LIVING 55 PLUS Meet Julie Peck
THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE
Only the bravest souls choose to hunt what others fear
also in this issue:
YOUTH COACHES steer kids straight Miss Mankato, MORGYN HAUGEN The cutest darn essay about a BABY DUCK
The Free Press MEDIA
Michael Cimino FEBRUARY 2020
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5 unexpected signs of heart disease
E
very February, the American Heart Association organizes Heart Month to help raise awareness about the warning signs and risk factors of heart disease. Though there are a number of more commonly recognized symptoms in cluding chest discomfort, dizziness, fainting and shortness of breath, here are five lesser known indicators of this type of disease.
1. FRANK’S SIGN
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Diagonal creases on the earlobes have been linked to having a higher risk of heart problems. This sign was first described by American physician Anders Frank, and it’s associated to arteriosclerosis, which is the buildup of plaque in the arteries, a common cause of heart attack.
2. FATTY BUMPS
Yellow, fatty bumps called xanthomas, which can appear on the knees, elbows, eyelids and buttocks, are a sign that someone has exceptionally high levels of lipoprotein cholesterol, commonly referred to as “bad” cholesterol. The medical conditions that cause them to form lead to the generation of fat deposits in arteries, which is why they may be an indicator of heart disease.
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3. NAIL CLUBBING
Digital clubbing is when the fingernails and tips of both hands become thicker and change shape. This occurs when there’s not enough blood reaching the extremities and the body reacts by producing a growth-promoting factor to compensate.
4. IRIS HALO
Nearly 45 percent of people over the age of 40 have a fatty ring around their iris. This number goes up to 70 percent for people over 60. These rings are associated with well-established coronary disease risk factors.
5. BLUE LIPS
Lips can turn a blueish color in people with a heart problem. This phenomenon is called cyanosis, and it’s caused by the failure of the heart to provide oxygenated blood to tissues in the body.
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“Doc, I can’t live with this excruciating foot and leg pain and numbness!” When you hear this from a patient, it gets your attention. Typically, I treat patients that are in a lot of pain but when I recently heard this exclamation, my attention was particularly peaked. Let’s call this patient Bob. Bob is 62 years old with neuropathy in his hands and feet. He had Type II Diabetes and his life was literally as he described it “a living hell.” Clearly he was coming to the end of his rope. The nerves in his legs and feet were damaged. He was in HORRIBLE CONSTANT PAIN! “I Can’t Sleep at Night!” He complained to me, “I can’t sleep at night because my legs feel like they are being eaten by little bugs or chewed on by small animals.” During the day, he could hardly walk, and every step sent shooting pain like lightning from his toes and up his legs almost to his knees. He had numbness in his feet and terrible balance problems. He was worried he might fall and injure himself. I Had to Help This Man! I recently was fortunate enough to discover a new non-invasive and non-drug treatment for severe and constant foot numbness and pain caused by neuropathy or plantar fasciitis. While implementing this treatment, I witnessed some amazing reductions and eliminations of some of the worst pain and numbness syndromes I had ever seen...
And it was FAST! After just a few minutes of treatment on patients with extreme and chronic pain and numbness of the worst kind, the patients told us that their pain levels and numbness had decreased. They were shocked! Some experienced alleviated pain and numbness after only one treatment. We were able to reduce or even eliminate NEUROPATHY PAIN and/or NUMBNESS and PLANTAR FASCIITIS of the worst kind! Go to www.MankatoFootPain.com to see some of my patients’ stories. Using the latest and most recent technologies, I now offer a non-invasive, non-surgical and painless neuropathy pain treatment. I help patients reduce or even eliminate their neuropathy and plantar fasciitis pain and/or numbness using relaxing deep tissue circulation restoring treatments combined with specific, scientific nutritional protocols that bring nutrients and oxygen to the peripheral nerves so they can return to normal function. So just how can you see if Dr. Hartman’s Neuropathy and Plantar Fasciitis Pain Relief treatment will help you to reduce or eliminate your foot or leg pain and/or numbness?
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2 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
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FEATURE S FEBRUARY 2020 Volume 15, Issue 2
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Put me in, COACH! The modern youth coach is a volunteer, a mentor, a shoulder to cry on and a role model. We caught up with a few to get their secrets of success.
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They want to believe
A case of the Meeps
You might think all that X-Files-y stuff you see on TV only happens on, well, TV. Think again. We’ve got UFO spotters, demon hunters and ghost finders all across southern Minnesota.
Molly Butler rescued a baby duckling in the street. And while that duckling wasn’t long for this world, it changed Molly’s world forever.
ABOUT THE COVER Mankato artist Michael Cimino looks for UFOs in the southern Minnesota sky. We could tell you who photographed him, but that information is highly classified. (Just kidding, it was Jackson Forderer.) MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 3
DEPARTMENTS 6 From the Editor 8 Faces & Places 12 This Day in History 13 Avant Guardians Meghan Rosenau
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14 Beyond the Margin
When it comes to pets, Mankato is friendly
16 Familiar Faces Morgyn Haugen
18 Day Trip Destinations The Palmer House
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36 Living 55 Plus 52 Wine
Goodbye, Gretta
53 Beer Nitro
54 Country Minutes
Dogs on the prairie, Part 1
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56 Garden Chat That’s my bag!
58 Coming Attractions 59 Community Draws Get your hands dirty
60 From This Valley Bookshelf
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 5
FROM THE ASSOCIATE EDITOR By Robb Murray FEBRUARY 2020 • VOLUME 15, ISSUE 2 PUBLISHER Steve Jameson EDITOR Joe Spear ASSOCIATE Robb Murray EDITOR CONTRIBUTORS Bert Mattson Diana Rojo-Garcia Jean Lundquist Kat Baumann Leigh Pomeroy Nicole Helget Pete Steiner
PHOTOGRAPHERS Pat Christman Jackson Forderer
PAGE DESIGNER Christina Sankey ADVERTISING Danny Creel SALES Joan Streit Jordan Greer-Friesz Josh Zimmerman Marianne Carlson Theresa Haefner ADVERTISING Barb Wass ASSISTANT ADVERTISING Sue Hammar DESIGNERS Christina Sankey CIRCULATION Justin Niles DIRECTOR
Mankato Magazine is published by The Free Press Media monthly at 418 South Second St., Mankato MN 56001. To subscribe, call 1-800-657-4662 or 507-625-4451. $35.40 for 12 issues. For editorial inquiries, call Robb Murray at 344-6386, or e-mail rmurray@mankatofreepress.com. For advertising, call 344-6364, or e-mail advertising@mankatofreepress.com.
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Put me in, coach!
I
n the annals of Americana, there’s a special place for the youth coach. He’s part baby sitter, part hall monitor. She’s a mentor, disciplinarian, teacher, instructor. And they do it all having stepped up when, in most cases, no one else wanted to. Come game time, there are legions of parents sitting in lawn chairs or up in the bleachers, each one hoping the coach does everything right so that their child’s basketball/baseball/football experience is maximized. They want their kid to shine, have fun, come home happy. In many cases, the coach is responsible for that. When I was a kid, I did nothing but play sports. And when spring came and the snow dissolved and the Mercury crept up to playingoutside-again temps, the ball gloves and bats came out and it was time for another baseball season. More often than not, my coach was a man named Bob Murray. My dad. I loved having my dad as coach. It meant spending time with him. It meant other kids would be talking to him, looking to him for guidance on fielding ground balls and shagging flies. He was in charge of other kids, too, not just me. Generally speaking, kids in youth sports look at their coach as a person of importance. And that made me think he was a little more important, too. There is a flip side to this, of course. I learned that, when your dad is the coach, he’ll expect you to set an example of hard work, respect of other players, listening to instruction, minding the rules of decorum. When I threw my bat against the backstop after striking out one day, he didn’t say a word about it in the moment, but I sure heard about it later on at home that night. He expected more from me. And while I didn’t fully understand it then, I do now. He made me better by expecting more. Made me a better player, a better son and a better father. I feel extremely fortunate that my dad stepped up. Both for
me and for the other kids in the neighborhood who needed a kind, gentle leader who could help them get better and corral all their energy into a moldable, coachable, growable group of young ball players. In this month’s Mankato Magazine, we talk to three different men who have spent years coaching. With so much of our community’s youth involved in sports or dance or the arts, it’s imperative that people step up and help lead the way and guide them. Elsewhere in this issue: n We’ve got a crazy story about people who spend their spare time in pursuit of the paranormal (just in case you thought that kind of stuff only happened in lowbudget cable TV shows). From certified UFO spotters to ghost and demon hunters, some of the most intriguing folks in southern Minnesota are doing the dirty work most of us wouldn’t dream of doing. It’s a hoot. Don’t miss it. n We’re introducing our newest regular contributor, Nicole Helget. To most readers, Nicole needs no introduction … but we’ll give her one anyway. Nicole is an award-winning author who lives in rural St. Peter. Her published works include “The Summer of Ordinary Ways,” “The Turtle Catcher,” “Wonder at the Edge of the World,” “Stillwater” and “The End of the Wild.” We’re thrilled Nicole has agreed to join Mankato Magazine as a monthly columnist, and we know you’re going to love her writing. The first one’s a doozy! n Finally, I simply must draw your attention to the essay we’re publishing this month by Mankato native Molly Anne Butler. It’s a bittersweet story about how one tiny little life can have the most dramatic impact on your own life. Not gonna lie. I was a puddle after reading it. So good. Robb Murray is associate editor of Mankato Magazine. Contact him at 344-6386 or rmurray@ mankatofreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @freepressRobb.
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 7
FACES & PLACES: Photos By SPX Sports
Kiwanis Holiday Lights & Opening Parade
The Kiwanis Holiday lights kicked off their ninth year from Nov. 27 through Dec. 31 and featured more than 1.8 million LED lights.
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1. Santa with his hands in the air celebrates switching on t he 1.7 million lights in Sibley Park. 2. There are 68 volunteer groups for this year’s Kiwanis Holiday Lights as the event is 100% volunteer-driven. 3. The Maes family poses in front of the Grand Lawn display. 4. Huge crowds make their way through the Lighted Walking Tunnel. 5. A crowd gathers outside Santa’s House. 6. Crowds take in the moment Santa switches the lights on.
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FACES & PLACES: Photos By SPX Sports 1
Canadian Pacific Holiday Train This event features the decorated Canadian Pacific Holiday Train. 1. Dillion Strable (Bottom) and Harper Strable (Top) watch as the train rolls to a stop. 2. The Holiday Train made a stop in Janesville at the Veterans Memorial Park. 3. CP 2246 leads the holiday train. 4. The side of one of the train cars opened up to create a stage and filled the air with Holiday tunes. 5. Families gathered around the train waiting for the show to start. 6. Canadian Pacific covered the train in flashing holiday lights.
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FACES & PLACES: Photos By SPX Sports
United Way Reading Festival
United Way’s Reading Festival event, sponsored by Capstone, promotes reading and literacy. 1. Lauren Conetta creates a fossil out of clay. 2. The event was held at the YMCA’s Blue Gym. 3. Parents were encouraged to pick out some free children’s books. 4. Carter Cramer (left) and Colton Prosser (right) read a book together. 5. (Left to Right) Beckett and Bryson Thom learn to make an origami crane. 6. There were plenty of activities and crafts for the kids.
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FACES & PLACES: Photos By SPX Sports
Bells on Belgrade
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This event is put on by Business on Belgrade every year in lower North Mankato. 1. This is one of the iconic Belgrade sculptures decorated for the event. 2. Caroling and a live nativity scene were part of the event. 3. The North Mankato Fire Department decorated one of the trucks for the event. 4. Brynn Fredrickson poses for a photo with Olaf. 5. Horse and carriage rides were available down Belgrade in North Mankato. 6. The Schmidt family together in the Christmas tree lot. 7. A great turnout for this year’s Bells On Belgrade.
