Know Your Risk
it!
Take charge of your health with monthly self-exams and annual mammograms
Mankato Clinic joins us in raising awareness of the importance of early detection in the fight against breast cancer and the importance of continued support for breast cancer research.
MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 1
» C OME JUDGE
for Yourself.
GOLFERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD COME TO CHALLENGE THE JUDGE and the two other golf courses in Prattville at RTJ Capitol Hill. Bring your clubs and come take on Judge hole number 1, voted the favorite hole on the Trail. Complete your day in luxury at the Marriott and enjoy dining, firepits and guest rooms overlooking the Senator golf course. With the Marriott’s 20,000 square feet of meeting space, 96 guest rooms and luxurious Presidential Cottage combined with three world-class golf courses, business and pleasure can definitely interact in Prattville.
THE ROBERT TRENT JONES GOLF TRAIL AT CAPITOL HILL is home of the Yokohama Tire LPGA Classic on the Senator Course September 18 to 24, 2014. The Marriott Prattville is part of the Resort Collection on Alabama’s Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail. Visit www.rtjgolf.com or call 800.949.4444 to learn more.
FEATURE S december 2015 Volume 10, Issue 12
18
Bring the Light!
Kiwanis Holiday Lights cruises to its fourth year of electric Joy.
14
Ornamental traditions
Mary Miller makes sure her grandkids get a memento each year that commemorates their growing up.
22
A gift giving retrospective
Mankato author Nick Healy looks back and rethinks gift-receiving memories of Christmases gone by.
About the Cover Awww, so cute! Our cover models this month are Teri Kolsrud of North Mankato and her adorable 3-year-old daughter Cora. They were photographed by our own Pat Christman. MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 3
DEPARTMENTS 6 From the Editor 8 This Day in History 9 The Gallery
9
Blowin’ glass
10 Beyond the Margin Of shadows, cows & the economy 12 Day Trip Destinations Duluth’s lights festival, Bentleyville 26 Then & Now Train’s a-comin’! 33 Food, Drink & Dine 34 Food
36 Wine
12
Essential oils Champagne dreams
37 Beer Patty, Charlie and Woody 38 Happy Hour
Orgeat. Huh?
40 What’s Cookin’? Ground cherries 44 That’s Life Identity theft hits home 46 Garden Chat Memories of a retired garden 48 Your Style Who wore it better 50 Coming Attractions
34
38
53 Faces & Places 56 From This Valley The annual Christmas letter
Coming in January
46 4 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
50
Let’s get physical! Everything you need to know to cancel out everything you ate and drank last month. Don’t worry. We got your back.
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This Day in history By Jean Lundquist
Thursday, December 11, 1958 “Sam the Sibley Park seal gives views on first winter in Mankato” Beneath a series of photos of Sam the Seal’s expressive face, a “reporter” records a series of answers to questions put to Sam. “You mean you want my opinion on Mankato’s weather? Excuse me for laughing in your frostbitten face. Listen, Smiley, this ain’t nothing like where I come from. Of course, I haven’t been outside for a few weeks. And I’ve got this nice seal skin coat on. I’ve been sleeping a lot lately. By the way, how cold is it outside? Six below? Shut that door — I’ll see you next spring.”
Happy Holidays! Happy
Holidays!
From Your Printing Solutions Company! Direct Mail Catalogs Brochures Print on Demand Soft Cover Books Hard Cover Books Magazines Posters
Corporate Graphics 1750 Northway Drive North Mankato, MN 56003 800-729-7575 www.corpgraph.com
Saturday, December 15, 1951 Cold to stay for weekend Minus 14 is low. Mercury in downtown Mankato thermometers “rose” to 7 degrees below zero at 1 p.m. today after a skid to the lowest level of the season during the night, -14. While Minnesota bore the brunt of the latest cold wave that rolled down from the Canadian wastelands, South Central and North Atlantic States caught a record snowfall head on. To date, 31 people have died due to the snow and cold. In southern Minnesota, temperatures would bottom out at -15 over the rest of the weekend, but up north near Bemidji and International Falls, mercury would plummet to -30, according to the forecast. Friday, December 2, 1890 Lawn Mowing as a competitive sport, and trash talking to go with it Mr. Thos. Griffin of this city, who is champion lawn mower of the northwest after defeating champions in both Iowa and Wisconsin, received a challenge from Mr. Chas. Evlon of Baltimore. The modest Chas. Evlon signed himself the Champion Lawn Mower Expert of America. He invited Griffin to Baltimore for a friendly contest of lawn mowing, graciously offering to pay his travel expenses and provide $150 in expenses. The purse was to be valued at between $1,000 and $3,500. Evlon offered the evidence that he was a superior lawn mower by offering that he was 41 years old and weighed 178 pounds. Griffin was 31 years old, and weighed 158. “When you are through with me, you will feel nearly 100 years old. I have made this a hot job for everyone” I compete with. The report concluded with the idea that modesty was not one of Evlon’s virtues. Friday, December 20, 1918 Freedom of Speech? Bah Bumbug during wartime in 1918, except in cases of the Influenza Outbreak The jury in the case of Andrew Pomgratz of this city, indicted for disloyalty, came in with a verdict of guilty but recommended clemency. It is understood that Pomgratz has a wife and seven living children, all living in destitute circumstances. His wife is now confined to the emergency hospital with an attack of influenza, and one of the children died of that disease last week. Though it’s unknown what Pomgratz said, Miss Clara Hintze of St. Clair was found not guilty of disloyalty for her utterance, “What is the use of knitting sweaters which will be sent to France to clean horses with.” Friday, December 3, 1920 Going south for the winter has long been an exercise in warmth among Minnesotans, but going south is not what it used to be. Clinton is about as far south as Chicago. Mr. and Mrs. J. N. Nenno left today for Clinton, Iowa, where they will spend the winter months.
The Gallery: Bob Doring and Curt Dumdei Story by Nell Musolf
M
Blowin’ glass
ankato artisan Bob Doring has almost reached the half century mark as a glass blower. Doring began blowing glass in the late 1960’s at the first glass blowing studio in Mankato—and in Minnesota. He was also the first glass blower to appear at the Renaissance Fair in 1976. Over the years he estimates that he’s, well, blown a lot of glass. Along the way he was joined by Curt Dumdie, an acquaintance who has become not only a fellow glass blower and partner-in-art but also his best friend. “Bob is a master,” Dumdie said. “He’s been doing this for a long time and the things he creates are absolutely incredible.” The magic happens in a small Quonset hut that serves as a glass studio situated behind Doring’s West Mankato home. Doring and Dumdie designed and built the studio as well as the multiple furnaces they use for glass blowing. Since the furnaces heat up to over 2000 degrees and the Quonset hut quickly becomes quite warm, Doring and Dumdie wait until the weather outside is compatible before firing up for two weeks of intensive work three times every year. “When it’s 80 degrees outside, it’s not too comfortable to come outside from the heat of the hut,” Doring said. “It’s better when the weather is colder.” Indeed, being inside the Quonset hut
is a lot like what one imagines being inside a very large oven must feel like: extremely toasty. “It can feel hotter than hell in here,” Dumdie said. “But if you have arthritis, it can feel pretty good,” Doring added. Glass-blowing starts with glass pellets that look like small clear charcoal briquettes. The glass is melted and then applied to the end of a long blowpipe. Fruitwood blocks soaked in water are used to shape the glass into a ball and then the glass blower puffs through the blowpipe, creating a bubble inside the glass. After shaping the glass into the beginning of a fish or a goblet or a paperweight, the glassblower then adds color, heats the glass again, and shapes it some more. The entire process is fastpaced, intense and amazing to witness as a ball of molten glass is transformed into a beautiful fish or a paperweight. “We’re the fastest dancers in town,” Dumdie said as he moved from one furnace to a bench to another furnace to the bench and back to the third furnace. “It’s vital that we anticipate each other’s moves.” “I always say that blowing glass is like playing chess at 100 miles an hour,” Doring observed. “You have to think everything through,” Dumdie agreed. “You have to think three moves ahead of where you are all the time.”
Handling the glass is similar to handling extremely hot taffy—if hot taffy had glass shards in it. Doring and Dumdie welcome people who are interested in learning the basics of glass-blowing and promise to walk them through every step of the process. “We’re good teachers,” Dumdie said. “We love to have people come here and watch us and learn. We’ve had groups from schools and groups from senior homes. Everyone has a blast.” Doring and Dumdie sell their glass at the Carnegie Art Center’s gift shop and at the Stone’s Throw Gallery and Studio in St. Peter. The duo will be participating in the 13th Annual GSR Fine Art Festival at the Verizon Civic Center along with many other area artists. The GSR Fine Art Festival takes places between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. Dec. 4 and 10 a.m. 6 p.m. Dec. 5. Even after blowing glass for so many years, both Dumdie and Doring still get a thrill from the experience. “The other day I finished a piece and when I looked at it I realized that I had goosebumps,” Dumdei said. “Goosebumps when it’s 2000 degrees in here. That tells you how exciting this still is to me.” “It’s my vacation,” Doring agreed. “I never get tired of it.”
MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 9
10 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • '(&(0%(5 • 11
Day Trip Destinations: Bentleyville “Tour of Lights” By Leticia Gonzales
Northern lights If you’re into holiday lights, Duluth’s Bentleyville is worth a look
W
hen it comes to putting on a show, the Bentleyville “Tour of Lights” in Duluth Minnesota has gone from a small-town show of decorations to a grandiose attraction. The outdoor display first started out in 2003 as a way for then-Esko resident Nathan Bentley to reflect his Christmas spirit and give back to the community by putting on a light show at his personal residence. As he continued to add more holiday lights, the crowds followed suit. “It just gradually grew bigger each year with popularity,” said Tim Rogentine, Bentleyville Tour of Lights Event Coordinator. “And after the fourth year at a private residence and after 74,000 people went through, some of the neighbors weren’t too pleased with people going through their yards.” Once the crowds became too much for his neighborhood to handle, the light show was moved to Cloquet until 2009, when it once again outgrew its location. “With that, we shut down for a year and moved it to Duluth from Cloquet,” Rogentine shared. “And wow, we have grown to see a quarter million people annually, and we are constantly adding new 12 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
LED lights and new offerings for all of our guests, and we have always been free.” With a name that references Dr. Seuss’s town of Whoville, Bentleyville “Tour of Lights” has been a winter staple in northern Minnesota for 12 years, making a magnificent home at Bayfront Festival Park in Duluth. “We realized right away that we didn’t have enough lights when we moved into the 20-acre park,” said Rogentine. But it didn’t take long for the display to fill up the space. “We have about four million lights,” added Rogentine. “When we first went down there, we were probably at about a million in a half, two million lights.” When visitors enter the display, they are welcomed by a larger than life castle entrance, which towers 24 feet tall and is about 70 feet wide. “For the people first coming, awe struck is not an understatement,” Rogentine exclaimed. “The first time people come through and see the lights, and I see it nightly when I am working the front gates, I see the little kids’ eyes lighting up. And I think that’s the
It’s hard to beat the view of the Duluth Harbor. best part about working down there, just seeing people’s reactions, the oos and awes. It’s simply magical. There is no other experience like it in my book.” It takes about a half hour to 45 minutes to navigate the light show, so dressing in warm layers is strongly encouraged. “If the winds are coming off of Lake Superior, people are going to experience temperate drops of 10 to 15 below what normal would be, just because there’s nothing there really blocking the wind that’s coming right in,” said Rogentine. Aside from the spectacular view of Lake Superior, the light display features many children’s characters from “Sesame Street,” “Thomas the Train,” “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and his Misfit toys, and “Clifford the Big Red Dog.” There are also displays that pay tribute to our military troops and emergency service workers. Local attractions such as the Duluth Depot and Split Rock Lighthouse are also incorporated into the show, along with other holiday-themed sets. “Our marquis attraction is we have the nation’s largest man-made steel Christmas tree,” Rogentine said. “It stands 720 feet tall and it has over a hundred thousand LED lights on it, and it is synchronized to dance to music that we have playing throughout the park.” In addition to visits from Santa and Mrs. Clause, who by the way skydive right into the park on opening night, the event features ice skating, snow sculpting, and a fireworks finale show. With close to 600 volunteers lending manpower from September to January, Rogentine said Bentleyville continues to grow, offering an attraction for tourists during a season that consists primarily of skiing and other outdoor activities. “It’s not uncommon for us to see 7,500 or 10,000 people on a Saturday night,” state Rogentine. “We
urge people to come Sunday through Thursday.” The holiday display brings in about $15 million during its month-and-a-half run in forms of tax revenue tied to the influx of visitors who use local hotels, restaurants and gas stations. “And normally the park would be sitting there dormant for three or four months not being used, and we are utilizing this great venue,” he added. “We are helping tourism in Duluth happen all year long. We aren’t the sole winter tourism destination in Duluth, but we definitely help lift all the boats.” MM
Go If you
What
Bentleyville “Tour of Lights” Bayfront Festival Park
Duluth, Minnesota When Nov. 21 to Dec. 27, 2015
Hours: Sunday through Thursday, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., Friday through Saturday, 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Admission Free Admission; $5 Parking Onsite Bentleyville is also an official drop-off location for donations of non-perishable food items and unwrapped toys for the Salvation Army for Northern Minnesota and Superior Wisconsin. Visit www.bentleyvilleusa.org for more information. MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 13
Mary Miller watches her granddaughter place an ornament on the tree.
Christmas traditions By Nell Musolf | Photos by xxxx
14 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
…At last, for old times’ sake, they bought the Christmas tree ornaments, each selecting just one after prolonged debate. As they paid their dimes, they were laughing at themselves, but Betsy admitted silently that she had never ceased to be thrilled by the sight of a Christmas tree ornament, so fragile, so glittery, so full of the promise of Christmas. “Betsy and Joe” by Maud Hart Lovelace When Marge Miller’s nine children began having children of their own, she began a Yuletide tradition of giving each one of them an ornament that somehow symbolized something special that had happen to that particular grandchild over the previous year. On Thanksgiving, when the entire family was gathered at the Miller family home in the Tourtellotte Park neighborhood, several traditions were followed. First there was Thanksgiving dinner, followed by a walk over to Broad Street to see the lights that were then on display, then back to Grandma’s to receive an ornament. Miller’s daughterin-law, Mary Miller, remembers that time fondly. “Dinner was great, the lights on Broad Street were beautiful and the kids loved getting their ornaments. It was like the start of the Christmas season for all of us,” Miller recalled. Mary’s sons, Pat and Jason, were the lucky recipients of ornaments up through their eighteenth birthdays. Mary remembers how excited they each were. “They got school bus ornaments the year they started kindergarten, soccer ornaments the year they played soccer and football ornaments the year they played football. We would go home and they couldn’t wait for us to put our tree up so that they could hang their ornaments on them,” Mary said. The plan was that Pat and Jason would amass enough ornaments to start out their own Christmas trees in style when they were grown up and had their own homes. Her son Pat married in 2012 and has taken his ornaments to the house that he shares with his wife, Abby, and their four children, Haydin, Zaelyiah, Kryxus and seven month old Alizybeth. With grandchildren of her own, Mary has kept her mother-in-law’s tradition going strong. Every year she has chosen an ornament for each of her grandchildren.
“Haydin is a sports kind of kid so he usually gets ones that have a sports theme,” Mary said. “Zaelyiah loves the movie ‘Frozen’ so one year I got her an Elsa ornament.” The younger children, with their still developing tastes and interests, might get a Mickey or Minnie Mouse ornament but as they get older and discover new things that they are interested in, Mary will do her best to find them an ornament that somehow or other symbolizes something special about their past year. For her own tree, it’s a little barer now that Pat has taken his ornaments with him and Jason has his own apartment — although he hasn’t taken his ornaments yet. Mary has adjusted to having less memory laden ornaments on her tree. “Less is more,” she said. “I have a cat that likes to climb Christmas trees and a new grandchild who will be at that very mobile stage this Christmas so it’s probably a good thing that I don’t have as many ornaments.” Mary has yet to buy this year’s ornaments but is sure that she will find four ornaments that are exactly right before Christmas rolls around. “I tend to get to the store and find them about two days before Christmas,” Mary said. “But I always get them.” “It’s shocking how some people manage Christmas—tell each other ahead of time about their presents—no surprises, no suspense, no drama. Papa and Mamma put such a thrill in it.” “Betsy Was a Junior” by Maud Hart Lovelace For another Miller family in Mankato (no relation), Christmas traditions have also been passed down from grandparents, particularly from Linda Miller’s grandmother, and plans are in the works to keep those traditions going for the next generation. Those traditions include oyster stew that no one eats, a Charlie Brown type of Christmas tree, lots of board games and Harry Pottery movies galore. “The first thing to signal the holidays had arrived was my grandma walking into the house with bags full of ingredients for making roll-out Christmas cookies and she would immediately say, ‘You little dunkeys aren’t going anywhere until these cookies are made and frosted,’” Linda remembered. The next four hours were spent with Linda and her brother Joe sitting at the kitchen table frosting cookies. Linda remembers that neither her nor her brother were particularly into the task but they kept at it in spite of being scolded every so often by their grandmother for using too much frosting “because she most definitely didn’t want to make any more.” That same grandmother always went out a few days before Christmas to buy a few ornament making kits for her grandchildren to spend their creative energy on. “They were the kind of kits that had ornaments that were made out of Styrofoam that you could pin MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 15
Each year Mary Miller finds an ornament that symbolizes something significant in each grandkid’s life. sequins into,” Linda said. “Then on Christmas Eve my grandmother would have Joe and I put together those ornaments. We always acted put out by it, but I think we both secretly enjoyed it. Plus, it was fun to watch the tree fill up more and more every year with ‘our’ ornaments.” While Linda and her brother worked, they could smell the dinner their grandmother had made cooking, something that definitely kept them happy as well as hungry. “Every year she would make a pork roast, sauerkraut and potato dumplings that weighed about six pounds each. That was sincerely the best dinner EVER! Then after dinner we would go for a walk around the neighborhood to see everyone’s lights — we lived in a neighborhood of decorators — and when we came home our stockings were always full of small things we were allowed to open on Christmas Eve,” Linda recalled. As an adult, Linda has done her best to work some magic into her own family’s Christmases. “We always buy and decorate our tree on Christmas Eve, because I prefer to have it up longer after Christmas than too long before. January seems a little less soul-numbing when you still have a tree 16 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
decorated in your living room. Plus, we have made a tradition of buying the saddest looking tree we can find. It makes us all feel oddly good to think we’ve given a good home to an ugly orphan tree,” Linda said. “On Christmas Eve my husband always makes oyster stew and everyone always refuses to eat it.”
Then it’s game time.
Linda said, “We play cribbage and Scrabble every Christmas Eve. Then I insist that we all watch every single Harry Potter movie on Christmas day, while we put together a puzzle. Then we always make sure we watch ‘Christmas Story’ before we go to bed.” Joining in the fun this year is the Miller’s two year old grandson. Linda is thinking of a new tradition to start with him. “He’s at the age where Christmas is so much fun. I saw something on Facebook about cutting a tree out of green felt, making ornaments out of festive colored felt and using Velcro to let kids decorate their own tree. We might give that a try this year,” Linda said. MM
MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 17
Scott Wojcik, standing inside the tree of light at the Kiwanis Holiday Lights.
