flour (albeit unbleached all-purpose and not my usual bleached), water, yeast, salt, sugar and unsalted butter (although I used salted). Rather, my doubt rested in the fact that the dough needed no kneading.

I was floored. How could you make bread without working the dough? But I was determined to follow the directions. And cross my fingers. I was already anticipating the taste of freshly-baked homemade bread as I reached into the cupboard for a large, sturdy mixing bowl.

In no time, I had dissolved the yeast and other ingredients in three cups of water and stirred in seven cups of unbleached all-purpose flour. After allowing the dough to rise in the bowl for about two hours, it was nearly ready to bake. Or, as the recipe also instructed, I could refrigerate the dough and use it within the next week.

I cut off a chunk of dough, quickly formed it into an oblong and dropped the piece into a loaf pan. Forty minutes later, I popped the pan into the oven, per the instructions. At this point I was again quite skeptical. The dough looked like a lump in the pan. My past experience with making homemade bread calls for the dough to have risen substantially, unlike this.

Soon the aroma of baking bread filled the house. About 45 minutes later, I pulled a risen loaf of golden bread from the oven.

I can attest to the fact that the bread turned out as well as any I’ve ever made. No kneading needed. As an added bonus, I now have enough dough in my refrigerator for two more loaves. And since my first loaf is nearly gone, I will likely bake bread again tomorrow.

Jeff and Zoë, you’ve made a believer out of me.

View from my house

By Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Yesterday afternoon I looked up from my keyboard to see a city worker planting a tiny blue flag in my yard. I knew exactly what he was doing, but not why. He was marking the water line. I hurried outside, concerned that my water would be shut off because he had tagged the wrong address. "Excuse me, but why did you mark my water line?" I asked. "I paid my bill."

His response: "Are you having a phone line buried?"

Ah, yeah, right. I had forgotten about that line, so accustomed had I become to the black phone wire that runs along the driveway, above the overhead garage door, across the path into the garage, along the outside garage wall, across the lawn and up the hill.

A short while later I did a double take when I saw a guy standing alongside Willow Street, thumb stuck in the air. He was attempting to hitch a ride. Last I saw, he was still walking south on the road that leads to Owatonna.

More road action followed. My neighbor boy, who is supposed to check in with me after school, failed to do so. Instead, I nervously watched as he ambled across our busy street while reading a book. He seemed rather oblivious to the post school traffic rush.

Finally, back on my computer, I resumed writing. But that didn't last long. I heard a rustle that sounded suspiciously like a bag of M&Ms being opened. I was right. My 14-year-old was dipping into the candy, my candy, a Mother's Day gift from him. "Why are you eating my candy?" I inquired. "You should at least ask first."

His response: "Well, you wouldn't have the candy if I hadn't gotten it for you." Ah, the logic of a teen.

Finally, there's the rabbit. The cottontail appeared on my back steps after supper. Never has a rabbit come quite that close. I can only deduce that my newly-potted plants placed on the patio proved too tempting. (Try repeating "newly-potted plants placed on the patio proved too tempting" three times.) The rabbit seemed rather indecisive as he/she sat there in a show-down with me. "Should I scamper back to the woods or seek shelter in this lady's garage?" he/she seemed to contemplate. My husband decided for the rabbit. He hit the garage door opener button, scaring the rabbit to the edge of the patio and eventually away.

Later that evening I paged through a metro magazine. I came upon a food feature that included rabbit braised with red wine, rosemary, sage and thyme. And how appetizing do you think that appeared given my earlier bunny encounter? I really couldn't share the writer's opinion that rabbit fit into a story titled "NO-GUILT DINING."

May 12, 2006, hit-and-run

By Audrey Kletscher Helbling

At 7:40 a.m. on Friday, May 12, 2006, two days before Mother's Day, I came as close as I ever want to come to a parent's worst nightmare -- losing a child. I remember every detail of that drizzly morning two years ago as if it was yesterday. Traumatic events are like that. They etch themselves deep inside your memory, forever changing you.

Sirens screamed and then stopped near my home on that Friday morning. I knew -- when I stepped out of the shower, when I saw my front inside door flung open, when my husband was nowhere to be found, when I saw a police car angled in
front of my house blocking traffic -- that my son had been hit while crossing the street to his bus stop. A phone call from the bus company confirmed what I already knew in my gut.

Then reality and panic set in. I kept repeating, "Lord, please, not my baby." It was a prayer of sorts, I suppose, from a mother in shock. My oldest daughter, Amber, who had just moved home from college, grabbed me by the shoulders and commanded me to get dressed so we could go to the hospital.

I calmed considerably when my husband, Randy, who had rushed to the scene, arrived home in a squad car. Together we went to the hospital and waited and watched as the emergency room staff evaluated our 12-year-old son. Considering the fact that Caleb had been struck by a car and somersaulted through the air, his injuries were minor. He suffered a broken bone in his hand, a possible rib fracture, a bump on his head and scrapes. Today I remain forever grateful to God that Caleb came through all of this relatively unscathed.

His immediate physical injuries healed quickly. But the emotional impact lasted much longer, at least for me. The driver of the car that struck Caleb never stopped and has not come forward. That still bothers me, a lot. I can't understand how someone could hit a child and then simply drive away.