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MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 11
THIS DAY IN HISTORY
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Man found in hen coop at midnight Feb. 7, 1905 Disappearing wood, chickens, chicken feed and more. John Farm, ”not the shoe man, but his uncle,” came home to his Belgrade Avenue residence around midnight. Walking through his backyard, he saw the door to his chickens was open and an unknown man was standing in the doorway. When Farm questioned the man, he said he was looking for his horse. The husky man then pulled his coat up around his face and left. Tracks in the snow led to another chicken coop on Charles Street, where it was noted that an old cock was missing. Tracks led to a third coop, where chicken feed and firewood had been found missing. Then, the tracks led to a “house of ill repute, which was quiet during the day but noisy at night.” No one wanted to file a report with the police, but some of the neighbors favored taking matters into their own hands. Machinery days in Waseca, Sleepy Eye Feb. 5, 1942 As the United States entered World War II, government officials were preparing U.S. citizens for the shortages ahead. Farmers were urged to attend “Machinery Days” to enable them to keep farm machines running and in good repair. Films with sound showing the proper care and maintenance of farm equipment were offered. Farmers were urged to check their machinery in February for any needed replacement parts, as steel was in short supply, and it could take 90 days to receive the part. Special safety information was offered, as women and children were anticipated to be on the machines in the field. Preventive maintenance was encouraged, with one official in Sleepy Eye telling the hundreds of farmers in attendance that, “An ounce of oil may save many pounds of steel.” In Waseca, farmers were urged to share equipment as a way to conquer anticipated farm equipment shortages. The rose: a costly affair of the heart Feb. 9, 1984 Roses are beautiful. There are rose-colored glasses, songs about roses and “When a young woman is crowned queen of anything, she gets a bouquet of roses.” But never is the rose so revered as on Valentine’s Day. In 1984, following a brutally cold winter, roses in February were going for $36 - $60 a dozen. More for extra long-stemmed roses. That compared to a summertime price of $20 per dozen. According to a clerk at Cashman’s in Owatonna, part of the expense is due to the grading process for each individual rose, plus the fact February does not produce a glut of roses in southern Minnesota greenhouses. A tip from florists to those buying roses: Men usually opt for red roses, but women usually prefer other colors.
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It’s all in the hands Artist Meghan Rosenau switched careers to pursue her interest in sculpture
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or 32-year-old Meghan Rosenau of Mankato, art has remained a constant part of her life. “I actually don’t ever remember a time when I wasn’t creating, whether it was a side hobby or creating full time,” she said. “I always participated in the summer art programs in elementary school and took all the art classes that were available in middle school and high school.” Despite her love of art, when it came time to choose her career, Rosenau struggled. “When I first went to college, I kept changing my major between art and business until I finally settled on marketing management,” she said. “After graduating with an associate’s degree, I went and worked full time for a few years at a few different places but never really felt fulfilled with what I was doing, so I decided to go back to school to get my bachelor’s degree.” Rosenau began pursuing a degree in graphic design, but the summer before her senior year, those plans quickly changed when she took a mixed media class. “I realized that I loved working with my hands much more than I liked sitting behind a computer screen, so I switched my major to sculpture.” Last spring, Rosenau graduated with a bachelor of fine arts degree with sculpture as her main concentration and graphic design as her second concentration. She is now a full-time graduate student with a main concentration in sculpture. Aside from her schooling and working several parttime jobs, Rosenau manages to carve out time to produce art of her own. She has shown her work at the galleries at Minnesota State University, the 410 Project in downtown Mankato, The Grand Center for the Arts in New Ulm and at the Waseca Art Center. Her work can also be found on Instagram- @megfrances5.
“Being in school has influenced my art in a lot of ways,” she said. “It has allowed me to work with a lot of amazing professors that have taught me new disciplines within the arts. I have also met a lot of great artists that have inspired me and my work. I think that when you surround yourself with similar-minded people and are given a space to really let your imagination grow where there is no harsh judgment, I think that it is very influential.” She has also gained inspiration from family. “My mother and her mother were very influential when it comes to the traditional craft art that I incorporate into my works. I grew up watching them sew everything from clothes to quilts, and my grandmother crocheted as well.” She also pulls ideas from everyday life. “I don’t think that any detail is too small,” she said. “In my most recent art show, my inspiration came from plants and a graffitied courtyard wall at school.” Although she is trained in sculpture, installation, ceramics, graphic design and printmaking, as well as in acrylic and watercolor painting, her main focus is on sculpture and installation. “My themes, colors, and art form are always changing as I continue to grow as an artist and as a person, but right now my work is all about enlarged objects, texture, and fluorescent colors mixed with black and white for contrast,” Rosenau said. “There is always an aspect of irony in my work because I love making things that either look like something completely opposite of what they are or by creating organic objects out of materials that are very industrialized.”
MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 13
BEYOND THE MARGIN By Joe Spear
When it comes to pets, Mankato is friendly
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he pet-friendly nature of the Mankato area reveals itself in a tool we used called Google Analytics. We use the Google tool to track how many people read our Free Press stories online and how much time they spend on them. Then we use our social media sites,
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Facebook and Twitter, to find out how many times a story has been shared or how many people have been reached. Pet stories always bolster the count. Lost puppy stories usually bury the needle. The popularity of these pet stories signals a healthy society
and a loving community. A society, people, and family can be judged by how it treats its companion pets. In fact, criminologists will point to how someone who turns to a life of crime or is abusive probably learned their violent behavior abusing pets or stray animals. Unfortunately, abusing an animal comes with few consequences for the abuser. It is for this reason that nature gave animals the ability to look humans in the eye and speak what they cannot say in words. Just how much a community can care about an animal or pet in distress showed up in the story of Guinness, the chocolate Lab who ran away in fear after her owner rolled her car in a ditch one snowy morning outside of Mankato. After Briana Oachs’s car left the road, she got busy making sure her kids were all right and was helped by a passerby. All were OK, but she then noticed 7-month-old Guinness, who came along for the ride, was missing. The family immediately swung into action asking friends and neighbors to be on the lookout for the puppy. They posted a sign near the crash site. The Free Press did a story, which was then shared thousands of times on social media. The Oachses used their own social media as well. Briana told The Free Press she was astonished at the response to a lost puppy. “I can’t believe that many people were looking for her, praying for her,” she said. “Six thousand people shared Corey’s post, a couple hundred more shared
animals. Humane Society leaders estimated businesses mine. Honestly, I thought maybe we’d get 50 shares. and the community donated about $200,000 of time But 6,000 people shared it and were praying for her and materials to the construction of a facility that to come home. I can’t believe that many people would includes big kennels for dogs and kiddie condos with come together over a lost puppy.” windows for cats. About a week later, a crew from Vetter Stone saw When the facility broke ground in December 2008, it a puppy sniffing around the quarry, and they knew had raised $630,000 of the $1.2 million cost. immediately this had to be Guinness. Their boss, Donn It has its own operating room for spaying and Vetter, told them to be on the lookout. neutering. The story had a good ending due to the outpouring In November, the organization launched a $50,000 of love and care for an animal, a family pet. fundraising campaign to expand the spay and neuter Pets can be like family. The biggest rise in pet service where every animal brought in goes through ownership seems to be among single and elderly the treatment. The expansion would make the center people. We know more and more service dogs are the highest volume such site in southern Minnesota. It deployed to help with the vision impaired and soldiers remains a “no kill” pet shelter. back from war with disabilities. Therapy dogs have been employed to help everyone from kids having trouble at school to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. The unconditional love given by pets seems to be an asset in desperate need for humankind. The mental health benefits of dogs have been thoroughly outlined in numerous articles in ScienceDaily.com, under its “Dog News” section. Headline: “Early life exposure to dogs may lessen risk of developing schizophrenia.” This research from Johns Hopkins Medicine notes: “Ever since humans domesticated the dog, the faithful, obedient and protective animal has provided its owner with companionship and emotional well-being.” Headline: “Dog ownership associated with longer life, especially among heart attack and stroke survivors.” This research comes Briana Oachs holds her dog, Guinness, after the pup was found a week after it went missing when Oachs slid off a slippery road and rolled her Jeep. from the American Heart Association, which Organizations also have sprung up around this idea notes, “Dog ownership was associated with a 24% of being kind to animals. There is now an organization reduced risk of all-cause mortality and a 31% lower called Mending Spirits that rescues animals and finds risk of death by heart attack or stroke compared to homes for them. non-owners.” When a Mankato woman started a fundraiser selling The local efforts for caring for animals and helping “kitty yarn ball slingshots” for Mending Spirits, her families adopt pets is no small operation. story again went viral and she ended up raising about The Blue Earth and Nicollet County Humane Society four times the amount she initially expected. is an impressive community organization that has a We take care of our pets well and we’re better for it. robust business in pet care and adoption but also has plenty of community support with about 130 regular donors. Joe Spear is editor of Mankato Magazine. Contact him When the new $1.2 million shelter and pet facility at jspear@mankatofreepress.com or 344-6382. opened in 2010, it was a vast improvement for what Follow on Twitter @jfspear. had been provided before for lost pets and stray MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 15
Familiar Faces
Miss Mankato
M
2020
orgyn Haugen, Miss Mankato 2020, isn’t one to brag about herself. But there’s a lot to be proud of. Haugen, a 2018 Mankato West High School graduate, has been competing in the Miss Mankato competition since 2017. During her time at Mankato West, she had been in the Mankato 77 Lancers, choir and theater. Now the Concordia College sophomore is studying nursing while also participating in color guard, working two campus jobs and continuing her duties as Miss Mankato. Haugen will compete for the Miss Minnesota 2020 title in June.
Morgyn Haugen, an alum of Mankato West, is Miss Mankato 2020. She is currently attending Concordia Moorhead where she is a nursing major. Photos by Jackson Forderer
NAME:
Morgyn Haugen Studying:
Nursing major, Concordia College, Moorhead
Hometown: Mankato
Favorite movie:
“Beauty and the Beast” (cartoon)
Favorite song
“Rivers and Roads” by The Head and the Heart
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Mankato Magazine: Tell us a little bit about yourself. Morgyn Haugen: I am a 19-year-old sophomore at Concordia College in Moorhead. I was born in Missoula, Montana, and moved to Mankato when I was 8 years old. I am the oldest of my siblings. I have an 11-year-old brother and a 6-year-old sister. I also have three step siblings that live in Colorado with my dad and stepmom. I graduated from Mankato West High School in 2018 where I was heavily involved in band, choir and theater. In my free time I like to spend time with my family and friends and play games. While in high school, I was also in the Mankato Area 77 Lancers Marching Band where I played clarinet for my first two years and was in the color guard for the second two years. Now that I am in college, I have continued my involvement in color guard in the NDSU Gold Star Marching Band. I was also in the color guard for The Govenaires Drum and Bugle Corps based out of St. Peter during the summer of 2019. I love everything Disney. My mom is my best friend and I am so fortunate to have such a supportive family. My favorite color is purple and my favorite animal is the red panda. MM: What was the most challenging thing about competing for Miss Mankato? MH: The most challenging thing about competing for Miss Mankato was preparing my talent. For the talent portion I performed a color guard routine, which I choreographed myself. I do not have an abundance of choreographing experience, so it was a challenge to make sure my routine flowed and looked entertaining. Throughout my time competing in the organization, I have gotten better at choreographing, but it is still something that I am learning. MM: What about the most rewarding experience? MH: The most rewarding part of the experience was seeing the growth in myself over the years. I began competing for Miss Mankato in 2017 and competed the following two years. Each year I could tell that I gained more confidence from the experiences and felt more comfortable being on stage. It has been so rewarding to see how beneficial the organization has been for me over the years, and I hope that other women are able to benefit from the competition just as I have.