Seeing the
LIGHT
1.5 millionD
number of LE ’s lights in this year ay lid Kiwanis Ho Lights display
36
Diameter of the base of the gian t Christmas tree
The making of a
holiday tradition
The Kiwanis Holiday Lights has become one of the biggest things to happen to Mankato’s holiday season in … well, maybe ever. By Robb Murray | Photos by Pat Christman 18 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
50
About 150,000 people visited the display last year.
L
ike most nonprofits, the happened. Mankato Downtown “Literally,” Wojcik said, “a light Kiwanis Club spent a lot bulb went on.” of time trying to figure Wojcik came back to Mankato out how get money coming in to that weekend with the idea that fund the things it wants to fund, would change the holiday season such as scholarships for area in Mankato like nothing else ever youth. So at a meeting a few has. Sure, the Mankato area has years ago of the Kiwanis had some impressive displays executive committee, member over the years: Residents on Scott Wojcik gave the others North Broad Street in Mankato some homework. By the time the and Mary Circle in North next meeting comes along, he Mankato used to decorate to such told them, he wanted all the a degree that tour buses from out members of that of town would show up to slowly committee to come back drive by. But, with all due respect with some ideas for to them, those efforts had no fundraisers. where near the scope and A few days later, scale of the Sibley Park 50,000 Wojcik took a drive electric extravaganza. Number, in dollars, to Marshfield, his This year, 1.5 million that was donated hometown. And lights will greet the tens of to nonprofits last when the sun went thousands of spectators year down, Wojcik and his who will drive or walk family went for a through the display. drive to a little attraction Thousands of dollars will be that had been growing in town: A donated, thousands of pounds of community celebration built on food will be collected for area thousands of lights and holiday food shelves. And Mankato will decorations. Walking through the once again have an attraction that winter wonderland, seeing the pulls in fans from Iowa, festive glow of the lights, feeling Rochester, the Twin Cities and the sense of community and everywhere in between — holiday spirit … That’s when it 150,000 people visited last year.
Number, in dolla rs, spent on keepin g the lights lit each day Hundreds of volunteers from dozens of nonprofit agencies will gather to string lights, direct traffic, collect food, pour hot cocoa or hand out programs. Indeed, the Kiwanis Holiday Lights has become synonymous with the holiday season in this town. In much the same way, Wojcik — and his work ethic — has become synonymous with the holiday lights. While Wojcik has begun to cede some control to an army of volunteers, the event itself continues to rocket upward in popularity and make giant strides in organization and efficiency … which is a far cry from those first few years. From idea to reality After Wojcik returned to that committee with his big idea, not everyone was on board. Joe Meidl, member of the Kiwanis executive committee and owner of The Music Mart, was one of them. “I wasn’t convinced,” he says, smiling while sitting in a warming house that was constructed for the thousands who will arrive in a few weeks demanding hot cider and fresh MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 19
Volunteers are the engine that drives the festival. popcorn. Still, the committee went to work to see if the same magic that works in Marshfield and so many other places could be replicated in Mankato. Getting to work meant 14 months of planning and research before the first twinkly light would ever be lit. Kiwanis members pounded the pavement and beat the bushes for sponsors. They visited La Crosse, Sioux Falls and Bentleyville near Duluth to see just how those organizations managed to pull it off. And when they thought they had a workable outline for what a successful holiday lights festival might look like — and when all the doubters and naysayers were convinced this lights thing was a good idea — they started making plans for the first festival. They’d also raised roughly $125,000 to purchase lights and displays. How’d that first year go? “It was a mess,” Meidl says, laughing. Among the things they learned: • They were far too conservative 10 with the lights. “When we were Combined length, done we had spools of lights in in miles, of all the the warehouse.”Note to selves: extension cords Add more lights next year. And they did. In fact, they’ve added more every year. There’ll be a cool 1.5 million this year. • Clean up can be a bear of a task. “It took us until the following June before we had everything put away,” Wojcik says. Note to selves: Come up with a better way to take all these lights down! And they did. These days, with the help of an army of volunteers, that process has been whittled down to a few days. • Corralling dozens of volunteers can be ... difficult. In that first year, Wojcik and Meidl said, the volunteer coordination situation was chaotic. Note to selves: Can we fix this? Maybe come up with a better system? And they did. Now they’ve got volunteers who have been coming back every year, including some who have evolved into leaders. 20 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
Those, Wojcik says, have become extremely valuable. Volunteers One of those volunteers is Lori Maday, who has been with the Kiwanis Holiday Lights every year. “It’s just really fun,” Maday said, “taking some ownership and being part of putting the lights up.” Maday says she’s involved with many nonprofits, including Girls Scouts, Mankato Area 77 Lancers and the dance group her daughter used to be involved with. She said she’s been able to see the evolution of the volunteer situation, and it’s gotten much better than the first years. “Kiwanis has actually been pretty organized lately,” Maday said. “First and second year, they just took who showed up. But last year and this year, for set up days, they’ve been doing sign-ups ahead of time so they know what to expect. It’s a little more organized.” So far this year, Maday says, she and husband Brad and children Connor and Rebeckah, have wrapped trees and helped muscle up some of the big displays when they’re ready to go up — such as the giant electric cut out of Santa, or the new Old Man Winter display. “I just like helping out wherever we can help out,” Maday says. “They give us minimal direction and we just get it done. It’s kind of become a family tradition. We were even there on Chrismas Eve last year.” Volunteer efforts have been bolstered by the enthusiastic buy-in from college athletic teams. Groups from Minnesota State University and Bethany Lutheran College have carted dozens of young, able-bodied young folk to attack the big projects. Having athletes around for heavy lifting, organizer say, is a bonus. Smooth operators After the first year, Wojcik and Meidl said, they knew they had a winner. “With the amount of food donations and cash
donations, we knew it was sustainable,” Wojcik said. And that 150,000 le fact is important; Number of peop e Without a steady th d ite vis o wh influx of cash, it lights in 2014 would be extremely difficult to continue building on the incandescence and grandeur. It would also be difficult to continue to give back to the bevy of nonprofits that have stepped in to contribute to the massive set up and take down efforts. There is, in fact, a waiting list of nonprofits that want to get in on the action. After the first year of the festival, $30,000 was given back to the nonprofit groups who contributed volunteer hours. In year two, that number climbed to $40,000. Last year, it climbed to $50,000. Two years ago, something happened with the Kiwanis Holiday Lights that broadened its fan base considerably. WCCO-TV came down and recorded a segment for its evening newscast. After that, Wojcik and Meidl say, more and more Twin Citians made the trek south to see the display. They’ve seen many Iowans coming north for the show, as well. People who come this year will be in for a added treat. They’ve beefed up the brightness factor — not to mention the wow factor — of the big Christmas tree in the middle. It’s now 20 feet higher and a full 36 feet in diameter at its base. Bigger, brighter, merrier. It’s all a long way from an idea born on a weekend trip to Marshfield. Wojcik’s house on Main Street, by the way, is no slouch when it comes to Christmas decorations. If you drive up there, you won’t be able to miss it. It’s the one near the hospital begging for you to notice and smile and feel warm and fuzzy inside. “The running joke,” Wojcik said, “is that I ran out of room at my place so I came down to Sibley Park.” MM
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Not so simple gifts By Nick Healy
22 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
T
wice a month my mother would retreat to her room after speaking a few words of warning to my big sisters and me. “I have to pay some bills,” she would say. Or, “I have to balance my checkbook.” My sisters had sense enough to stay away on billpaying or checkbook-balancing nights, but my room was nearest to my mother’s, which made it more difficult for me. I was only ten, eleven, twelve years old, and I could hear her in there, shuffling papers and scratching away with her ballpoint pen. Sometimes I would wander in from the hallway, sit on the edge of her bed, and watch her make out checks and seal them into envelopes. “How much money do you have?” I would ask. Or, “Why do you keep sighing?” In December each year Rosemary and Bob Gerner stopped by to wish a merry Christmas to my mother and whatever remainder of her kids still lived at home. Rosemary was my mother’s cousin. She smiled easily and spoke in a warm, familiar voice. Bob was a cheerful person, too, and a good talker. They said hello to each of us kids. They remembered our names, and they remembered things about us. We stuck around to listen as they sat in the living room with our mother, drinking coffee and catching up. We liked them, and we couldn’t help noticing how they put our mother at ease, how their presence improved her mood. We would’ve liked them even if they hadn’t brought us Christmas gifts. We would’ve liked them even if those gifts hadn’t been among our favorites each year. We got no tube socks from the Gerners, no Life Savers books. We couldn’t help wondering what they might bring for us. Did that make us greedy? We didn’t think so. The Gerners didn’t make a fuss about it. We thought maybe they were rich. ••• In my lifetime my mother had been a hostess at a steakhouse, a nurse’s aide, a bank teller, and a secretary. Before all that she’d been a full-time mom with a flock kids and an increasingly unreliable husband, but those days were hard to remember. By the early 1980s she worked for Sperry, a computer company that occupied a huge campus north of Minneapolis. I called her at the office one day, and she answered by saying, “Diagnostic software and technical support.” I had no idea what any of that meant, and I assumed she had gotten something wrong. Was “software” even a word? I didn’t think so. In those days she wore her hair neat and short, her glasses large and round, and her blazers navy blue or beige. After work she put on slacks and tennis shoes and went outside to pull weeds from the rock garden. Twice a month she’d be back at the desk, signing checks and subtracting numbers. “How much do you make?” I asked once. “That’s not a polite question,” she replied. ••• Rosemary Gerner, was born Rosemary Driscoll,
and she grew up with five brothers on St. Paul’s East Side. They were part of the Irish-Catholic wing of my mother’s family—the wing that never had a lot of money but still had a lot of good times. My mother grew up across town, a few blocks south of Summit Avenue, among people who had more money and less fun. Getting there hadn’t been easy. Her father took a job with the railroad when he was a teenager and worked his way up from the loading docks to management and, eventually, into the executive ranks. (That sort of thing was once possible, apparently.) When he moved his family to Princeton Avenue, life promised to be comfortable, serene, secure. It didn’t work out that way. Rosemary was seven years older than my mother, and the two hadn’t known each other well. When she and Bob became engaged, Rosemary asked my mother and her younger sister to be in the bridal party. The request came out of the blue. “She wanted family in her wedding,” my mother told me years later. “She only had brothers.” ••• Beginning when our kids were toddlers, we read them stories infused with messages about poverty and wealth, gratitude and ingratitude, gratefulness and greed. Hard times came built into our favorite tales. Our kids witnessed this: Charlie Bucket’s family endures desperate poverty, half-starved and cold to the bone, until he finds a golden ticket. Dorothy Gale lives in a one-room house with her aunt and uncle, and when she steps outside all she can see is gray—the dull sky, the parched earth, the dead grass, even the boards of the house itself, all gray. Only a cyclone can take her away. Laura Ingalls and her family make their own clothing, live in shacks and dugouts, and uproot themselves whenever Pa gets a notion. At Christmastime, Laura can hardly believe her good fortune when she gets a penny, a tin cup of her own, and a stick of candy. The point of these stories is, of course, that the characters eventually find some sort of joy—or at least a measure of contentment. There’s a secondary message: People have to get through hard times to appreciate good times. I suppose we hoped our kids could learn that without having to live it. ••• One year the Gerners brought especially nice gifts for my sister Linda and me. We were the youngest in the family, and by that time we were the only ones who hadn’t yet entered our obnoxious highschool years. I got a remote-control car, and Linda got a portable radio. The remote-control car was bright red, and once we found some batteries for it, the thing really zoomed. I enjoyed it immensely over the course of its working lifespan, which was about average for a radio-control car, meaning three or four days. The portable radio was about the size of a cigar box and made of royal blue plastic, with an AM/FM dial and a handle on the top. The radio meant Linda could have music—her choice of music—anywhere MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 23