Every time I hear or read a news report of a pedestrian struck by a vehicle, especially a hit-and-run driver, the memories of that morning in May come rushing back. Our family worked with the police to find the driver. We talked to the local media. And two months after the accident, I suggested to the police that we offer a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person driving the blue four-door Chevrolet Cavalier or Corsica that struck Caleb. To my surprise, no monies existed locally for such a reward. I had to find the money on my own. I felt victimized all over again.

To this date, the $1,000 reward has produced no solid leads in the case. I have little hope that the driver will ever be found. But I still check in with the police department every few months seeking an update on the investigation. I keep a file of information on Caleb's case.

As hard as I try, I have not been able to shake one reaction that lingers. I cannot stand to hear the wail of sirens in the early morning, when children are walking to school.

And one other thought sticks with me. I wonder how the hit-and-run driver feels after two years of living with this on his/her conscience. How can he/she handle the guilt?

Twist and turn

By Audrey Kletscher Helbling

In 26 years of marriage, my fingers have grown. Not in length, but in circumference. Because of that, my rings were a bit snug. Actually more like "this wedding/engagement band feels like it's cutting off my circulation." I knew I had to do something -- like get the rings off my finger and to a jeweler for resizing.

Not an easy task, I discovered. I started by soaking my left hand in a bucket of ice water for 10 minutes. Try that once and you won't do it again. Next, I slathered my ring finger with lotion. I thought the rings would then slide easily off my finger. That was not to be. I managed to move the band perhaps an eighth of an inch. But, hey, it was progress.

The harder I tried to twist and turn the rings closer to my knuckle, the more frustrated I became. It actually seemed like my finger was swelling. My finger felt trapped in an ever-tightening vise of gold.

Time for plan B. I grabbed a bottle of dish soap and doused my finger in slimy green gel. Then the dance began again. Twist and turn. Twist and turn. The wedding/engagement band edged closer to my knuckle. And then with a few more frantic tugs, the rings eased off my finger. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Today my sized-up rings are back on my hand. (The jeweler actually asked if I needed the rings sized up or down. I laughed.) I can easily slip the band over my knuckle without the use of anything slimy. In fact, now the rings seem to do a little dance of their own on my finger. Twist and turn. But I don't mind. I would rather they feel free to rock and roll than just sit there like wall flowers.

Prairie sunsets

By Audrey Kletscher Helbling

I miss the sunset. I live in the valley. But I am a prairie girl. Space wide open, land flat, sky endless, sunsets as gorgeous as you will ever see. That's the prairie. I don't see the sunset here, tucked at the bottom of a big hill in my Faribault home crowded by houses and trees. It's been that way since 1984, the year my husband and I moved from our rented lake cabin into this southeastern Minnesota city and this house.

We saw some lovely sunsets over the shimmering waters of Cannon Lake outside Faribault. But nothing beats a prairie sunset, that blazing ball of fire sinking below the horizon, oranges and reds and yellows flaming across the vast sky. That is western Minnesota. Those are the sunsets of my childhood, the sunsets I remember and the sunsets I miss.

Every so often, I travel to southwestern Minnesota and am treated to those spectacular sunsets. I savor them, just like I savor the beauty of the prairie, the place I once called home. 

Blame the lady spy

By Audrey Kletscher Helbling

Sometimes when I go grocery shopping, I spy on other people's carts, just to see what they are buying. I'm not sure why I do this. But it's likely my innate curiosity about people and life in general.

Take for instance the last time I shopped. Two bags of generic cat food burdened the bottom of one man's cart. Not too difficult to conclude that the guy probably had more than one cat and that he was on a tight budget, was money-conscious and/or his cats weren't picky eaters.

Another time, I saw a young dad pushing one of those obnoxiously huge car-shaped carts with his son at the wheel. I hate those aisle-hogging vehicles. Stacks of bagged hamburger buns perched precariously inside his cart. As we stood side-by-side in front of the beans, I couldn't help but comment, "Looks like you're having a party."

"Yup, a birthday party," he said, glancing at his shopping list.

"Oh, your wife sent you out to pick up a few things," I responded.

"Yeah," he said, "I wonder if these are the right beans?" He selected a small
can of Van Camp's pork and beans.

"What is she making?" I asked.

"Calico beans," he answered.

"Yeah, those are probably right," I said, grabbing my own can of beans and continuing on my way.

Two aisles later, the young dad stopped me. "Excuse me," he said. "Do you know where I would find Lipton onion soup mix? Is it in a can?"

"No, it's a dry mix and comes in a box," I said, leading him to the selection of dried soups. I think I might possibly have saved the day for him.

This isn't the first time I've rescued a shopper. Shorter women sometimes ask me to reach an item on a top shelf. At 5-feet-8½-inches tall, I am glad to assist. But once I also helped a 20-something guy and his little brother. Not because they couldn't reach the product, but because they knew nothing about molasses. Their mom had sent the pair on an errand to buy several items. I selected the Brer Rabbit full flavor molasses that I usually purchase, handed the bottle to the older brother and said, "Blame the lady at the store if it's the wrong thing."