MM: What inspired you to compete for Miss Mankato? MH: When I was first asked by Shelly Bartlett to compete in Miss Mankato in 2017, I was not so sure about saying yes. I felt like I wouldn’t belong on that stage or with those women in the competition. It wasn’t really my thing or something I ever saw myself doing. I was really nervous. However, it was Shelly that inspired me to compete for Miss Mankato the first time and each year after that. She truly believed in me and knew that I would be a good candidate for the job. I was inspired by her dedication and support for the organization and knew that It was something that I needed to be a part of. I could see how much she cared for the organization and having women that would represent Mankato well, and knowing that she felt that I could do that helped me make the decision to compete. MM: What is something that everyone should know about Miss Mankato/Minnesota/America competition that they might be unaware of? MH: The Miss America Organization is more than women walking around in heels and dresses. It is an organization that works to showcase the intelligence, poise and dedication of each woman. The organization has made some changes recently to Miss America 2.0 which have shifted the focus away from beauty standards and towards the impact that each woman wants to have on their community or state. There is a large emphasis on the social impact initiative and how we want to help our communities. People should know that the organization is more than a beauty pageant. I believe that it is an organization that helps empower women to be the best self they can be. MM: Your talent for the competition was a color guard routine. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? MH: I chose to perform a color guard routine for my talent because it is something that I am very passionate about. It is an art that not many people are aware of and I wanted to shine some light on it as well. I have been in color guard for almost five years and wanted to be able to show what I have learned and the talent that is color guard. It has been such an important part of my life, and in order to show the judges and audience who I am, I chose color guard. I am excited to perform my routine on the Miss
Morgyn Haugen played clarinet for the ‘77 Lancers during her time at Mankato West. Minnesota stage and bring even more awareness to what color guard is. MM: Can you tell us more about your social impact initiative on mental health? MH: My social impact initiative is “Compassion: Overcoming the Stigma Around Mental Health.” With my initiative I want to teach people in my community about how to help others that struggle to maintain their mental health on their own. Our society has created a stigma around mental health issues that places a negative image around people that are not considered to be “normal.” This stigma that society has created makes it difficult for people to reach out when they need help because of the possibility of being judged or viewed differently for their mental health situation. I myself have struggled and worked with depression for a few years, but it wasn’t until recently that I reached out for help because I had been told that I was just going through a rough patch or that it’s OK to be sad for a little while. It seemed like I was expected to get through it and it would be fixed. However, that wasn’t the case for me. I needed to reach out for help, but because I had internalized the stigma, I was worried about what people would think of me. My personal experience is one that I don’t want others to have. With my social impact initiative I plan to teach people how to show compassion and support to those around them that need it. I also hope to speak to people that struggle to maintain their own mental health and help them understand that having a mental illness or a struggle does
not make you weak. I want to show others that it is important to show compassion to yourself and reach out to people when you need it. I want to help end the stigma around mental health in Mankato, and hopefully the state of Minnesota. MM: Tell us something surprising about you. MH: Honestly, I am an open book and I wear my emotions on my sleeve, so there are not many things that are surprising about me. I am also not great at coming up with fun facts and things like that. I did ask a friend what something surprising about me was, though. She said that it was surprising to know how involved I am. I am a full-time student with two on campus jobs and am part of the NDSU Marching Band while also being Miss Mankato. At first I didn’t understand why my involvement was a shock, but then she explained that it is because I manage it all so well and am able to still take care of myself too. I don’t like to brag about myself, which is why I struggle to come up with fun facts but it is true. I am what some would call “over-involved” but I say I’m passionate and dedicated. MM: Is there anything else that you’d like to add? MH: I am honored to represent Mankato by holding the title of Miss Mankato. The city of Mankato is my home and has truly shaped me into the person I am today. I am excited to have this opportunity to give back to the community that has given so much to me. Compiled by Diana Rojo-Garcia MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 17
DAY TRIP DESTINATIONS: Palmer House Hotel By Diana Rojo-Garcia
Photo courtesy of thepalmerhousehotel.com.
Come for the ghosts, stay for the town
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The Palmer House Hotel is considered a central Minnesota treasure … even if it is haunted.
he quaint town of Sauk Centre sits near the heart of Minnesota, located an hour and a half Northwest of the Twin Cities. Sauk Centre might be small — population of 4,317 — but has a rich history. Most famously, the town is known for being the hometown of Nobel Prize-winning author, Sinclair Lewis. The town’s original Main Street (also a registered historic site) was featured in the author’s 1920 novel, “Main Street.” Lewis also based the book’s fictional hotel, “Minniemashie House,” on The Palmer House, where he worked in his younger days. 18 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
The Palmer House, originally called the Sauk Centre House, also has a history of being haunted. (By the way, the hotel was featured in Travel Channel’s “Ghost Adventures” in 2012.) The Sauk Centre House, built in 1863, burned to the ground at the turn of the century. Ralph and Christena Palmer built the Palmer House a year later, 1901, with 24 rooms and one communal bathroom. Its location, next to the train, was a popular resting place for traveling salesmen. Kelley Freese of Sauk Centre has owned the property for nearly two decades. Freese and her husband bought
the Palmer House with another couple in 2002. “This was my husband’s brain idea. I went kicking and screaming but I went along with it,” Freese joked. Initially, Freese and her husband had decided to go in on purchasing the Palmer House to help the other couple. The plan was to have the other couple pay off the rest of the investment. But the young couple had children. Any commitment other than family, especially a business, is a tough gig she said. It was more than what the family wanted at the time, so the Freese’s decided to buy out the property. Oddly enough, Kelley was opposed to purchasing the property at first. “But I completely fell in love with it.” At the time of the purchase, Freese didn’t know the Palmer House was haunted. “We had been here awhile and one of the locals had been in for lunch and asked me how it was going.” Freese responded that it had been going OK but there were a few odd things happening around the hotel. “She was completely deadpan,” Freese said. “‘Well, it’s haunted. The Palmer House is Haunted.’ That was the first time those words were ever spoken to me.” Most of the Freese’s experiences were subtle at first. Keys moving to a different spot in the room, propped doors with a wedge slamming shut, unknown voices on a walkie talkie. But perhaps the most profound experience was seeing a full-body apparition in broad daylight. It happened in the lobby during lunch when Freese was walking from the pub in the hotel to the cafe. “I turned toward this person walking. I was just smiling and then got closer. It was a woman’s face and it was somebody I didn’t recognize.” She asked the woman if she was joining the Palmer House for a bite to eat. An employee behind Freese asked, “Kelley, who are you talking to?” “I spun around and said ‘This woman!’” As she Freese turned back to the woman, no one was there. “You would have no reason to believe that they were anything but a living breathing person coming in for lunch.” Freese believes that there are definitely “full-time” residents at the hotel.
The fireplace is a good place to pick up a book and read. Photo courtesy of thepalmerhousehotel.com. “A friend, a very dear friend — a psychic medium — said The Palmer House is a revolving door of the spirit world because it has been around for 120 years,” Freese said. “It is a place where people come and go. There’s a lot of love and family and beautiful memories that have happened here.” If you are planning on staying at the Palmer House, just don’t ask for the “most haunted room.” “We don’t lock (the ghosts) in a room. They’re not your dog and pony show.” The hotel is warm and inviting, so much so that there are guests (of the living kind) that reserve rooms at
least once a month. A guest coined it the best, Freese said. “It’s the Palmer House effect. There’s something about it. You come and you can’t leave. A little like ‘Hotel California,” Freese laughed. Others, Freese said, are families that come in from around the area to sit down in the lobby to play board games. “The Palmer House is the cornerstone of the community. She’s old enough and earned a place in history,” Freese said. “You don’t need to spend money to come here. Just please come and make it a space that you can use and enjoy.”
ALSO CHECK OUT
n Take a tour at one of Sauk Centre’s historic sites including Sinclair Lewis’s boyhood home, the original Main Street and “The Old Creamery.” All tours can be scheduled online at scahistoricalsociety.com. n Go antiquing in Alexandria and Osakis, only a 10-20 minute drive from Sauk Centre. n Sauk Lake, 10-mile lake, and top 10 in Minnesota for walleye fishing.
Stay at The Palmer House Hotel
Rooms vary in size in prices as low as $79 a night (includes full size bed, TV and bathroom) up to $192 per night for the double jacuzzi suite (two queen size beds, two full baths and the jacuzzi room.) Reservations can only be made by phone by calling 866-834-9100 or 320-351-9100. MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 19
Rudy Kliest began coaching in the late 1980s after a wrestling injury.
Put me in, coach! Youth coaches wise with experience
By Robb Murray | Photos by Pat Christman and Jackson Forderer
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ike moms, hot dogs and apple pie, the sports coach is something sacred in America. We hand our children’s hearts over to them and trust they’ll guide the young crew across an angry sea of in-house baseball schedules or traveling team hockey tournaments. We follow the coach’s lead a whole season long, all the way to the promised land of sports glory and state championships (or at least to a party at Jake’s Stadium Pizza at the end of the season where players and parents can share pizzas and Cokes). It takes a brave individual to step up and agree to be a coach. Because the fact of the matter is, most parents choose not to. They either don’t have the time, don’t know the game or just don’t have any interest in doing it. Which makes it that much more important to recognize — and applaud — the ones who do. 20 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
Whether it’s sports, scouts or the arts, we need people to step up and guide our kids. Here are three who do it well.
Put me in, coach
Rudy Kleist grabs a black catcher’s mitt off the floor and heads confidently into a gaggle of 10-year-olds — kids with unsure arms, questionable catching skills, heads on a swivel, bouncing off the walls with energy. Pulling a ten-gallon bucket full of Rawlings baseballs close, he drops to one knee and holds a ball up, pausing to make sure the boy on the end of the row can see and understand that it’s comin’ at him. With the gentle assuredness of a man who has done this literally thousands of times, Kleist deftly tosses the ball, from 15 feet away, directly into the pocket of the kid’s
mitt. Thunk! The kid smiles, and Kleist pulls another ball from that bucket. “All right, bud,” he says to the next kid, “you’re next!” It’s the first night of the winter season at the Mankato Area Baseball Association’s warehouse facility. Kleist is the guy in charge around here. This is the place where countless youth baseball players come for several months to get ready for the beginning of the season. They hone pitching skills, take hundreds of cuts in the batting cage and just generally get in fighting shape for tryouts. And if your son ever used the MAYBA warehouse in the past 15 years, there’s a good chance they’ve interacted with Kleist. He may have pitched to him, tossed him a grounder on the warehouse’s green indoor carpet, or just tossed the ball back and forth. Kleist is currently the warehouse manager as well as MAYBA’s equipment manager, and you’ll find him there many nights this month doing something to help some kid become a better ballplayer. Kleist has been a coach for many years. He began coaching way back in the late 1980s, and it all started because of an injury sustained in a wrestling match. He was still in high school, a senior, when he tore his medial collateral ligament. That meant he couldn’t play baseball during his senior year … but he wasn’t out of baseball entirely. There was a coaching vacancy for a youth team in Eagle Lake. They offered it to Kleist. He accepted. Since then, other than a few stints when he was busy being a dad to newborns, he’s never been far from a ballfield helping youngsters. Like many coaches, Kleist raised his hand when his son Mitchell’s T-ball team needed a coach. That began a long stint of Kleist coaching whatever teams his sons were on. In some cases he was chasing two teams around, Mitchell on one team and his little brother, Ben, on another. “As soon as Ben was old enough to play, I’d be running back and forth,” Kleist said. So it’s fair to say Kleist has logged hundreds of hours — probably thousands — in a dugout directing the strategy, on the mound throwing batting practice, and driving back and forth and
Rudy Kleist has been at the Mankato Area Baseball Association warehouse for 15 years. back and forth and back and forth between ballfields, tournaments, practices and everything else related to baseball. And he doesn’t regret a minute of it. “For me,” he said, pausing a bit, “I just love baseball. There’s nothing better than being outside on a warm spring or summer day with the sun shining and green grass. And each season is kind of a challenge and adventure. I look at it more as maybe an intense hobby. It’s fun to be around the players, the young guys, keeping in touch with them, watching them grow and evolve, watching them improve; that still keeps me going.”
Not-so-tiny dancer
At the height of his professional dance career, Riley Weber had it all taken away from him. The 6-foot-4-inch dancer was one of the best, dancing professionally before he even entered college. But it’s murder on the lower back of a tall dancer to be paired up with the characteristically short women of the Midwest. All those lifts took a toll. The pain grew worse, until finally … “I couldn’t pick up my dog without going down to my knees,” Weber said. So, after trying every other possible approach to heal his back, he opted for back surgery. Going
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Riley Weber has a no-nonsense coaching style, dedicated to making his students better dancers. in, he knew the surgery might end his dance career. “They said ‘Once you have surgery, you’ll have limited flexibility in your back,’” he said. And they were right. For Weber, a career expressing himself through dance and wowing thousands of performance-goers 22 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
was over. But another career was just starting. “I’ve been teaching ballet for about nine years now.” Weber splits his time between Mankato Ballet Co., and the Larkin Dance Studio in the Twin Cities (one of the top dance schools in the nation). Weber grew up in North Dakota and attended the University of Minnesota where he majored in dance. He started working with Mankato Ballet Co. shortly after his back surgery. The gig with Larkin came along later. Between the two, Weber has cobbled together a career that may not be what he envisioned in his teens or early 20s, but one that’s been just as rewarding, he said, in its own way. “For me, not being able to dance, makes me want my kids to succeed even more.” Weber said his style is no-nonsense. He’s tough on the almost exclusively all-girl student body because the Mankato Ballet Co. is committed to pushing their students to get better and, if possible, progress to professional dance companies or collegiate programs. “I’m known for being a hard and direct teacher, and that doesn’t always work with kids. They know they’re gonna get what they’re gonna get from me. They know it’ll be harder hearing it from a teacher in New York than a teacher in Mankato, Minnesota. I’m never gonna coddle anyone. I’ll flat out say to them go to a different studio, go somewhere where they’ll baby
you. And sometimes you have to let kids go, have them move on to another place, and I do that in the best interest of the kids. I care about them all. If you want a teacher that’s going to tell you how good you are, you’re not going to get that from me.” His methods sound harsh, but Weber said dancers routinely return to him for guidance or for a sympathetic ear. “I have people come back after they’ve left and they just want to have coffee and cry,” he said. “People will go to big ballet school and they just want to come back and be around this community we’ve created. And at the end of the day I want to produce good people. To do that, you have to be their cheerleader, but you also have to be demanding.” Weber said one thing he’s learned in his decade of coaching and teaching is that kids can’t do everything. He’s seen a lot of cases where parents push their children to do every activity imaginable, to the point where the child’s engagement level with those activities is a mile wide and an inch deep. He says he understands parents’ desire to give their kids a breadth of experiences, but at some point, he said, they must choose what their heart truly wants and then commit. “I see it every year from one or two students; parents push them to do everything,” he said. “Parents are trying to set them up for success but doing it the wrong way.”