she wanted. That seemed like a big deal at the time. The blue radio lasted for years, and even after I’d forgotten how it once impressed me, it seemed like an important memento. It reminded me of Christmastime, the Gerners, and the feeling of getting a perfect gift. Whenever I noticed the radio on a shelf in my sister’s room, I thought about them. The thought would pass through me quickly, and I wouldn’t pause to consider it. But there they were, a flash of Rosemary and Bob in my memory and a pulse of gratitude. ••• When the holidays came around, my wife and I rewound and replayed VHS copies of our favorites—“How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” and “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” We plopped our kids down so they could be entertained and infused with the Christmas spirit and we could laugh at the same old things. What did the kids find in these stories? Forlorn protagonists (outcasts, misfits, down-on-theirluck types) and hard-hearted antagonists (the Grinch himself, the Abominable Snowman, that terrible Lucy). Their makers intended, of course, to reveal the true Christmas spirit. In the end, they are stories about togetherness, kindness, and peace. But there was that secondary message again: You will have to endure hard times to appreciate good times. Our kids may have missed it. Near the end of the Grinch our son would urge us to stand up with him, join hands, and sway like the Whos down in Whoville. Our daughter did a good imitation of Snoopy’s booing at poor old Charlie. It was fun, only fun. ••• Rosemary and Bob Gerner died last February. Both of them. My mother called to tell me the news. They’d been married for 63 years, and their deaths came only days apart, which allowed for a joint funeral and burial. 24 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
I found their shared obituary online, and it mentioned things I’d forgotten and things I’d never known. Bob had served in World War II and the Korean War. Then, it said, he “worked his entire life in sales.” They’d lost an infant daughter to cystic fibrosis. They enjoyed taking long drives, eating out, and entertaining. Their obituary began this way: “They loved their family and friends deeply and will be missed by many.” ••• These days when I call my mother to say hello and catch up, we sometimes get to talking about the lean years. That’s how we describe them now—lean— and we remember them with something like fondness. We laugh about the Thanksgiving when the oven wouldn’t heat up, the time I chased a mouse around the living room, and all the dead batteries in the terrible automobiles that darkened our driveway. Not long ago we were talking about plans for Christmas this
year, and I mentioned the Gerners. I mentioned their December visits, the remotecontrol car, and the royal blue radio. “Really?” my mother said. “They gave you kids presents?” “Don’t you remember?” I asked. “They gave me wonderful gifts. Rosemary picked out beautiful things,” she said. “They bought me a lovely plaid skirt, and they bought me a lovely red leather jacket.” A red leather jacket? I didn’t know what to say about that. I asked her to tell me the wedding story again—the story of when Rosemary asked her to be a bridesmaid. I don’t know why I wanted to hear it. I suppose I like the fact that it was a small act that led to good things, valuable things. “We just became friends. We were best friends,” my mother said over the phone. “I miss her a lot.” MM Nick Healy, author of “It Takes You Over,” lives in Mankato.
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 25
Then & Now: Railroad History By Bryce O. Stenzel
The Coming of the Railroad to Mankato
T
he city of Mankato owes its existence in no small part to both its geographic location on the Minnesota River as well as the coming of the railroad. While access to the river and the steamboat trade enabled the townsite to be founded (1852) and to flourish in its early years, arrival of the railroads ensured Mankato’s survival and rapid growth. Early in 1868, the Minnesota Valley Railroad proposed extending its line to Mankato and completing it by Dec. 1 in exchange for a bonus of $15,000 in bonds, a right-of-way over Fourth Street, and depot grounds between Plum and Elm Streets. Mankato residents voted on the proposition on June 3, 1868; the vote was 423 to 142, in favor of the railroad’s
26 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
request. Originally, the city had preferred the line enter nearer to and run along the Minnesota River, but the railroad insisted on the Fourth Street route because it would have required $34,000 in added expenses to construct a proper grade along the river. This route entered Mankato at its north end, near the present-day Mankato Golf Club, and followed Fourth Street to the depot sites at the intersection of Fourth and Washington Streets. At the southeast corner of the intersection stood the passenger depot, and at the northeast corner stood the freight depot. Today, the site is the location of Washington Park. From there, the tracks continued on Fourth Street to Cherry Street, cut diagonally across to Warren and Broad
Streets, and ran along Broad Street, where it exited the city near present-day Lincoln Park. During the summer of 1868, there were between 500 and 600 men working between Kasota and Mankato grading and laying railroad ties. The Minnesota Valley Railroad (renamed the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha) completed its line to Mankato on Oct. 3, 1868, two months ahead of schedule. The first freight was shipped over it on Oct. 8, 1868, and consisted of 200 barrels of flour from the Red Jacket Mills just south of Mankato. Passenger service to Mankato proper officially began on October 20, when the first passenger train reached the depot. There was an air of anticipation and excitement, both on board the train as well as
on the depot platform, as a crowd of over 1,000 people there waited to greet the passengers. A huge celebration was planned for that day, and it did not disappoint. A reporter for the Mankato Weekly Record was on hand, and he recorded the event as follows: Never before had Mankato seen the likes of the jubilation of that day. Farmers combined business with pleasure and drove to town with their loads in the morning to be ready for the first train…A cloud of smoke first appeared over the rise to the north of the station and a moment later the train chugged into full view. The reporter went on to describe the scene that followed. Passengers aboard the train were grabbed and hugged by the overjoyed Mankato residents. After order was finally restored, Mankato’s own Coronet Band, along with the Great Western Railway Band that arrived on the train, led a procession that marched down to Barr’s new brick building on South Front Street. Waiting for the crowd there was a huge celebration dinner, which was served by the proprietors of the Clifton House Hotel (T.C. Fowler and son). Mankato was now part of the outside world. It took only thirteen hours to make the round-trip to St. Paul and back, and cost only $4.00. In the decades following the arrival of the first train to Mankato, several more railroad lines were built. The Winona and St. Peter, later known as the Chicago & North Western line, reached Mankato from Janesville in the summer of 1870. In 1873, a line known as the Central and later Southern Minnesota Railroad was built to connect Mankato to Wells and points south and east. The greatest technical challenge faced by the builders of this line was finding suitable grade in the vicinity of the Le Sueur River. After several false starts, and even some serious consideration being given to the construction of a tunnel through the steep hillside, a route down the Red Jacket (named for the nearby mill) ravine was finally chosen. In order to cross the river at this point, a railroad trestle had to be built. Its span measured between 160 and 183 feet in length, supported by
two massive stone piers. The top of the Red Jacket Bridge was 53¾ feet above the water. The trestle connecting the bridge to the bluff was 618 feet long. Its highest point was 59 feet above the ground. The ravine through which the tracks ran was the steepest grade on the entire line — 60 feet to the mile. The coming of the railroad to Mankato symbolized progress for many, as well as economic opportunities. Mankato became the leading market point for wheat in southern Minnesota. Between October, 1868 and July, 1869, 335,341 bushels of wheat and 20,769 bushels of flour had been shipped out of the city by rail. Entrepreneur R.D. Hubbard, a native of New York state, first came to Mankato by rail in 1871. So impressed was he with its economic potential, Hubbard decided to settle down; he built himself a mansion at the corner of Broad and Warren Streets. In 1878, he started a flour milling operation, using the railroad to ship in wheat, as well as to ship out the finished product. Hubbard became one of Mankato’s most well-known and successful businessmen. As the railroads branched out into the hinterlands, entire new towns were created with names such as Hilton (St. Clair), Cream (Pemberton), Good Thunder, Rapidan, Mapleton and Lake Crystal that would not have been possible only a few years earlier, since they were removed from any navigatable river. Overland transportation, once prohibitive in terms of its costs, became cheaper, and it provided more direct access for farmers wishing to market their crops and livestock. For all of its benefits, the presence of the railroad also created many problems. For the steamboat industry, in particular, it meant disaster. The uncertainty of river navigation in general, with periods of both high and low water, coupled with a short icefree shipping season, made it impossible for the riverboats to handle the dramatic increase in trade. Boats could only follow the courses of the larger streams, such as the Minnesota River. Most of the smaller rivers could not be traversed with anything larger than a canoe. Tree snags and sand
bars were constant menaces. Once the railroads arrived, it was only a matter of time before steamboat traffic was gradually phased out of existence. The last passenger boat left Mankato’s landing in 1897. The demise of the riverboats spelled the end for several townsites as well — the most notable being South Bend. It was located between the southernmost bend of the Minnesota River (thus its name) and the west bank of the Blue Earth River. South Bend was established only a year after Mankato; during the 1860s, it boasted a population of approximately 300 people, rivaling its neighbor. The mortal blow for South Bend came when the St. Paul and Sioux City Railroad chose to locate depots on their line at Mankato and Minneopa instead of at South Bend. A similar fate befell the townsite of Wilton, once the county seat of Waseca County. When the railroad line came through the area, it by-passed Wilton altogether in favor of a new townsite to the north of it, known as Waseca. The county records were moved there as well. By 1880, the Southern Minnesota had been transferred to the Milwaukee, and plans for an extension into the heart of the city of Mankato became a certainty. The Milwaukee line purchased a tract of land between Jackson and Hickory Streets, and another one between Front Street and the Minnesota River, in order to build itself new passenger and freight depots. The Chicago & North Western (now in control of the older lines) decided to replace the older depots at Fourth and Washington Streets, which were now in a residential area. These efforts culminated in the construction of Mankato’s Union Depot, which held its grand opening celebration on December 6, 1896. Although no longer used for either passenger or freight service, it remains a striking reminder of the railroad’s heyday in Mankato.
MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 27
On the First Day of Christmas My True Love Gave to Me Exactly What I wanted from
Julee's Jewelry 120 S. Minnesota Ave, Saint Peter juleesjewelry.com
Reflections By Pat Christman
T
he nights in Minnesota may get darker as December creeps on but homes and businesses get brighter as brightly colored Christmas lights begin to shine. None seem to shine brighter in our area than Sibley Park’s lights during the Kiwanis Holiday Lights display. Volunteers spend so many hours hanging the millions of lights that go into the display that for some the colors and lights begin to swirl, especially for those looking up into the center of the 65-foot tree that is the focal point of the display. The hours pay off as visitors spend time during the five weeks of the display looking up in awe as the night is transformed into a rainbow of color. MM
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 31
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southern mn style
I don’t know about you, but in my house, Christmas rivals Thanksgiving for the feast(s) we plan, calories we take in and amount of concern we have about those calories (zero.) We start out on Christmas Eve with some wine from Chankaska or Morgan Creek, and fire up the Josh Groban Christmas album. (Why Josh Groban? I don’t know. Years ago my wife bought it and then she and my daughter fell in love with it. Now it’s just mandatory listening.) Then it’s homemade noodles for the homemade soup. It’s my job to roll out that giant clump of dough so we can all take turns with alphabet cookie cutters; Es and Ss, As and Rs, snowmen, stars, reindeer and Santas all get plopped into the simmering broth. While we’re waiting for soup, we snack on Club and Ritz crackers, mixed nuts (more wine) and cheese — Colby, Monterrey Jack, cheddar, pepper jack. The scent of bread in the oven mingles in the air with the sense of anticipation. The next day, after all, will be Christmas. The next morning, it’s stuffed French toast, a gooey miracle of French bread, cream cheese and maple syrup, with a side order of maple syrup-flavored Johnsonville sausage links. Don’t forget the orange juice, fresh bananas and pineapple. Later in the evening, gorgonzola pasta — with fresh basil, wine-based sauce, and shallots — with garlic bread. No exceptions. It has to be this way. It simply has to. Food and drink are inextricably linked to our holidays. The foods we eat serve as mental mileposts. We want the same things every year because our memories of the holidays are so yummy — literally and figuratively. Everyone wants to be happy. Our favorite foods at our favorite time of year are a perfect December match. Here’s to you and your holiday dining. We hope Santa brings you every morsel you’ve been hoping for this season.
food, drink & dine
Here’s to hoping for the usual this Christmas
MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 33
Food southern mn style
“Essential Oils Make Soaps That Smell Good Enough to Eat” By Sarah Johnson
R
aise your hand if you can’t walk past a soap seller without pausing to take a few sniffs. Even if you are all by yourself right now with your hand ridiculously up in the air, you are far from alone. It seems that everyone loves that free aromatherapy session that occurs when stopping by the shop that sells the great smells. The secret to these sensational scents is found in nature: essential oils. An essential oil is a liquid that is distilled from the leaves, stems, flowers, bark or roots of a plant. Essential oils are not really oily-feeling at all. Most are clear, but some oils such as patchouli, orange and lemongrass are amber or yellow in color. And the reason they smell so good you could eat them is because, well, you could. Essential oils contain the essences of the plants they were derived from. They are highly concentrated, and a little goes a long way. Essential oils are not the same as perfume or fragrance oils, which are artificially created. Blending essential oils into personal products such as soaps, shampoos and lotions is one method of enjoying these heavensent scents. Melissa Kruse is the founder of Naked Beauty, a St. Peter home business selling products all over Minnesota at farmers’ markets and stores like the St. Peter Food Coop and Salvage Sisters in Mankato, as well as online sales. She knows a little about essential oils: “I buy, like, five pounds at a time,” she laughs. “I’ve been making soap for 10 years.” Kruse says she uses natural oils to “flavor” her products because not only are they derived from plants, but they smell better, are less irritating, and have therapeutic properties, too. “They’re extracted from plants that have that strong fragrance,” she notes. “It’s amazing. One drop equals so-o-o many flower buds.” (The most expensive? Rose oil.)
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Essential oils have been used since antiquity for pleasure, medicine, cooking and even cleaning. Today they lie at the intersection of cutting-edge research and traditional wisdom. The term “essential oil” is a contraction of the original “quintessential oil.” This stems from the Aristotelian idea that matter is composed of four elements: fire, air, earth and water. The fifth element, or quintessence, was considered to be spirit or life force. Distillation and evaporation were thought to be processes of removing the spirit from the plant. (We still refer today to distilled liquor as “spirits” for the same reason.) Nowadays we know that essential oils are complex mixtures of chemicals that plants create to attract pollinators; defend the plant against things that want to eat it; protect the plant from fungus and bacteria; and even keep other plants from growing nearby. From the leaves we extract essential oils of basil, patchouli, peppermint, tea tree, lemongrass and sage. Citrus scents of lemon, lime and orange come from the peels. Cinnamon and sassafras oils are found in the bark, cedar and sandalwood in the wood itself. Jasmine, lavender, clove and chamomile oils reside in the flowers. While certain essential oils can be harmful if taken in high dosages, moderate use as flavoring is not only safe but delicious. Popular essential oils for cooking include peppermint, basil, lemon and nutmeg, adding an extra kick of flavor and aroma to foods. Enthusiasts can even clean and freshen their laundry and homes with essential oils of lavender, lemon, pine and cinnamon. Look for them at stores featuring
natural home products or in recipes for homemade cleaning products. One company, Aftelia.com, offers essential oil “food sprays” in enticing flavors of strawberry, spearmint, black pepper, peach, butter and saffron. They’re meant for use when fresh herbs are out of season, or to spritz on salads or ice cream, or enhance the aromas of food. And other companies have marketed essential oils in some pretty bizarre perfumes that claim to smell like tamales, bacon, pizza, sushi, coconut, fresh bread and cotton candy. Demeter Frangrances makes hundreds of fragrances from essential oils including beetroot (“On the skin, it gives the wearer a sense of the dirt it just came from, and the beautiful rouge-sweet juice within”), lobster (“Not for the faint of heart. Probably our most obtuse fragrance, but it is ‘dead on’ so to speak. Demeter’s Lobster is a combination of the sea, sweet meat, and a hint of drawn butter”), ginger, Junior Mints, almonds, licorice, passion fruit, waffles and watermelon, to name a few. To paraphrase a bit of Kruse’s Naked Beauty philosophy: Feed your body with healthy food and it will be healthy. Feed your skin and hair with healthy products and they too will be healthy … and smell delicious at the same time.