Hoopin’ it up
As a financial planner, Brian Corbett is good with numbers. So you can believe him when he says he’s run the numbers on how many games he’s coached over how many years. “I’ve added it and it’s at least 350 games,” he said. “At least. Over 17 years. And unfortunately, the first three years, we were not good, and that was more due to my learning curve.” For Corbett, it’s been mostly basketball. “I did T-ball, and then maybe a year of soccer,” he said of his coaching career. “And I tried football once, but some of the other coaches told me that I was … not the head coach. Which I agreed with.”
Unlike a lot of coaches, Corbett stepped up to coach without having a kid on the team. It was the mid to late ‘90s, and he and his wife, Julia, had just moved to town. Corbett was looking for something to do in his spare time. Julia was on the youth basketball association board and mentioned to other board members her husband might be interested in coaching. That led to his coaching debut with B-squad group of fifth graders. He followed and coached that group for several years, until they entered high school. When his sons grew old enough to join youth basketball teams, Corbett coached their teams as well. Each of his sons — Brennan, Griffin and Aidan — has had Dad for a coach. Being a coach of your son’s basketball team has a giant plus side: You’re on the court and providing the kind of mentoring only a father can give, and it’s all in the warm blanket of “quality time” between parent and child. At the same time ... “It’s a good/bad sometimes on that stuff,” he said, not referring to any particular son. “We’ll give each other the dirty looks walking in and out of the gym and I’m like, ‘Why aren’t you doing what you’re supposed to be doing?’ and he’s like, ‘Why don’t you shut up and leave me alone?’” Corbett now lives in the best of both worlds. He’s a volunteer coach and gets to be there while Aidan practices (his two older sons are in college). But come game time, he’s in the stands, watching alongside the other parents. And as a parent, he’s had experience recognizing and then tailoring instruction and methods to the way individual kids learns. Any parent with multiple kids can tell you that what works to motivate the first won’t necessarily work to motivate the second or third. Having a mental toolbox full of different ways to teach a kid to be a better player or harder worker is helpful, which is something Corbett said he brings to the team’s coaching mix. “You can’t have it be the same for every kid because they all respond to things differently,” he said. “And I was kind of joking about my sons, you know, but sometimes we butt heads on this stuff a little bit.” The current season, he said, has been one of his favorites because, while Corbett spends much of his
Top: Brian Corbett has learned over the years how to tailor coaching methods to individual kids on the team. Bottom: Brian Corbett has coached Mankato West basketball for 17 years. he said. coaching time on defensive Corbett said he’s improved as a positioning, the finer points of coach over the years. rebounding and post moves, Aidan “For sure, that first group I is across the court working with coached, compared to now, I’m other coaches who specialize in way better (as a coach),” he said. “I skills for guards. So he and his son know what works, I know what aren’t spending as much time doesn’t work, I know what’s kind of together at practice as you might a waste of time.” MM think. “I think we both would agree we’ve had one of the more enjoyable experiences this year,” MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 23
THEY WANT TO
BELIEVE
24 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
The truth is out there... While some spend their spare time knitting or watching sports, others use that time to pursue something a bit … darker. Demon hunters, paranormal investigators and UFO spotters are among us, folks. And they’re having a blast. By Diana Rojo-Garcia | Photos by Jackson Forderer
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ince starting his podcast/Youtube channel, “The Ethan Clerc Show” and the crew has invited people from all backgrounds in the southern Minnesota area. Periodically, Clerc and the crew have brought individuals from a certain niche — the paranormal. Clerc has interviewed ghost and demon hunting experts, UFO field investigators and psychics. “I’m definitely a skeptic and I want to believe.” Though a nonbeliever, he believes that bringing in people like Mr. Wolf (a demon hunter), Adrian Lee (psychic and author) or Michael Cimino (UFO field investigator) gives people a chance to research into the subject more. “You have to do your research,” Clerc said. “It’s good to be open minded about it because if you are, then you have a better chance of discovering something you don’t believe in.” Being a skeptic, he said, allows one to ask better questions, which then might provide more evidence in a particular subject. Clerc is right. So we decided to sit down with a few of these folks to ask some of those questions. And we found that, sometimes, you can come out with more questions than answers.
Demons, beware …
Mr. Wolf had no choice, he said, but to learn how to read the energy around him. It was for protection. He recalls unexplainable activity in his Mapleton family home as early as age 3. The house was haunted, and whatever was there took every opportunity to mess with him. Late at night, Mr. Wolf (not his real name) would hear what seemed like dragging nails in the attic. Eventually, he heard whatever had been tormenting him drag itself across his bedroom floor. It wasn’t until he was 16 that he started to piece the
information together that some kind of paranormal being was in the attic. “I wanted to fight back.” He began to learn how to protect himself — and eventually others — from the unknown. The easiest way to describe it, Mr. Wolf said, would be magic. “But I don’t really call it magic because there’s really no ceremony to it.” He realized he could manipulate the energy around him. The idea became more profound for Mr. Wolf when he began to read epic fantasy novels by author Terry Goodkind. The more he read, the more the world of magic made more sense. “But I was raised Lutheran,” he said. “So it’s like, ‘Oh no, magic is bad.’ It just got to a point where I had to do something.” He continued to self-educate, especially in alchemy and shamanism. He found a common link between the two practices. Mr. Wolf explained the common link is changing our perception to other worlds. “At the same time, like Tesla said, everything is energy,” he said. “There’s the alchemic principle of the duality material. For every physical, there is a metaphysical.” Through years of training and education in both practices, Mr. Wolf said he has learned to make different tools combining metaphysical properties. These tools are used in his demon hunting, including a gun with an apple wood frame filled with crystals. “I got a crystal. It’s kind of like the trigger. That’s the contact point. Then it’s pushing my energy through the contact point and into the frame.” The combination of the crystals and his own energy, he said, helps focus in on a target energy — basically cornering an evil spirit. He’s been investigating for 22 years, always keeping MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 25
Top: Mr. Wolf, a demon hunter in Mankato, holds the crystals he uses in his investigations. Most of the crystals he uses are for protection against evil spirits. Bottom right: Patches on Mr. Wolf’s jacket. a toolbox full of crystals, a Pandora’s box, essential oils and a Happy jar on his person. The Pandora’s box is the first thing that comes out during an investigation. It has magnets, a variety of salts, several different types of obsidian and a black tourmaline. “The Pandora’s Box absorbs negative energy. If you think about it in terms of science, humans are on the plus spectrum, anything else is in the negative spectrum.” This serves as a magnet to draw 26 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
in the negative spectrum, again cornering the negative spirits. He then pulls out the Happy Jar — full of Frankincense, Palo Santo, celestite and selenite — to counterbalance the negative energies attracted to Pandora’s box. “If that’s not how happy smells, I don’t know what is,” he said. “This is putting positive energy out.” He uses these tools during his investigations, including the time he helped his friend’s son whom they believed was possessed by a
demon. It was in the Twin Cities when Mr. Wolf was in his late 20s. At the time, he made use of what was in his friend’s kitchen to whip up a version of “Voodoo goofer dust,” which is a hexing technique for good intentions. This particular goofer dust — made of sea salt, basil, oregano, black pepper and cayenne — was concocted to target bad energies. “We went through what she had, and I found anything that had exorcism-breaking and protection properties.”
Adrian Lee For two weeks he had the victim place the mix on the middle of his forehead, then on his chest. “Because that’s the soul core. That’s why when you feel emotions, it always comes from right there first.” The main idea is to make the host —in this case the victim — be incompatible. That night, Mr. Wolf said the demon that had latched onto the victim had been standing only a couple feet away from him all night. “It was the shadow of it, really. And it was just staring daggers at me. It was so mad that I cut that kid loose.” Ultimately, Mr. Wolf said demon hunting comes down to energy. For as long as he can remember, he’d been able to pick up and identify different spirits. “In this room right now, there’s seven ghosts and three nonhumans.” This particular night, he said, the three nonhumans were a fairy, a very old soul and an angelic spirit. Thankfully, nothing malicious. But that’s not always the case, he said. “It’s not an issue of a spirit. There are people here that are not human. Not everything that wears a meat suit is human.”
Ghostly historian
Matthew Kohler was a fireman when the Schmidt Brewery was up and running in St. Paul. Not a firefighter, a fireman — one who lit the fires in the furnaces and the lamps in the basement’s brewery. He died April 16, 1904. Spilled oil on himself, set himself on fire and wasn’t able to put the fire out. Kohler burned alive at the Schmidt Brewery. Adrian Lee, author, historian, psychic and paranormal investigator (among other things) was able to unearth the death of Kohler during an investigation he had done at the brewery in St. Paul in 2008. It took Lee nearly two years to figure out who Kohler was. During the investigation, a disembodied voice was picked up through the equipment — “Matt,” the voice said — and when asked who Matt was, the voice reportedly replied, “A fireman.” A historian by trade, he began to research using digitized newspapers dating to the 1860s. He searched until he discovered a news clipping confirming Kohler’s death and profession, now immortalized in Lee’s book, “Mysterious Minnesota.” Lee moved to Minnesota about 10 years ago from London, discovering and investigating
different parts of the state. Many of his investigations led to his aforementioned book, of which one includes Mankato and can also be purchased on Amazon. (You can also check out his show “More Questions than Answers” every Friday at 10 p.m. on the Dark Matter Digital Network.) “That was the moment I suddenly realized that we can talk to the dead to gain information from them to do historical research and use them as a tool to bring back history that’s been lost,” Lee said. He has been a paranormal investigator for more than 20 years and has investigated all over the globe. But it was Kohler’s compelling story that lit the idea to rediscover untold history. He thinks that learning and interviewing the dead are vital in humanity’s history. In investigating, there’s a primary source in the event that happened. And sure, there are paranormal teams investigating that are happy to get activity or an EVP (electronic voice phenomena), and that’s it. “What a waste of time,” Lee said. “How are we learning from them? How are we furthering ourselves? What can we solve? What can we bring back historically?” Lee’s work is distinct in searching for those answers. “Uniquely, about the work I do, is that I’m using (the dead) to further MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 27
A collection of Michael Cimino’s UFO literature. history. I’m bringing back history from the lips of the dead.” He explains that, as a historian, one can simply make an educated guess based on the information left in history from newspapers or death certificates and banking details. It is all secondary material. “Could you imagine, via the equipment and psychic skills, being able to talk to somebody that was actually there? Because you could interview them,” Lee said. “I’ve interviewed the dead and asked them what it was like in the fire. How often do you get to use primary material as a historian? That’s like asking your granddad what he did during the war.” Ghosts aren’t the only thing Lee has encountered. In 2017, during a separate investigation in a Redwood Falls cemetery, he said the team experienced UFOs. “I was actually talking, or trying to talk to Maude Kleeman. That was the woman who was killed by William Kleeman with an ax,” Lee said. “I was at the cemetery talking to her, asking if her husband had killed her.” The investigation had barely started with niceties, Lee said, then the activity above ground started. 28 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
“There was the most mad UFO activity and we had everything recording. We were running the equipment and the first thing that happened was all the equipment went just nuts.” The ghost box they were using (a tool to communicate with spirits through radio waves) began to make noises Lee didn’t recognize. Then the compass they had started to act up and all their EMF (electromagnetic field) meters started to light up like Christmas trees. They looked up and there was a big, yellow, fiery ball of light that moved around the sky. “This was one of the most important sightings in American UFO history because it’s the first time ever that there’s empirical data attached to a UFO sighting,” Lee said. The UFO then left. Then came back but red this time. Then left and came back orange. It has been reported and investigated by the Mutual UFO Network.
Artist by day, UFO hunter by night
MUFON was founded in 1969 and is a nonprofit organization in which volunteers investigate submitted reports of UFOs around the country. One volunteer is local artist Michael Cimino. His interest in ufology began early as a kid, picking up books about UFOs and aliens. It wasn’t until two years ago that Cimino began to pick up the subject again and revisited it as a real hobby. He began doing amateur investigating, which led him to join MUFON during one of his research sessions. “All of this information (on MUFON) is available to the public, and once I started seeing this, it’s still a very modern phenomenon,” he said. “Most people think that ufology, or the study of UFO, it ends at Roswell, but that was genuinely the beginning of it and the reports that are coming in now are staggering.” Cases like the Redwood Falls UFO that Adrian Lee and his team had incidentally captured are just one example.
There are other forms of finding UFO videos, too — YouTube. However, Cimino said the front pages are usually flooded with clickbait videos with no merit. It does a disservice. “We’ve totally lost like the human nature of it, or the human phenomenon, and then that’s kind of what led me to MUFON.” There was one video, however, that was filmed in Mankato during a terrible thunderstorm in 2011. “Gusts of winds 40 mph with heavy lightning activity,” Cimino said. The video shows clouds moving sporadically, among a few balls of lights that pop up in the video. To this day, Cimino hasn’t been able to explain what was occuring in those clouds. Cimino is still a “trainee” in field investigating but has taken on a few in the MUFON database. Each trainee receives the field investigators manual that is purchased from the MUFON website, in which the trainees must study and then can take a test. “The book is extensive and the test was either 150 or 200 questions,” Cimino said. “We’re talking about knowing your categories, how to classify a UFO, how to collect physical evidence without tampering.” Other categories include making radiation surveys, using Google Earth, using a compass and learning how to use Madara, a magnetic anomaly radar. Cimino received his certification last year. Anyone that has access to the internet is able to share their experience with MUFON by submitting a report, which is then fully investigated by a field investigator, such as Cimino. There are about 100 cases in a year’s span in Minnesota. It begins by verifying the identification of the reporter, which can be done by researching online. An interview with the reporter follows. “The most important part is the initial interview. We try to get it as soon as possible so that no memories either disappear or distort. Then there is evidence.” If there’s physical evidence claims, like a scorch mark or cattle mutilation for example, the investigators go together to check out the area. All data is then collected. Videos and photos submitted, to prevent hoaxes, are then analyzed by Cimino. Then
“A lot of these people genuinely believe what they see in the sky is something. Some people are scared, very scared and unsure and insecure about what they saw. We do everything we can to build a solid case on every single person who makes a report, that’s the important thing.” another interview is conducted with those who reported. “We have the scientific method, a hypothesis, test the hypothesis, analyze the data and come to a conclusion. Every single case we go through that,” Cimino said. “If the person reported this and they saw it, we are always trying to put together a genuine scientific method to all of our approaches. We speculate as little as humanly possible.” Because, after all, when people report anomalies or experience a UFO, most people didn’t want to encounter that. “A lot of these people genuinely believe what they see in the sky is something. Some people are scared, very scared and unsure and insecure about what they saw. We do everything we can to build a solid case on every single person who makes a report, that’s the important thing.” One way to corroborate a story is by calling local police stations and airports. Cimino has done both. And … well, he’s not particularly liked at particular police stations. Mainly because of his incessant research; if they don’t respond to Cimino’s request, he calls again. He does introduce himself as a MUFON investigator, which at times can be difficult to explain. “It’s so easy to certain people to come off like a person with a tin foil hat. You don’t want to be. You’re just trying to piece a story for another person’s peace of mind.” MM
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REFLECTIONS By Pat Christman
30 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
I
t seems strange to live in a place where the air can poke you like a thousand needles. It’s even stranger when that air leaves a thousand needles on every tree branch. The sight of the frosty needles, caused when cold, moist air contacts a sufficiently cold surface, can be disconcerting to anyone from a warmer climate. The spikes of frost are beautiful to look at, until the cold air hits your unprotected face. MM
MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 31
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By Molly Anne Butler
32 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
I
was not in a good place. I was about to give up a job I loved and a promotion I wanted, move back home, and start my master’s thesis, all in the same month. My sister, with her special needs 4-year-old, was expecting twins, and all the complications and stress that would come with them. Mom’s biopsy had come back: high grade bladder cancer. It was a perfect storm and I was overwhelmed; forgetting to eat, barely sleeping, always near tears. What’s a good metaphor for the situation? Perhaps a frightened animal? Trapped? Helpless? Enter: Meep. It was the morning after we’d received mom’s official diagnosis. I’d been up most of the night, googling cancer treatments, care packages, jobs. I was running on three hours of bad sleep. I was reactionary, unable to think a clear thought. Which is why, when I saw a duckling in the center lane of a busy city street being buffeted by the turbulence of passing cars, I didn’t think. Pulled over. Popped trunk. Grabbed a towel. Stopped traffic. I would have expected the duckling to run, but not towards me. I knelt to grab him, and he waddled straight into my hands. I stopped traffic again, ran back in my car, slammed the door. I looked around. No mama duck in sight. No safe space to release him. No water or tall grass. No rhyme or reason to his presence. Cars whizzing by. Now I had a chirping baby duck on my hands. nnnn I happened to have towels and a water dish handy. I nested the duckling in the passenger seat, carried him with me through my work-day, and brought him home. My boyfriend could not stop laughing. “I can’t believe you brought home a duck.” Me either. The duckling was yellow, covered in soft down, fit in my palm, and still had his egg tooth (the sharp tip on the beak to assist with hatching). According to the internet, he was barely a week old. Absolutely helpless. He needed us. Now instead of googling cancer I was looking up “How to Take Care of a Duckling?” Instead of sobbing, I was laughing at his clumsy hops, his pitter-pattering feet as he waddled across the yoga mat, the way he tottered over when he tried to clean his tummy. The nice thing about ducks is they are halfway domesticated already. Had it been any other wild animal, I would have handed it over to a Wildlife rescue. But ducks are common yard pets, yours for just $7, and there’s a lot of information readily available on raising them. Besides, the universe had handed me the world’s cutest ball of happiness right when I needed it. I wasn’t about to say, “No thanks.” The duckling imprinted right away, followed us around the house, meeped wildly when we were out of sight, and happily sat in our hands. We loved him immediately. nnnn We gathered supplies. A storage tub, towels, shallow water dishes, just deep enough for him to clean his nostrils, not deep enough to drown or get hypothermia (baby ducklings aren’t waterproofed). I bought peas, lime beans, dried mealworms. I cut up grass and bought him a mini mop (I read mops make good imitation hen wings, and he loved to burrow in it). We
set up a space heater and heat lamp. I dug out leftover hand warmers from winter to stick under his bedding. I crushed up plain Cheerios because they’re rich in Niacin, which ducklings need to develop strong beaks and legs. In short, we went over the top, head over heels for this little duckling. We called him Meep Meep. Meep was unique, cuddly, and absurdly adorable. He followed us around the house and the yard. He liked listening to Canned Heat, especially “Going up the Country.” He pooped on my laptop. He sat in our laps to watch Netflix. He tackled moths and beetles in the grass. He played with my boyfriend’s beard. He napped in an empty teacup while I had my morning coffee. Meep was an instant cure for the pitfalls of anxiety and depression. You can’t sleep away a morning when you have a Meep: he needs fresh water, food. You can’t spend three hours in the shower: Meep wants attention. You can’t hide indoors staring at the TV all afternoon: Meep Meep wants to go run in the grass and the sunshine. I held Meep for courage when I sent my notice to my job that I would be leaving. Meep chirped in my lap as I answered emails and applied to jobs. It was impossible to be anything but overjoyed with Meep in the room. I could hardly remember the mess I had been just days before. My Meep made me smile. nnnn He made friends and family smile too. I sent pictures and videos to my family. My mom and sister Facetimed so they could watch him waddle and yawn and meep and be generally adorable. They couldn’t wait to meet him. I got to see my mom’s face light up. Dad and I started making plans for a chicken-wire safe house for Meep when he was old enough to live in their yard with their ponds. I talked about buying Meep a girlfriend once he was older, since Mallards mate for life and Meep sure was a catch. Friends I hadn’t talked to in months were flooding my messages responding to pictures of Meep Meep. He made everyone happy. MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 33
We don’t always get to decide what happens to us. Sometimes it’s too big. I just hope you know that as quickly as things can go wrong, they can also go magically. Amid your darkest times, you always have space for a little ball of sunshine.
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Instead of cancer or money or health insurance, all we could talk about was little Meep. He was the perfect, fluffy, goofy, yellow distraction. He was the ball of sunshine I so desperately needed. Of course, you must know where this is going. Meep was in our lives for three days. On the third day, my boyfriend got home before me. He called. “How does Meep usually act when you get home? He seems a little lackluster …” I felt the weight plummet in my chest. My mind raced through all the things I could have done wrong that morning. “Change his water, crush up some mealworms, make sure he’s warm enough, make sure he’s dry, I’ll be home as soon as I can.” I tore through the streets like a maniac, honking, shaking, asking please God please God please God. Minutes before I got home Meep was gone. That teeny, yellow, big-eyed fluff had been carrying the weight of all my fears. Moving. Leaving my life, my job. Helping my sister. Saving my mom. The buffer was gone. I thought I was right back where I’d been three days ago, but now worse. Now with the grief of a sweet little life I’d become so very invested in. It felt like a cruel joke. I’m sure they could hear my sobs in Canada. My boyfriend gently buried Meep in the yard, in a shady spot under the trees. We tossed his food. Emptied his tub. Dismantled the heat lamp. Put away the space heater. Threw out his snuggle mop. Deleted the pictures from Instagram. I was a blubbering wreck. We packed up the truck and drove north to
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Duluth. We hiked, camped, stared at the campfire, stared at waterfalls, threw rocks into the river, tried to figure out what the point had been. Of course, my mind tried to trick me into dark places. I should listen to my darkest fears. I should rightly assume the worse. Maybe I shouldn’t even try. Maybe this is just what happens: you love things just to risk losing them. Maybe it would have hurt everyone less to leave the darn duck in the road. Tempting, to close your heart. There’s no instant cure for grief. I can’t go find a new Meep. I can’t load up a tub with a flock of ducklings, or puppies, or ponies, or unicorns. They wouldn’t be Meep and they also wouldn’t be what I need. Meep gave me everything I needed: the truth. I’d convinced myself I couldn’t be happy right now, couldn’t enjoy my changing life, couldn’t find happiness in these hard times. Meep proved that was a lie.
The unanimous opinion from my veterinarian and friends is that Meep’s death was inevitable. It’s likely he carried a disease which is why his family left him behind. There’s probably nothing I could have done to keep Meep alive longer. He’d had two options: die terrified and alone in the street, or die 3 days later, in peace and quiet, with a belly full of mealworms and peas, wrapped in warm blankets and sunshine. I’m happy I pulled over. I cannot express what a miracle Meep Meep was for me. Right as I was desperately begging the universe for some relief, relief waddled in. Right when I was forgetting to take care of myself, a tiny creature reminded me I still had plenty of care to give. Just as I was deciding the future was not a place I wanted to go, Meep showed me I could change course in an instant. All the care and love I had for Meep still exists, and I can use
it to save myself. Life is sudden. One minute you’re being tossed around by fear and danger. The next you’ve got a Meep in your hands. I think my point is, I was a Meep in the road. I wasn’t expecting anyone or anything to help me, but when he appeared, I let him right in. Meep ran to me for help, and I was able to catch him. Sometimes when we are most in need, we are also the most needed. We don’t always get to decide what happens to us. Sometimes it’s too big. I just hope you know that as quickly as things can go wrong, they can also go magically. Amid your darkest times, you always have space for a little ball of sunshine. I hope when you’re on your road you keep an eye out for your Meep. MM Molly Butler is a budding writer living in the Mankato area with her fiancé Noah, their puppy Jolene, and their kitten Ricky — another roadside rescue.
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Pam Determan started VINE 25 years ago after trying to balance being a mom to five young boys, attending graduate school and caring for her elderly father. Now VINE has 41 staff members and over 400 active volunteers.
VINE Celebrates 25 years W
By Heidi Newbauer
hen Pam Determan was a graduate student in the Gerontology program at Mankato State University, she was a mom of five sons, all under age ten. She was also caring for her elderly father, who was living in her home as well. Without any assisted living facilities in the area in 1995, nursing homes were the only option for aging adults. Caregivers like Pam were in a tough spot: maintaining a career and a family while caring for an elderly parent takes time, resources, and energy. Pam’s neighbors became a strong support system for her and her family, and the community created from it planted the seeds for what would become VINE.