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Wine & Beer
wines
By Leigh Pomeroy
T
Don’t wait for the New Year to break out the bubbly
southern mn style
he beverage called “Champagne” is one of the great marketing gimmicks ever perpetrated upon the American consumer. Let me explain. In Europe the name Champagne applies exclusively to wines (all sparkling) from a small region called Champagne in the northeastern part of France, roughly 90 miles east of Paris, about the same distance from Mankato to the Twin Cities. The wines are made from three grape varieties: the white chardonnay and the reds pinot noir and pinot meunier. Most of the wines are white, but some, made exclusively from the two red grapes, are pink. Unfortunately, the name “Champagne” has come to be known in the U.S. as any sparkling wine. This came about because early U.S. vintners borrowed heavily from Europe to name their wines, including not only Champagne but Chablis, Burgundy, Rhine and so forth. In Europe these were specific wines from specific places, but the upstart American vintners didn’t care. They just wanted to sell wine. It’s taken a long time to weed European place names from U.S. wines. By law California Burgundy and Chablis no longer exist. But due to the political muscle of Gallo and a handful of other large wine producers, the names “Champagne” and “Rhine” can still be used on American wines. Fortunately, the best California and Oregon sparkling wines, of which there are many, do not use the term “Champagne.” And ironically, the “California Champagne” moniker is only applied to the cheap swill that comes from that state’s largest wine producers. My advice:
36 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
Avoid these at all costs! So what should one drink if one wants a bit of the bubbly? Luckily, the choices are many. Indeed, while the prices for California and Oregon Pinot Noir and to a lesser extent Chardonnay have crept upward, the prices for West Coast sparkling wines have remained relatively low considering the prime grapes used in their cuvées and the extra cost of their production. In fact, I would say that premium U.S. sparkling wines are one of the great deals in the wine world today. But what do you do with them? Aren’t they just for special occasions? Not so. In the village of Epernay, for instance, which lies in the heart of the Champagne district, Champagne is the go-to, perfect-for-all-meals choice in many homes and nearly all restaurants. And the food is fashioned to fit: from freshwater seafood such as trout to chicken and pork served alongside coolclimate vegetables and local cheeses. Yum! In the U.S. we favor heavier foods, but true Champagne pairs well with most saltwater fish and even sushi — now there’s a decadent and tongue teasing combination! The reason? Champagne’s high natural acidity and the palate-cleaning properties of its tiny bubbles. While some premium California and Oregon sparkling wine producers like the iconic Schramsberg are American germinated, many are U.S. offshoots of French Champagne makers. Examples: Domaine Chandon (Moët et Chandon), Domaine Carneros (Taittinger), Domaine Mumm (GH Mumm), and Roederer Estate (Louis Roederer). These French producers came into California at the right
time with lots of cash, invested heavily in vineyards and production facilities, and met a market head-on that was not quite ready for the day-to-day consumption of sparkling wines. The result is that these wines are incredibly good values for Americans wanting to spend from $17 to $27 on a bottle of wine. Plus, as we all know, sparkling wines are incredibly seductive. Of course, not everyone wants to spend that amount of money on a bottle of wine. What to do? Fortunately, there are many options. One that has become extremely popular in recent years is Italian Prosecco. It is a low-alcohol sparkling wine made from an entirely different selection of grapes than Champagne, with the secondary fermentation — which creates the bubbles — created by a bulk production method. The bubbles in traditional Champagnes and premium U.S. sparkling wines are created through a secondary fermentation in each individual bottle, but the secondary fermentation for most Proseccos occurs within large stainless steel tanks. While this is costeffective, the resulting wine does not hold its effervescence as long as those sparkling wines whose fermentation occurs in the bottle. Two other excellent options are Cremants from France, and Spanish Cavas. Whether you choose from these two or or any other of the many sparkling wines from around the world, a premium Oregon or California sparkling wine, or a true French Champagne, the opportunity is ripe for a great taste experience … and you don’t have to wait till New Year’s Eve to experience it. Leigh Pomeroy is a Mankato-based writer and wine lover.
Beer
By Bert Mattson
Mixed nuts and conversational ruts
T
he holiday party season poses some peculiar challenges. Seasonal stresses amplify the usual conversational perils. Handled well, these social scenarios can advance relationships, personal or professional. On the other hand, a dash of drama could cause them to jump the rails with one’s reputation in tow like a loose caboose. I read some CEO’s suggestion, in an advice column, to get hold of the guest list and study it in advance — sound advice, though a tad ‘type A’. The object is to brush up on names, interests, old stories, etc. For the less organized among us, I’ve dreamed up a more general approach. Create a list of the usual suspects, then some strategies for small talk. Then work beer in. To keep things simple, for starters, let’s limit the exercise to three characters, the first of which we’ll call Patty. This character is hardly aware of personal boundaries. She may greet you with a nickname no one else uses. As an icebreaker she’ll make you suffer an embarrassing old story. Anytime you get traction in a peripheral conversation she comes crashing in to correct you about something … at 80 decibels. One prescription for Patty is Sierra Nevada Brewery’s Celebration. This American IPA was debuted in the early 80’s, the heyday of the loud mouth. It’s one of relatively few hoppy holiday releases. It’s bold enough to compete with Patty’s monologue about being into IPAs before they were popular. Be advised: it comes in at almost 7% alcohol by volume, so take it slow or risk sharing how you really feel. Should that occur, quickly stuff your face with a chunk of sharp cheese. Next there’s Charlie. He’s well
meaning. He’s the guy that will give up the good corner spot, or leave the last devilled egg for someone else. Conversation comes naturally (for a while) because he’s excitable about things that are working out for him. Perhaps his ball team is having a good season, or something. His enthusiasm is contagious even if you’re not all that interested. The thing is, if you hang around long enough he’ll confide the stuff he’s not so stoked about, droning on in monotone as his unhappiness waxes. When Chuck gets heavy grab a glass of Indeed Brewing Company’s Old Friend Holiday Ale. Notes of honey and ginger, along with lively carbonation, can inject some excitement back into the conversation. Woody is over the top. But that’s cool. He can be hard to follow and hardly tracks at all himself. You don’t really care if he actually ignored the warnings about the brown acid at Woodstock, or flew helicopters in ‘Nam, it’s welcome background noise right now. He’s totally pulling off the surfing Santa Hawaiian shirt he’s wearing, but it’s so vivid you wonder whether you should have left your stout unattended. Oh, he tried it while you were away. “Mankato Mint Stout” you respond, “like it?” Before he can answer Patty comes crashing in, “Yeah, it’s good, but you’d really like their Crooked Rook!” Mumbling goodbyes through a mouthful of Gorgonzola, you mingle on.
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Bert Mattson is a chef and writer based in St. Paul. He is the manager of the iconic Mickey’s Diner.
Friday & Saturday 11-10:30; Sunday 11-9 MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 37
Drinks
Happy Hour:
By M. Carrie Allan | Special to the Free Press
southern mn style
Upgrade your orgeat,
not all tiki and you’ll find
drinks
fit under the same umbrella
T
here was a time when I didn’t really get tiki drinks. Brightly colored, sometimes with plastic parrots or tropical flowers clinging to their rims, most of them seemed all flash. I suspect it’s because they were impostor “tiki” drinks at beachside bars, which get away with cocktail felonies by virtue of being on a beach. Most beach bars don’t know a falernum from a foxglove, and most customers don’t care. Skunky corn lagers? Sure! Bright pink concoctions that taste like cotton candy met lime sherbet and had a monstrous sticky baby? Bring it on! Just leave us the alcohol and get out of the way of the view. It wasn’t till I tasted a mai tai made with true orgeat that I understood. As a longtime hater of marzipan, I was surprised to find that almond flavor -- which on its own I find irritatingly pushy -- has a magical quality when deployed as a background note to rum and citrus. Shakespeare’s Ariel could have been describing what happens when you add orgeat to a drink: It doth suffer a sea-change/ into something rich and strange. Orgeat is fundamental to tiki, says Jeff “Beachbum” Berry, author of multiple tiki cocktail books, who recently opened Latitude 29, his tiki bar in New Orleans. It’s a star of the mai tai, the Fogcutter and the Scorpion, drinks that were superstars during the tiki heyday of the 1950s and ‘60s. Selecting Latitude 29’s house orgeat was not a task Berry undertook lightly. He knew everyone would judge the bar by its mai tai. And without orgeat, “it’s just a rum sour,” Berry says. 38 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
“Almond flavor in a tropical drink just makes it so different and compelling. You want to order three.” Of late, almonds have become a whipping boy of the California drought, which got me thinking about other nut syrups. What cocktail wonders could you get from orgeats of cashew, pistachio, seeds? Could you still call it orgeat if it didn’t have almonds? Would it be something else, like a pistageat? I hoped not. A pistageat sounds like an obscure but critical organ of the inner ear whose failure leaves you permanently hearing Styx songs. Happily, it turns out that the word orgeat has nothing to do with almonds; it comes from the French “orge,” for barley, the grain that was an ingredient for centuries. I have yet to find a satisfactory answer as to how the barley in orgeat recipes got lost over time, but out of curiosity, I tested an orgeat with the orge in it: boiling barley, then pressing out the liquid, which resulted in a glutinous mass of pale goo resembling the acid-blood of the Alien in the sci-fi movies of the same name, only less appetizing. But thinned out with brown-sugar syrup and a touch of vanilla, it was delicious, a bit like the milk that remains at the end of a bowl of sweet cereal. The glutinous quality added heft and density to the syrup, giving it a thicker mouth feel. I might have played with it more had I not preferred that our kitchen not look like an extraterrestrial exploded in it, and had Dave Arnold -- the genius behind the terrific Booker and Dax in New York -- not provided such
good guidance on how to science the pants off the whole orgeat business. “Liquid Intelligence,” Arnold’s James Beard Awardwinning cocktail book, gives tips on how to use a blender, gum arabic and xanthan gum to turn any nut into an orgeat. It’s Arnold’s technique that Lukas Smith, bartender at cocktail haven Dram & Grain in Adams Morgan, uses for the bar’s orgeats. The gum arabic serves as an emulsifier, helping incorporate the rich oils of the nuts into the liquid. Once the Dram & Grain team started working with Arnold’s technique, they played with black walnuts, pecans and peanuts -- Planter’s peanuts, which went, amusingly, into a planter’s punch variation. They now use a pistachio orgeat in their delicious Thousand-Yard S t a re . S m i t h eve n considers the season. “It’s summertime, so a fairly light toast will do. You want to smell the nuts, not the fire,” he specifies. “As we progress into the darker seasons, we’re probably going to roast them heavier and heavier as we go along, to get those richer flavors that you want when it’s cold
outside.” Roasting turned the key for Todd Thrasher years back, when he was figuring out a cocktail variation of a pecan petit-four. Thrasher, the bartender and general manager at Restaurant Eve and PX, wasn’t happy with the results from raw pecans and noticed the restaurant’s pastry chef taking peanuts out of the oven. “They’d gotten all oily, and I was like, ‘Hmm, that’s interesting.’ . . . I thought how when you’re making a caipirinha, you want all the oils to come out of the lime peel. . . . So then I roasted the pecans till they got brown and oily, and I put them in the water at that point.” Roasted to the point of fragrance, the darker nuts provide the core of his SweetMeat, a drink that makes me nostalgic for all the good food of the South. Both Smith and Thrasher, who’s planning to open a tiki bar in the District’s wharf area in 2017, recommend dashing most orgeats with a hit of salt. You’ll barely notice it in the final cocktails, but the salt elevates the flavor of the nuts and subtly enhances the final drink. These syrups are different from the classic orgeat (though both work pretty beautifully with aged rum). Traditionally, orgeat has notes of orange flower and sometimes rose, which play into tiki concoctions as well. But these roasty syrups provide their own kind of heft, adding earthiness and fire that can deepen your drinks. I’m planning to see what I can get from pistachios, walnuts and honey. I’m hoping for liquid baklava. NOTE: Those dabbling in orgeat but too busy/lazy to make it might be interested to know that the orgeat Jeff Berry chose for Latitude 29 can soon be ordered from Adam Kolesar’s Orgeat Works, as can a Heavy Duty version developed for Death & Co. and a macadamia nut syrup developed for Clover Club’s Julie Reiner. Go nuts
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Food
What’s Cooking By Sarah Johnson
southern mn style
Ground Cherries
G
round cherries a) don’t grow on the ground and b) aren’t cherries. Once you get past those two blatant lies, you’ll be fine. Ground cherries are one of those obscure foods from the dim mists of memory, the kind that brings tears to old folks’ eyes, but a new generation is rediscovering them. You still won’t find them in groceries, but you will find this unique and delicious fruit at farmers’ markets, in home gardens and even growing wild. Glowing amber gems about the size of a marble, ground cherries come swaddled in a Bible-paper-thin wrapping the color of parchment prettily veined like butterfly wings. Once you remove the husk, you can pop the fruit straight into your mouth, or add them raw to salads or desserts. Of course, there are also plenty of ways to cook with them. As for flavors, take your pick of opinions: strawberry-tomato, pineapple, citrus. Nobody seems to agree, but all agree they are delicious. A cherry tomato infused with pineapple juice seems to be a popular description. These little gems are in the same genus as tomatillos — hence the similar papery husk— and the same family as tomatoes. Ground cherries taste slightly sweet and tropical, with a texture that’s somewhere between a tomato and a grape. Their name comes from the fact that the fruit falls to the ground when ripe. No picking is necessary or even recommended. Their hulls repel predators, which is why you can safely harvest them on the ground. You can grow your own, but be prepared for a landslide crop. One ground cherry plant
40 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
Ground cherries with husks next to apples to show size produces more than 300 fruits over the summer. They literally can grow like weeds. (Indeed, several types of native ground cherries in the central plains of the U.S. are considered an invasive weed. This might just be a plant that I would actually be able to keep alive!) In the US, ground cherries have a fleeting moment of seasonality in the mid-to-late summer and into early fall – after that, they’re gone until next year. The fruit is high in vitamins C and A and contain decent amounts of niacin. Other names you might see include ground tomatoes, husk cherries, winter cherries, strawberry tomatoes, Chinese lanterns, cossack pineapples, golden berries and Cape gooseberries, so obviously no
one quite knows what the heck they are besides delicious. Ground cherries were important to early Great Plains pioneer settlers. Because they are annuals in most parts of North America (i.e., they grow in one season), they gave fruit right away, unlike the nowmore-popular cherries, apples and other stone fruits, which generally require several years until they produce. Ground cherry jam and ground cherry pie were early settler favorites. If you’ve had success growing tomatoes or tomatillos, you’ll have a good idea of how to grow ground cherries; they’re cultivated much the same way. You can start ground cherries
from plants, but they’re not often easy to find in greenhouses. Starting from seed may be your best bet. Ground cherries can be grown in containers, but they prefer to be right in the ground. Beware when planting in your garden, though: Ground cherries will reseed themselves and can be hard to eliminate if you decide you no longer want to grow them. If you’re short on space, a big pot on your deck will do, as long as the soil drains well and you keep your plant moist, fertilized and in a sunny location. Ground cherries are wonderfully versatile, suitable in both sweet and savory dishes. You can just unwrap the fruits and eat them raw, like cherry tomatoes, or you can chop them into salsa, bake them into pies, tarts and cakes, feature them in salads, stew them into jams … or try a little brown sugarpineapple-ground-cherry love on your ice cream with this recipe.
Ground CherryPineapple Crumble
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I would like to wish all of my past, present and future clients a safe and happy holiday season!
Serves 4
3 cups halved ground cherries 3 cups fresh pineapple chunks ½ cup sugar ½ cup blanched almonds ¼ cup unsalted butter ¼ cup flour ½ cup brown sugar 1. Combine ground cherries and pineapple chunks with sugar. Spread in a baking pan. 2. In a food processor, pulse almonds until coarsely chopped, and then add butter, flour, and brown sugar. Pulse until roughly blended; then spread over the fruit. 3. Bake at 375°F or 30 to 40 minutes, or until bubbling and golden. Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.
from the Management Team at Primrose Retirement Community! At Primrose Retirement Community, our caring team is dedicated to providing quality care to individuals in a community that’s just the right size. One step into Primrose and you’ll agree, there’s nothing better than living your life with people who care! Call and schedule a tour today, and come see why we say,
EQUAL HOUSING
OPPORTUNITY
Sarah Johnson is a cook, freelance writer and chocolate addict from North Mankato with three grown kids and a couple of mutts.
Independent & Assisted Living
1360 Adams Street Mankato, MN (866) 447-9636
PrimroseRetirement.com
MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 41
Voted Best Auto Repair and Best Auto Mechanic 4 years in a Row
Customer Appreciation 10% Off Gift Cards
15% Off
Aveda Products (excluding already discounted gift sets)
Monday, Dec. 7th, 2015 7am - 8pm
1839 Adams St., Mankato, MN 56001
507-388-1559 www.LivSalonSpa.com
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44 • '(&(0%(5 • MANKATO MAGA MAGAZINE
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Voted the Best Auto Body Shop in Mankato! Same Great People. Same Great Service.
Auto Body Repair | Windshield Replacement | National Lifetime Limited Warranty
Give Us a Call Today! 507.388.4895 1671 E. Madison Ave. Mankato, MN 56001
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Jerry’s
Holiday Treasures Considering plastic surgery? Mayo Clinic Health System offers expert plastic surgery services for a variety of reconstructive and cosmetic needs, including: • • • • •
Reconstructive surgery after trauma or cancer Breast reduction, augmentation and lifting Body contouring and liposuction Nonsurgical treatment of fine lines and wrinkles Skin cancer treatment
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Crafts, Sewing Items, Artwork, Baked Goods, Norwex, Origami Owl, Fair Chic Jewelry, Pampered Chef, Mary Kay, so much more, and free to attend
Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato Call 1-877-412-7575 (toll-free) to schedule an appointment.
301 South Fifth Street M A N KATO, MN
507-388-4200 oldmainvillage.com MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 45 4.95”x4.95”
Mankato Magazine December 2015
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 47
Your style By Ann Rosenquist Fee
Who Wore It Better? We examine Mary, pillar of style and seasonal importance
M
ary, queen of the pageant known as Christmastime, has a signature look that breaks down to three fundamentals: 1) Blue. 2) Tendrils. 3) Virtue. Let’s see who wore it best during a recent gathering of Marys owned and adored by Mankato collector Wilbur Neuschwander Frink.
Category One:
Best Blue This was close, because each of the three contenders wore her particular shade with a supersaturated confidence that was almost a swagger. Hand-down, the honors go to Bedazzled Figurine Mary, whose blue beams and dominates even up against her glossy walnut skin and drapey gilded accents.
Bedazzled Figurine Mary won out over Peacock Halo Greeting Card Mary, whose blue is memorable but has disappointingly cautious yellow undertones.
Also taking not-first-place was Framed Mary whose nearly navy shade has nice depth and pairs surprisingly well with the purple wall but comes across too inky, too cold. Like the power pantsuit of vestments. And I simply cannot worship that. Bedazzled Figurine Mary, whose blue beams and dominates even up against her glossy walnut skin and drapey gilded accents. 48 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
Category Two:
Best Tendrils This goes to Monotone Sculptural Mary because contour is basically the only medium she’s got to express the whole look. Contours and what I think is a tiny bit of color, just a blue wash. She really and I mean really works the curves, and of course I mean the ones in her hair but then also the thing she’s wearing or holding. Or maybe it’s an ethereal body part. Regardless, it is the tendril of tendrils rendered in both positive and negative space, and it says everything.
Category Three:
Best Virtue You’d think this category pertains only to the eyes and the head tilt, but you’d be wrong, because plenty of Marys accessorize with children -and that’s what it takes to win. Babies and plenty of them. And not just one self-sufficient toddler like the type poised on Postcard Mary’s lap.
Also not an implied child, i.e., the candle in Candle Mary’s hand. I mean, I think the candle is implying a child. Why else would she be holding a lit candle, while wrapped around an actual candle? We don’t need both. It absolutely has to be a stand-in for her Light-of-the-World Child. And it does nothing for her look.
It’s precise yet organic. Flexible and infallible. Confident but not showy, certainly not needy-whiny-showy. See: Greeting Card Mary, above, who cannot win this one, she just can’t. I blame the lillies at her feet. I wan’t raised Catholic but I had this one Catholic friend whose mom had a statue of Mary in their foyer, Mary with snakes at her feet, and after a style-minded person sees that, they can’t look upon flowers as an interesting choice. Serpents are to flowers as brand new John Fluevog teal/purple Babycake boots are to last summer’s dirty Keds.
No, BEST VIRTUE goes to Behatted Figurine Mary who obviously just came from the milliner where she stood unruffled as her six baby children roamed freely up and down her gown as everyone in the shop waited for the custom crown to be fitted and fixed in place atop the most subtle barely-even-curled-under tendrils in the universe.
And lo, each baby pulled a cookie from a secret pocket in Behatted Figurine Mary’s gently-but-firmlyblue gown, secret but not too secret, like Mary had made the pockets just secret enough to make the babies feel smart and special upon finding them. And Mary paid the milliner and drew up her skirts and engaged her core so as to maintain balance, what with the babies clinging one-handed as they chewed, and the mass of them strolled out of the store, baby wings flapping and crumbs flying and crown held high. Because she is Mary, queen of balance. Queen of secret pockets. Queen of blue, queen of tendrils, queen of virtue. Queen of style.