38 • LIVING 55 PLUS • FEBRUARY 2020 • Special Advertising Section
Pam told me, “I thought that there has to be a safe way for people to help and get help.” The seeds planted turned into her graduate school project. Her initial vision of VINE was the alliance of hospitals, churches, and other non-profits to act like a match-making service to help those in need. Volunteers would network between the non-profits, matching people who asked for help with the proper establishment. The initial volunteer training was 37 people and just kept growing from there. February of 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of VINE. What started out as a kitchen-table of networking has grown to 41 staff and around 400 active volunteers, along with more for
one-time events such as Rake the Town. VINE first established itself in 1995 with a $25,000 start-up grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and housed itself in office space donated by Ss. Peter and Paul Catholic Church. It then moved to a 3,600 square foot building on 3rd Avenue in 2000. That same year, VINE (initially standing for Volunteer Interfaith Network Effort) changed its name to VINE Faith in Action. While I visited with Pam this January, she stressed that the “faith in action is not religion in action. Denomination does not matter. The faith in action is our strong belief that helping others makes a difference.” VINE has made an impactful difference in the Mankato area throughout its twenty-five years. A few years after their establishment, VINE became a United Way partner agency. Services were also expanded to rural Blue Earth county and St. Peter after the 1998 tornado hit. In the early 2000s, VINE contracted with Blue Earth County Human Services to provide volunteer transportation for older adults and for low-income community members. They then received funding from the MN Department of Human Services to expand their chore program and caregiver support services. In the latter 2000s, the People to Jobs Program was established at the request of the Greater Mankato United Way. It’s a six-month transitional program helping single parents, refugees, and low-income workers develop more permanent transportation solutions for themselves. Not soon after, VINE and the Mankato Area Senior Citizens (MASCI) Board merged, bringing forth a wide array of wellness programs and volunteer opportunities. In 2009, VINE opened its Home Thrift Store. Pam told me, “you can’t run an organization on soft money, so the thrift is a way to generate some income.” As these expansions were happening, their space out on 3rd Avenue was becoming less and less. A major capital campaign was launched in 2010 to combine all of VINE’s programs in one location and sustain future growth. The organization bought the 60,000 square foot Nichols Building from Blue Earth County for $1.00 with the agreement to pay for the renovation of the building. After getting some financing from the bank, along with three and a half million fundraising dollars, the transformed building is now an energy efficient complex with VINE’s main offices on the second floor, the VINE Adult Special Advertising Section • FEBRUARY 2020 • LIVING 55 PLUS • 39
Community Center (VACC) spread throughout the five floors, and the fourth floor dedicated to affordable office leasing options for other nonprofits. The building is located at 421 East Hickory Street. VINE’s Marketing and Communications manager, Paige Schuette, gave me a tour of this beautifully restored building during my visit. The first floor is a main entrance to the VACC, and houses the warm water exercise pool, fitness center, locker rooms. The VACC won the NuStep Pinnacle Award in 2017 for its concentration on whole person wellness, including its programs, innovative equipment and overall experience. The remaining floors of the building include two rotating art exhibitions from VACC members, a rubberized walking track with nature-inspired murals painted along its corridor, a yoga room, literacy center, arts and crafts area, and a pool room, just to name a few. These things are available to VACC members. Over 600 members, from their 20s to 90s, enjoy the amenities of the community center year-round. The VACC accepts many health insurance reimbursement programs. There is also a sliding-fee scale option for those aged 65+ who demonstrate such need. Regular memberships come in three levels. For more information, please call 507-386-5586. Even though VINE supports the community center, one does NOT need to be a member of it to receive and be eligible for VINE’s services. In addition to the many other partnered programs mentioned, other services offered by VINE include caregiver support, transportation, chores, medical equipment rental, diversity programming, and support groups. One of the service programs, called Caring Connection, pairs up a volunteer with an elder in the community to provide friendship and support, which often end up as a mutual gift for the caregiver and 40 • LIVING 55 PLUS • FEBRUARY 2020 • Special Advertising Section
Over 600 members, from age 20 - 90 enjoy the amenities of the community center year round. The VINE Adult Community Center is spread throughout the five floors and boasts card groups, craft groups, education classes, fitness center, walking track, yoga classes and game room.
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Volunteers at VINE help teach a variety of different classes. This year, VINE will see the expansion of its Mind Academy program which is a 12-week cognitive training program designed to train different areas of the brain.
elder. Volunteers are a touchstone to VINE’s success throughout the years, and for its years to come. Marlys Jorgensen has been a volunteer with the organization since its inception. She told me, “I’ve had some wonderful experiences. VINE is just a wonderful organization and opportunity for people to have fellowship, exercise, meet friends.” She first came to Mankato with her husband
in 1959 to find options for their son, who had cerebral palsy. She found MRCI, which had just been open for a couple years at the time, and her son has been in their care ever since. Marlys understands the power of helping others and can’t say enough on how volunteering has enriched her life. Marlys currently volunteers in the Adult Respite Center, which offers licensed day programming with adults
42 • LIVING 55 PLUS • FEBRUARY 2020 • Special Advertising Section
with dementia and other progressive illnesses. The center is open MondayFriday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, please visit https:// vinevolunteers.com/respite-center/ or call 507-387-1666. She has also been a care receiver in recent years. Volunteers have helped Marlys out with household chores, such as moving her washer and dryer from downstairs to upstairs and tending to
her garden. Pam tells me, “Once you are a part of the VINE family, you are always part of the VINE family. We are in it for people for the long haul.” Many volunteer opportunities—from short-term, one-time, or long-term—are possible with VINE. Check out their website at https://vinevolunteers.com/ volunteer/ to download an application. Towards the close of my visit, Pam told me that “generativity is so important.” Having people of all ages volunteer creates a stronger community. Many university students volunteer as part of their service-learning requirements, taking people to doctor’s appointments or delivering hot meals. Last year, VINE launched its Good Neighbor Project, encouraging people to get to know their neighbors to help end the epidemic of social isolation and loneliness. As our world is ever complex, it’s comforting and energizing to know those around us are there for us and care. Being a big-picture person, Pam is very excited this year for the expansion of its Mind Academy program, thanks to grant funding from the MN River Area on Aging. The Mind Academy is a twelve-week cognitive training program designed to train different areas of the brain. Along with that, the expansion includes Brain Boosters, Mind Aerobics, and expanded education and resource support for caregivers. The VACC offers many classes to help aging individuals stay sharp and connected, including a variety of presentations from local authors, historians, naturalists, and many more. For more information on these classes, please call 507-386-5586. Many ways of connecting to the area community through VINE and its community center are possible and needed for its continuing success. These twenty-five years have given shape to a bright and giving future. Hats off to the VINE family!
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888-893-4991 Special Advertising Section • FEBRUARY 2020 • LIVING 55 PLUS • 43
Some of Julie Peck’s favorite objects that she has made over the years are Prince’s iconic guitar, an old fashioned microphone, a cloth cake and rack of books made from styrofoam.
Props Manager Has Spent 20 Years Creating & Reinventing Objects All for the Love of the Theatre By Connie Haugen | Submitted Photos
ulie Peck’s first foray into theater was in 1999, when her daughter played in a Merely Players production in Mankato. The next year, she herself was cast as a 76-year-old woman. And the adventure began! Julie has been props manager, stage manager, and assistant director—her current role in the upcoming Jesus Christ Superstar. But she’s talking today about fun times as Props Manager.
J
44 • LIVING 55 PLUS • FEBRUARY 2020 • Special Advertising Section
What Are Props?
Basically, a prop is any object that an actor uses in a scene, like a coffee cup, a chair, or a telephone, for instance.
What IS a Props Manager?
The Props Manager acquires, organizes, and maintains all items actors use in a play. They get items from thrift shops, garage sales, and people who donate items from by-gone times. Dramas usually come with a props list, but not musicals. For last fall’s production of Annie, Julie read the whole script and figured out what was needed for every scene. Artistic Director,
Maggie Maes said she when rehearsals began, she saw Julie going from actor to actor asking them what they still needed. Then it’s the Props Manger’s job to find them or make them. For Annie, Julie had to find/create around 30 NEW items. “I didn’t even get to watch the show until opening night. I was so focused on getting all the props together on time. Plus we added something new to the set decorations every night.” Many items can be found in the everyday world at regular stores. Thrift stores are a great place to find things. Props Managers are always on the lookout for unique items in their everyday life that could be good for future plays. Merely Players has a phenomenal number of antiques, according to Julie. After the play is over, the props need to be organized and stored. The Props Manager must decide whether to keep everything or, if it was easy and inexpensive to obtain or make, dispose of it and plan to replace it the next time it is needed. Originally the props were stored by show. When Julie came on, she began sorting the props by type – like toys, food, dishes, suitcases, etc.
These burgers and fries were used in Buddy, The Buddy Holly Story. Actor Zach Bolland holds his severed head which was used in last season’s production “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare - Abridged.”
Some Fun Favorites
Julie talked about some of the items she has had to acquire or make for productions over the years. “I used to be Jack McGowan’s assistant back when he did magic shows,” Julie said, “And he told me something that stuck with me. ‘You tell someone that IS what it is, and they don’t question it.’ ” And that’s just what she does! One of her favorites was a spyglass. When her search for a toy spyglass yielded nothing, she set out to make one. She found a coin bank with different sizes of towers to fit each size coin. Using string, she was able to slide the pieces together and keep each segment from extending all the way out. See it in front of the telephone in the photo. During one of the performances, Julie noticed the spyglass was missing. She questioned the cast and was able to follow the trail to the person who told her it had broken when he was using it. She found the pieces of the spyglass, got out the trusty glue gun, and quickly fixed it before it was needed. Whew! A frequent occurrence in the theater props business, it sounds like. A disaster was quickly averted during Special Advertising Section • FEBRUARY 2020 • LIVING 55 PLUS • 45
Top: Julie Peck is not only the props manager with Merely Players, she has played several parts on stage as well. Here she is the wicked queen transformed into a hag. Right: Julie Peck had an on-stage cameo as the Statue of Libery in the recent production of Annie.
Fiddler on the Roof. In Act One someone accidentally stepped on a handle of Tevya’s milk cart. Julie knew the cart wouldn’t be needed until Act Two. She put together a crew, each with a specific task, and materials to quickly mend the handles during the intermission between acts one and two. When the metal pieces were in place, she used twine to cover the metal plates on the handles (both had to look the same, you know), and voilà – it was ready to go! She made the French fries in the photo out of the bristles of a toilet brush. The cookie was made from a small Frisbee. For one play, Julie had to assemble several lunch trays so the actors could hold them and dance. She glued the fries, sandwiches, cookies, and milk cartons onto compartment trays so they would stay put during the dancing. Some of her other favorite things she has made over the years is Prince’s iconic guitar, on old fashioned microphone that reads Hot Box, a cloth cake, a rack of books and a bunch of fish. The books are all styrofoam and glued together, making a lightweight shelf of books. The fish was made from fabric that had fish on it. She cut them out and stuffed them. Lots of signage is required in the theater. She recently made signs reading: Coney Island, Broadway, and Radio City Music Hall for Annie. Julie once made a 1940’s style swim cap from a volleyball. She cut it to fit the actor and glued little flowers on it. During War of the Worlds, she had to create three candlestick telephones to be used in a scene. By the time the phones were assembled, each telephone consisted of 17 different parts. Julie has also created props that became gifts. For the Buddy 46 • LIVING 55 PLUS • FEBRUARY 2020 • Special Advertising Section
Holly show, she created a gold record. While the audience saw only the gold record, the record label Julie created was detailed and important to the cast. She listed the play title, the dates, and the director’s name. Everyone signed the record, and it was given to the director after the play. Other fun items she made were large styrofoam nickels for the musical The Taffetas. The nickels were about 3 feet in diameter and were held up in the air. Everyone loved them! They were so much fun that they got used in several parts of the play. Again, Julie made the coins special. Rather than In God We Trust, the coins said Merely Players, The Taffetas, and the dates of the musical. Maggie Maes said that she wasn’t in that particular play, so she had to go backstage just to look at the coins because they were so incredible! “Hours of work often goes into props that are seen for 15 seconds on stage,” Julie smiled.
How Does She Do it?
Julie gets help from friends. “I am not creative. I can’t paint; I can’t draw, and I can’t use power tools!” She tapped her friend AJ to create a severed head recently, and it was AJ who created the profile of Thomas Jefferson that appeared to be embossed on the big styofoam nickels. Meagann Davis is doing the props for the upcoming Jesus Christ Superstar. Meagann will have to create the crown of thorns and figure out all the items needed for the temple scene. Doug and Candy Laven have done props for numerous shows. They also provide technical effects for Julie’s props. When she needs a prop with a flashing light or needs a prop
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to play a song, she gives them a call. For a Robin Hood play, they created an arrow that was split by another arrow— making it all look very real. Candy is very artistic and creative, Julie said. Julie stresses one very important aspect of Merely Players – it really does take a community to put on a show. “Outside of having to rely on others for artwork, I have solicited props from friends, family coworkers and cast members for virtually every show. We have also benefitted from the generosity of local businesses, like Johnson Furniture,” explained Julie. “Every role in a production is important – whether a lead role or the ensemble, a director or an usher, we all do our parts to make sure our audiences have the best show possible.”
More About Julie Peck
Julie moved to Mankato as a teenager and graduated from East High School. She is presently the Division Coordinator for Gillette Pepsi in North Mankato, where she has been employed for 37 years. She is married and has two grown daughters.
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The real Julie Peck posed for a quick photo without a costume. Pepsi and Coke are fighting it out in the Cola Wars from the play, Back to the Eighties. For the play, Wind In The Willows, Julie Peck built a spyglass completely from scratch using different size towers designed to hold coins. The eggs created for Honk were created with lots of help from Candy and Doug Laven, and Terry Fast. Julie Peck said she and her team made them three times before they were approved by the Director.
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Maggie Maes has worked with Julie at Merely Players for over 20 years. “Julie is the most sought-after props person in Merely Players. Julie is so creative, and I don’t know anyone like her who works in props. If people see a great prop, they say ‘That’s a Julie prop.’” This is the seventh time Maggie has worked with Julie as her Assistant
Director. “All I have to say is, ‘What do you think about doing that?’ and it’s done! Many people shy away from the Kato Ballroom performances, because everything must be hauled from the Lincoln Community Center, but not Julie. Julie works so well with actors, too.”
Julie is serving as the Assistant Director on Merely Players’ upcoming play Jesus Christ Superstar, which is scheduled for performances on March 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, and 19 at the Kato Ballroom. When asked what was her favorite play, Julie always answers, “The one I’m working on.”
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Special Advertising Section • FEBRUARY 2020 • LIVING 55 PLUS • 49
How to give back to seniors in your community
T
he strongest communities tend to be those in which members make a concerted effort to give as much as they get. Giving back to one’s community can foster strong relationships with fellow residents and ensure that everyone, including the less fortunate, is in position to live happy, healthy lives. Certain people in a community may be more vulnerable to issues that can adversely affect quality of life than others. For example, the National Institute on Aging notes that, as men and women age, many are alone more often than when they were younger, leaving them vulnerable to social isolation and loneliness. Such feelings can prove very harmful to their health, potentially contributing to problems such as depression, cognitive decline and heart disease. Volunteering to help the aging members of one’s community is a great way to give back, and such efforts can prove rewarding for both seniors and the volunteers who lend them a hand. 50 • LIVING 55 PLUS • FEBRUARY 2020 • Special Advertising Section
n Pull an extra chair up to the dinner table. Many a meaningful connection has been made and maintained over the dinner table. Breaking bread with a senior from your community is a great way to foster such connections and provide an avenue for social interaction for seniors. Seniors who live alone might not enjoy cooking for one each night, but they might jump at the chance to eat dinner with a neighbor and even help prepare the meal. Invite a senior over once per week, encouraging them to share stories about their lives as well as how the community has developed over the years. n Help seniors manage their finances. Many seniors struggle to manage their finances, as laws regarding taxes and investing are subject to routine changes. A little help in this area can go a long way for seniors. Adults who want to help but don’t know where to begin can do the legwork for their aging neighbors. Contact agencies such as AARP to
determine if there are any financial assistance programs that can help seniors effectively manage their money and take advantage of agespecific perks, such as programs that may help seniors lower their energy costs. n Offer to help around the house. Seniors who reside in single-family homes may not be able to keep up with routine home maintenance. Neighbors who want to help can offer to mow the lawn, tend to the landscaping and tidy up inside. Keep an eye open for other issues, such as clogged gutters, that can be fixed easily but prove costly if they go ignored. Helping aging neighbors is a great way to give back and build strong communities. Metro Creative Connection
Special Advertising Section • FEBRUARY 2020 • LIVING 55 PLUS • 51
Wine & Beer
wines
By Leigh Pomeroy
Gretta and wine
southern mn style
M
y wife, Gretta, died two days after Christmas. I know this is a terrible way to begin a wine column, but please bear with me. For though Gretta wasn't a wine aficionado per se, she had her favorite wines and loved the wine country. And being in Napa Valley and spending time with two good wine friends occupied the last several days of her life. Many of our special friends are affiliated with the wine business. Others are wine lovers who assemble several times a year under the moniker “DIMWITS” — Downtown Mankato Wine Tasting Society — a group that has been meeting for over 30 years. Gretta has always maintained contact with her many friends over the years. One is her best friend from seventh grade in Houston, Sharon. A decade later, Sharon married a copier salesman in California. One would think "boring!" — but George was an entrepreneur, smart, witty and ultimately a wine lover. We followed George and Sharon through their life stages, first in a tract home in Orange County drinking boring bottles, to upscale houses on Newport Bay with an ample collection of California Cabernet Sauvignons and eventually Pinot Noirs. All along, though we didn't see them frequently, Gretta and I were participants in their wine education. One day some years ago, George was sitting in his office at his copier dealership when a man walked in and plunked a sevenfigure check down on his desk. “I want to buy your business,” he said.
52 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
George looked at the man, looked at the check and looked at the man again. “OK,” he said, and that was that. Eventually, George bought some grazing land just south of San Luis Obispo in the Edna Valley and prepared and planted the largest single planting of pinot noir vines in San Luis Obispo County. Gretta and I liked to think that we were partially responsible. Back to Napa Valley. One of Gretta’s all-time favorite people was a winemaker and small winery owner named Bill Cadman. We were visiting Bill and his partner, Miki, at Bill's Tulocay Winery in the few days just before her death. Though we couldn’t stay at their house due to Gretta’s mobility challenges following a stroke she suffered Labor Day weekend, we could enjoy their hospitality, food and, of course, wine. And as we always did, we took a leisurely drive up and down the length of the valley, noting what had changed and what had remained the same over the 47 years I'd been visiting this lovely area. One of Gretta’s favorite wines was the 1935 Simi Zinfandel. In 1972, while working at a winery in Napa, I used weekends to tour the northern California wine country and on one stumbled upon Simi Winery in Healdsburg. The winery was founded in 1876 by two brothers, Giuseppe and Pietro Simi. But in 1904, they both died suddenly, leaving the winery and its operations to Giuseppe's daughter, 18-year-old Isabelle Simi. Isabelle continued
making wine through Prohibition, even though she was legally unable to sell it. In 1970, she sold the winery to Russell Green, a local vineyard owner. When he bought it, he found two large redwood tanks full of wine, one labeled 1935 Cabernet Sauvignon and the other 1935 Zinfandel. When he asked Isabelle about them, she said that 1935 was an extraordinary vintage and that the tank labels were accurate, though the tanks had been topped up periodically with newer wine as is allowed by law. Green sampled the wines, found them to be still vibrant, and bottled them, selling them for $18 a bottle. When I first visited the winery in 1972, the tasting room was empty save for 86-year-old Isabelle herself, presiding over hospitality, if no longer the winery. Though $18 — $110 in today's dollars — was a lot for a lowly winery worker to spend on a bottle of wine, I purchased one of each. They eventually ended up in Boulder, Colorado, where Gretta and I sampled them a year later with some very good wine-loving friends. While the Cabernet Sauvignon was just so-so, the Zinfandel was enthralling — not alcoholic and powerful, like so many Zins are today, but refined, sublime and complete. It became the benchmark against which Gretta measured all the subsequent red wines she ever tasted. It's fitting that Gretta, a history professor, would be enamored with an old bottle of wine, and that it should hold a special place in her memory, along with Sharon, George, Bill, Miki, the DIMWITS and all the special friends she's had over the years, with or without a glass of wine. I miss her.
Leigh Pomeroy is a Mankato-based writer and wine lover.
BEER
By Bert Mattson
Nitro: trying widgets or passing gas? B
ack in the day, Guinness was the first taste of nitro beer for most folks I knew. Mine might have been Boddington’s Bitter … at least with a widget, a device that aids in nitrogenating canned and bottled beer. I spent several months in Scotland. I distinctly remember my first experience with the pageantry of hand-pumped ale. I wasn’t a “beer guy” but I’ve always been a gear guy, for better or worse. I was easily seduced by talk of “beer engines,” “beer gas” and “bottle conditioning.” I can imagine, vividly, the glow of the puny, warm pub where the conversation took place. I cannot recall the brand emblazoned on the clip hanging on the handle at all. I still don’t identify as a beer guy, really. More of a guy occasionally clobbered by Beginner’s Mind while reconsidering some item long in my environs. My wife lived in Scotland also. Same palace, different year. As usual, she paid more attention. If I’m honest, she’s always been more attuned to beer than I. Anyway, once as she jogged my memory around the merits of Bellhaven’s, I recalled the discriminating minds in that warm pub, and their distaste for the idea of Guinness as anything but bottle c o n d i t i o n e d . N i t ro beer is a squirrelly tale of innovative delivery devices and distribution schemes, contrasted against a distinct quality of a thing, trapped in time. The bottom line: The pursuit of nitrogen ruined the thing — as far as those know-italls in the pub were
concerned, at least. At those times I’m not BabyYodaing down beer aisles — I like to think I’ve matured, at least from the standpoint of sidestepping appeals to join sides on the validity of one style (or element) of beer or another. I see strong points on both sides. The widget-enhanced can pours something undoubtedly, identifiably, different than the old bottle. Same can be said for the keg, nitrogen system and cask. The thing is, I completely appreciated my wife’s perspective on the pillowy head and velvet mouthfeel imparted by nitrogen, as well as its tempering of strong attributes. Her point was hammered home a few years later when we encountered Left Hand Brewing’s Milk Stout Nitro, which has sort of established itself as America’s analogue to the poster child of stout (available year-round). Further, they broke ground by figuring how to bottle nitro without the widget. Nitrogen doesn’t dissolve so readily in water. It renders smaller bubbles than carbon dioxide. This accounts for the head and mouthfeel. It is not as effective as CO2 at delivering aroma. The catch is that hop-forward beers are faded by it. Generally, styles selected for nitro tend to be malt heavy. (Nitro, to me, renders amber ale uncharacteristically interesting.) The malt component positions them well to echo the texture of creamy desserts in pairing scenarios. Left Hand has a stable of special releases to that end. Flamingo Dreams Nitro Blonde Ale, the rare berry nitro beer, was an intriguing entry. With such innovation, I suspect nitro will endure. Bert Mattson is a chef and writer based in St. Paul. He is the manager of the iconic Mickey’s Diner. bertsbackburner.com
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COUNTRY MINUTES By Nicole Helget
The Dogs of Oshawa Township. Part 1 of a Serial.
P
olar Bear snoops around the kitchen, his nose p ro b i n g t h e linoleum and our fingertips for potato chips or butter. He sweeps his tail with robust followthrough. Pacify my desperate doggy need for attention. The children run away from him. “He smells like a fart,” says Youngest. When Polar Bear gets really frantic for love, he jumps up and puts his paws on the kid’s chest or shoulders. Comparatively, that’d be like a horse rearing up on you. Polar Bear has spent the morning outside in the frozen field, scrounging around the manure. He has found clumps of digested hay, a big bone, and a turtle shell. His breath reeks. nn n n 54 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
By January, snow caps the yard. I stand outside and watch Polar Bear and Pony, our older dog, get silly with the three kids in the white stuff. Off in the distance, a tractor revs to
life. From the west, here it comes, pulling a manure spreader. I call the dogs and shoo them into the house. The k i d s f o l l o w, shed their wet boots, mittens, and coats. The farmer pulls into the field drive, roars the PTO to life. Inside the kitchen, Polar Bear finds the farmer’s activity and the smell of manure irresistible. “Mom,” says Youngest. The boy nods toward the dog. “Polar Bear has his tongue on the window again.” This child has just recently been the recipient of my yearly lecture on how we don’t lick things in winter unless we want to lose our tongues. I drop the potato I was skinning. With my paring-knife hand, I point at Polar Bear, who stares out the window. “For God’s sake,” I say. “Knock that off.”