Ann Rosenquist Fee is executive director of the Arts Center of Saint Peter and a vocalist with The Frye. She blogs at annrosenquistfee.com. MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 49
Coming Attractions: December Nov. 27 - Dec 31
Kiwanis Holiday Lights 5-9 p.m., Sun.-Thurs. and 5-10 p.m., Fri.-Sat. — Sibley Park — Mankato — free — www.kiwanisholidaylights.com
9 Instrumental Festival Concert
12-13 Mankato Ballet Company:
7 p.m. — Trinity Chapel, Bethany Lutheran College — free — 507-344-7365
11-13 The Choreographers’ Gallery—
“The Nutcracker” 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. — Minnesota State University — Ted Paul Theatre — $15 adults, $13 students and seniors, $12 children 3-13, free chidren 2 and under — www.mnsu.edu/theatre
7:30 p.m.— Elias J. Halling Recital Hall, Minnesota State University — $9 adults, $7 current MSU students — 507-389-5549
MOVEMENT: One Language. Many Voices 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday— Anderson Threatre,Gustavus Adolphus College — $9 adults, $6 students and seniors — 507-933-7590
Lori Line: Christmas in the City 3 p.m. — Verizon Wireless Center — $49, $44 group price — www.ticketmaster.com
2-6
11-13, 18-20 Merley Players
13 Mankato Children’s Chorus Winter Concert
1 MSU Community Orchestra
Christmas at Bethany 4 p.m. — Trinity Chapel, Bethany Lutheran College — free — 507-344-7365
3 University Contemporary Ensembles
7:30 p.m. — Elias J. Halling Recital Hall, Minnesota State University — $9 adults, $7 current MSU students — 507-389-5549
3 Mankato Symphony Orchestra:
“Big Band Candy Cane Christmas” 3 p.m.— Mankato West High School — 1351 S. Riverfront Drive — Mankato — $25 Gold, $20 Silver, $15 Bronze, $5 students — www.mankatosymphonyorchestra.com
4 Loyola Catholic School: Choir Concert
7 p.m.— Gymnasium, Good Counsel Campus — free— 507-388-2997
presents “Miracle on 34th Street” 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday— Lincoln Community Center — 110 Fulton St. — Mankato — $15 adults, $13 (62+) seniors — $10 children 12 and under — 507-388-5483
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3 p.m. — Christ Chapel, Gustavus Adolphus College — $12 adults, $10 for seniors and children 18 and under— 507-387-9007
12 Woodwind
Chamber Ensembles Concert 1:30 p.m. — Bjorling Recital Hall, Gustavus Adolphus College — free — 507-933-7590
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Christmas at Betsy’s House 2-6 p.m. — Betsy and Tacy Houses — 332 and 333 Center St. — Mankato — $5 adults, $2 ages 6-16 — www.betsy-tacysociety.org
5
Christmas at the Hubbard House 3-7 p.m. — Hubbard House — 606 S. Broad St — Mankato — $7.50 adults, $5 ages 5-17 — www.bechshistory.com A wide array of styles, designs, and possibilities...
6 Holiday Choral Concert
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3 p.m. — Saint John the Baptist Catholic Church — 632 S. Broad St. — Mankato — 507-389-5549
7 Mankato West High School: Holiday Concert 7:30 p.m. — Auditorium, Mankato West High School — 1351 S. Riverfront Drive—free — 507-387-3461
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8 The Winds of Christmas
10 a.m.— Christ Chapel, Gustavus Adolphus College — free — 507-933-7013.
8 Mankato East High School: Holiday Concert 7:30 p.m. — Auditorium, Mankato East High School— 2600 Hoffman Road — free — 507-387-5671
50 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
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Loyola Catholic School: Band Concert 7:30 p.m.— Gymnasium, Good Counsel Campus — free— 507-388-2997
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MANKATO 507.385.4485 AMBOY 507.674.3355 I VERNON CENTER 507.549.3679
7 p.m. — Verizon Wireless Center — $29.50, $24.50, $19.50 — VIP tickets $125 — www.ticketmaster.com
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 51
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Faces & Places: Photos By Sport Pix
Mankato Marathon 1. Runners sprint off the start line as the 5k gets under way. 2. Carissa Christenson proudly holds up her medal after finishing the half marathon. 3. Joe Broze was the overall winner of the Pork Power 5k with a time of 18 minutes and 48 seconds. 4. The races started in the free lot on the campus of Minnesota State Universtiy. 5.Ginger and Jonathan Zierdt take a bite out of their bacon during the Pork Power 5k at the bacon station. 6. Children get stretched out with Stomper before their race.
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 53
Faces & Places: Photos By Sport Pix
River Ramble Ride 1. Families enter Minneopa State Park on their ride. 2. Visitors listen to a live band at the Minneopa Falls shelterhouse. 3. Cyclists enjoyed a nice fall ride in October. 4. Marius Brown and Kate Renwick take a rest under a beautiful tree at Minneopa State Park. 5.The Nordeast Minneapolis Chain Gang group poses for a quick photo before the ride. 6. Cyclists cross the newly constucted Minneopa Falls bridge.
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54 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
Faces & Places: Photos By Sport Pix
John Cross Retirement party 1. Longtime Free Press Photographer John Cross holds his grandson Nicholas (which he will now have much more time to do!) 2. John shares a laugh with well wishers during his retirement party. 3. John visits with his brother Dan Cross at the Mankato Event Center. 4. Friends, co-workers and acquaintances from John’s 40 year career showed up to congratulate him. 5.John flashes his patented smile as he laughs with Free Press reporter Rob Murray. 6. Jo Bailey congratulates John Cross on his retirement from the Free Press.
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • december 2015 • 55
From this Valley By Pete Steiner
The Annual Christmas Letter He come to your house, and don’t stay long, Wake up, you find, another one’s gone; No, Death don’t have no mercy In this land…. ~ The Rev. Gary Davis
I
know I’m late on this, friends, but hey, the 12 Days of Christmas runs into early January, no? You might wanna trash this year’s epistle anyway, ‘cause here in the Bleak Mid-Winter, I’m about to talk about Death. ( Just a thought: it might help Death’s reputation to RE-BRAND as “transitioning’…) Simply put, it’s probably my station in life: As a Boomer, I congenitally avoid thinking of myself as old. And yet, looking at it objectively, actuarially, I can’t help noticing, I go to a lot of funerals these days. Journalists sometimes start out as obituary writers. To tell the truth, I think obits should be made a category of LITERATURE. That thought aside, what follows is neither literature nor standard obits, but merely an attempt, in just 800 words, to reflect on six remarkable people who left us in 2015, but who made my life, and many lives, richer. •••• On New Year’s Day, I joined hundreds in attending a visitation for Lefty Haefner. A really good guy whose legacies include Little League and other local efforts for youth, Lefty first entered my life as a star athlete for my Dad, when Big Bill coached at Loyola in the ‘50’s. Lefty went on to help the Gophers win the 1960 College Baseball World Series. Though he never quite made it to “the Bigs”, his picture-perfect swing made him a star for the great Happy Chef fast-pitch softball teams. They say you know how much of a difference you made by how many show for your funeral. Lefty, you made a difference! Don Linder made a difference, not just because he gave me a job at KTOE in 1988. A business titan, not only in radio, but also in the electric supply and travel industries, he never acted like he was a big deal. Thoughtful, humble and unassuming, he could talk knowledgeably, when you could get him to talk at all, on nearly any subject. It said a lot about him that he chose to drive a Toyota or Ford instead of a Lexus. Wes Schuck left us in May, way too soon. He was only 40, but he never wasted a minute. A volcano of ideas, Wes built the state-of-the-art Two Fish Studios, and with wife Kristi, started the pioneering Static magazine. He knew and collaborated with just about every musician here in Music City. A thousand people packed the Kato for his memorial, celebrating what Kristi called, “the crazy that was Wes.” My father-in-law, Gene Vogel, left us in June. The son of a butter maker, Gene took a job as a milkman in the days of home delivery (see Mankato Mag April 2011.) His voracious reading and electric mind made him something of
56 • december 2015 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
a Renaissance Man. If you got in an argument with him, you needed to have your FACTS! In retirement, he attacked the game of golf as ardently as he had advocated for the union workers he represented in his second career as a Teamsters’ agent. (Of course, I am eternally grateful he had the courage to support his oldest daughter’s decision to marry a DJ.) In sixth grade at Roosevelt School, Gordon Johnson was the first one to show me what a great teacher can do. Relentlessly challenging, he also led us on field trips before environmentalism was fashionable, to places like Rasmussen Woods, to observe the wonders of pileated woodpeckers and dolomite cliffs. Others knew Gordon, who died in August, as a Master Gardener. But whether it was young minds or plants, he wanted to help them grow. Mark Weinstein left us in August. Only 66, he represented to many of us the very soul of Mankato. A Jew and a transplanted Easterner, he was NOT your run-of-the-mill River City resident. Yet he embraced his adopted hometown completely. From his ‘70’s days at the Lost Chord downtown record shop to his mall-area Bedpost furniture store, this born salesman, with his gregarious ebullience, in that chatty Boston accent he never modified, could sell you on Life as well as on a new bed or recliner. Yes, they all have transitioned. We have the duty to carry on their legacies. On a less somber note, I mention, my personal cast of characters was augmented by a new grandson, William, in September. Jeanne marked putting up with me for 35 years in October. And despite being denied access to the Top of the Mark, we had a great trip to San Francisco; also for the first time, we made it to Key West. I could go on with more personal details, but lucky for you, my 800 words this month are up. Still, it appears they’re letting me continue into my ninth year of writing for Mankato Magazine.
Peter Steiner is host of “Talk of the Town” weekdays at 1:05 p.m. on KTOE.