He smears his tongue on the glass and glares at the high-tailed cats that roam the winter landscape freely. Polar Bear barks in a bass range that rattles the pots and pans. “Let. Me Ou—ouutt!” he woofs. “Chill out, you maniac!” Son says. “Polar Bear! Seriously!” says Daughter. Polar Bear only understands four sounds: his name, “sit,” clapping, and the rustling of a chip bag. Hearing his name, he nudges his huge head between her arm and side, soliciting a hug and a pet. She gives the puppy one stroke. Pony, our older Lab, watches her son with the flatness of a Puritan mother. She lies down on the rug cluttered with sopping mittens and boots and rests her head on her crossed paws. Polar Bear bops over, bites her leg to rouse her to look out the window, too. Pony flips her tail once and sighs, which means Polar Bear is supposed to get lost. Polar Bear gives up, taps back toward the window, wagging his tail like a designated hitter, smacking Son in the belly. “Geez, Polar Bear,” he says. Youngest, ever a solutions guy, opens the front door. Before I can finish saying “Don’t let the dogs out!“ Polar Bear bursts to liberty, broncobucking through the snow. Cats arch their backs and freeze briefly at the sight of him before scattering to the shelter of the nearest outbuilding. But Polar Bear isn’t interested in chasing them. He beams to the field, where the manure teases like a hot lunch. “Close the door!” Son says to Youngest. “Smells like crap out there. Youngest slams the door. “Phew.”
D o v e r ’s m o o d d e t e r i o r a t e d quickly. The next day, when we returned, Pony ran up to the driver’s side to welcome us. When I opened the car door, Dover pinched his head in and snapped at me. I slammed the door shut. I locked the car. “Don’t open your door,” I said to the kids. The kids were busy getting unconnected from their devices and locating fallen sheets of homework. “What?” said Daughter. “Do NOT open the car doors.” I said. “He looks really mad, Mom,” Son said. Youngest pressed his face to the glass of the back door. Dover jumped up and barked at him. He got back down and positioned himself outside my door like a bouncer. Dover had one of those barks that makes you have to go to the bathroom. Pony demurred. “God, look at him,” I said. “I have to go to the bathroom,” Youngest said. I clicked the car back on, turned up NPR. “You have to wait,” I said. “Dover wants to eat us.” Daughter gazed at our sweet dog. “Poor Pony.” I waggled my fingers at her. “Hi, Sweetie.” Pony’s eyes looked funny, darker, witchy. I dropped my hand. The muscles of Dover’s forelegs quivered. We made eye contact. He barked again. “Mo-om,” said Youngest. I pressed “call” on my phone to my husband who was in town. He answered. “Can you come home?” I asked. “Dover won’t let us out of the car.” To be continued...
nn n n
Nicole Helget is a multi-genre author. Her most recent book, THE END OF THE WILD, is a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice, a Parents' Choice Award Winner, a Charlotte Huck Award Honor Book, a New York Public Library Best Books for Kids, a Kirkus Best Middle-Grade Book, an Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students, a Best STEM Trade Books for Students K-12, a Georgia Children's Book Award Nominee, and the Minnesota Book Awards Middle Grade Winner. She works as a teacher, manuscript guide, editor, and ghostwriter. She lives in rural St. Peter with her family and dogs. You can follow the Dogs of Oshawa Township at @TheOshawa on Twitter.
Years ago, a Lab named Dover smelled Pony’s fertile condition wafting across the gravel roads. The kids and I got out of the car after school one day and found him sidled up next to Pony on the porch. Dover had a mug like an old baseball mitt. As we approached the house, we said, “Hello there, Crabby Face.” Dover had on two collars and the remnants of two leashes hanging from his neck. Was one of them was metal? Youngest opened the kitchen door to let us all in. Pony got up to come in, too, but Dover blocked her. “Oh, cute,” we said. “He’s in love with her.”
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GARDEN CHAT By Jean Lundquist
That’s my bag! Grow bags are finicky, but worth your time
W
e are deep in the throes of what some say is the best part of the gardening season. Those who believe the season begins in spring and ends in autumn are missing the season of hopes and dreams, planning and learning. One thing I’ve done some studying of is how to make the best use of my grow bags, as I’ve made quite an investment in them and the soil to put in them. I’ve never had luck growing things in pots, mostly because I’ve not been good at giving the plants enough water. The bags require even more water than pots, so I need to be purposefully diligent about watering them. I learned this the hard way. The blight I thought I had last year turned out to be that I was unintentionally killing my plants from thirst. Because my bags are fabric rather than plastic or something less permeable, they dry out quicker and need even more water than pots I’ve used. Oh well, I’ve already made the investment, and they are lighter and easier to move than pots. In addition to needing more water than plants in the ground, they also need more fertilizer. The plants entire universe is that one little bag, and the need to keep the plants fed is more important. Especially heavy feeders, such as corn, tomatoes and cabbage, can run out of 56 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
nutrients more quickly. Replacing the soil in the bags every year is not only not necessary but also expensive. The soil will be viable for two to three years if kept healthy. I’m adding some coir (COY-er) material to the bags this year to keep the soil loose enough for the roots to expand and support strong plants. Coir is made from the shells of coconuts, and though it’s not a bit local, it’s very sustainable and can be used in place of peat to amend soil. It’s not made from coca, so it’s not harmful to pets. Almost all vegetables can be grown in bags, unless you like long-rooted crops like carrots, some radishes and parsnips. However, there are short carrots that grow well in heavy clay soil and also in grow bags. I planted some last year, and though it was late, I managed a pretty good crop out of just one bag. My short, round radishes also did well. Other vegetables I will be growing in bags this year include zucchini, eggplant, potatoes, sweet potatoes and peppers. Some say corn can also be grown well in bags. If I have an extra one after all the other stuff is planted, I might give it a try. Or more likely. I’ll try another variety of tomato if I have an extra bag. Of course, herbs and flowers can also be grown in the
Available exclusively at Shaw Flooring Networ bags. In fact, I’m thinking about planting mint in a bag, then burying the bag in the ground. Mint is such a prolific spreading plant, the bag might keep it contained to just one area rather than taking over the world. I prefer planting bags to squarefoot gardening; weeding is almost nonexistent with bags. It’s easier with square foot gardening, in addition to being a more efficient use of garden space, but it’s still a time-consuming chore. I think square-foot gardening is best suited for small garden spaces and raised bed gardening. From my bags, I occasionally pulled out a dandelion or wayward miscreant weed of another sort, but that was it. It was so easy, it made me lazy. I did miss weeding baby carrots, though. That requires such laser focus in the garden, it helps me keep my aging brain sharp. Baby carrots are VERY tiny. This year, my garden bed will be used exclusively for plants that vine, like squash and the like. Cucumbers will again climb the chain link fence that (mostly) keeps varmints out, and everything else will be in my somewhat unattractive, though very efficient bags. I spent last fall with my leg in a cast, and then, my arm in a cast as well when I fell off the knee scooter they gave me to get around. I know — graceful, right? My garden did not get cleaned out. But there is a section of it still under tarps from last winter, so I will have some space to engage my vines without too much competition from weeds. Good lord willing, I will always have a garden — in addition to my bags. Jean Lundquist is a Master Gardener who lives near Good Thunder. gardenchatkato@gmail.com
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Joint Replacement Surgery
Important Choice, Easy Decision
COMING ATTRACTIONS: FEBRUARY 1-2, 7-9 13-15 Tony and Tina’s Wedding “Annie Get Your Gun,” 7:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. Feb. 2 and 9 in the Sigurd K. Lee Theater in the Ylvisaker Fine ARts Center at Bethany Lutheran College — Renowned in the Wild West as a sharpshooter, Annie meets her match, both romantically and professionally, in the form of fellow ace gunslinger Frank Butler — Tickets are $15.
1-2, 5-9
For quality care, close to home, it’s OrthoEdge. The OrthoEdge Joint Replacement Program features two of the most experienced orthopaedic care providers in the area, The Orthopaedic & Fracture Clinic and River’s Edge Hospital. •
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“A Doll House,” 7:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. Feb. 2, 8 and 9 in the Andreas Theater of Minnesota State University — A housewife hides her financial problems from her husband. When he learns of her deceit, he becomes angry. Disgusted by his selfishness, she leaves him to become an independent woman — Tickets are $16.
1
Mad Bobber Ice Fishing Contest 12-3 p.m. at Duck Lake — Fish on Duck Lake, event includes food and beverages, meet raffle, entertainment — MadBobber.com.
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58 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
20-22, 27-March 1
‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time’ 7:30 p.m. and 2 p.m. matinees Feb. 29 and March 1 in the Ted Paul Theatre at Minnesota State University — Christopher, a 15-year old, stands besides Mrs. Shears’s dog Wellington, who has been killed with a garden fork, and Christopher is under suspicion. He records each fact in the book he is writing to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington.
22
knee replacement center
River’s Edge Hospital has been recognized as a DNV GL Healthcare certified Orthopaedic Center of Excellence for:
16
Music on the Hill’s Concert 3: Dumka 2-6 p.m. at Our Lady of Good Counsel Chapel — MSO performs Gustav Mahler Piano Quartet in A minor, Rebecca Clarke Piano Trio, Antonin Dvorak Piano Quintet #2 in A, Op.81 — $17 premium; $12 general; $20 premium at door; $15 general at door — mankatosymphony.com/music-hill.
Michael Shynes with Deuces Wild! Dueling Pianos 7 p.m. at Chankaska Creek Ranch & Winery — Dave Eichholz and Ted Manderfeld are Deuces Wild Dueling Pianos. For more than 17 years they have traveled coast to coast in the USA, Canada, Panama and Mexico as the most sought after dueling piano act in the world — Tickets are $35.
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7 p.m. at the Kato Ballroom — An Interactive Dinner Theater that will keep you laughing and entertained as you participate in the nuptials and reception of a stereotypical Italian couple — Tickets are $35 — katoballroom.com/tickets.
7
Aaron Lewis 8 p.m. at the Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center — American singer, songwriter and musician who is best known as the lead vocalist, rhythm guitarist and founding member of the alternative metal band Staind, with whom he released seven studio albums — Tickets start at $39.50 — mankatociviccenter.com.
8
Dancing with the Mankato Stars 7-8:30 p.m. at the Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center — Watch local stars dance to raise money for the American Red Cross.
11
Vivaldi’s Motezuma 7-9 p.m. at Bethany Lutheran College — Bach Society of Minnesota’s artistic director Matthias Maute completed and reconstructed remains of Vivaldi’s lost opera, Motezuma — $30 general admission; $25 for seniors; $5 for students; free for kids ages 12 and under — blc.edu/arts.
Mankato Bridal Show 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center — More than 50 wedding professionals available to help plan weddings — free — register at mankatobridalshow.com.
24
Minnesota Storytellers presents Dessa 7:30 p.m. at the Elias J. Halling Recital Hall, Minnesota State University — Dessa is an international touring musician and writer who has built a career by bucking genre conventions and industry trends — General admission is $15; free for MSU students — 507-389-5549.
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Brett Young with guest Matt Ferranti 8 p.m. at the Mayo Clinic Health System Event Center — Brett Young is an American country pop singer-songwriter known for 2017 hit “In Case You Didn’t Know” — Pit tickets are $49.75; $35 for reserved floor and riser tickets — mankatociviccenter.com.
COMMUNITY DRAWS By Kat Baumann
MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 020 • 59
FROM THIS VALLEY By Pete Steiner
I
BOOKSHELF
hesitated to even open up a copy, just to thumb through, of “What Do We Need Men For?” I feared the answer, in this age of plentiful genius sperm donors, would be “Not much!” I strolled into the selfhelp section, where prominently displayed with only a sanitizing asterisk replacing a crucial vowel, was Mark Manson’s best-seller, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.” There were also Dr. Michael Bennett’s “F*ck Feelings,” and Gary Bishop’s “Unf*ck Yourself.” Spot a trend there? D. H. Lawrence’s books were once banned for such language! But now it’s 2020, so I could pick up another little self-help volume boldly titled “How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t.” Let me spare you buying the book; instead, just google the songwriter John Prine's “Blow up your TV.” For free, this three-minute ditty is maybe the only self-help you need: “Blow up your TV … move to the country … plant a little garden … try to find Jesus.” nnnn Winter is the ideal season for reading, perhaps the chief reason why Minnesotans are renowned readers. I couldn’t think of a better thing to do on a free morning, so found myself with a cup of coffee browsing local book shelves. I mosey’d past the “Must Read!” table. Of the five dozen books displayed, I had read two: “The Kite Runner” and “The Sixth Extinction” (both highly recommended by yours truly). My wife tells me another, “Where the Crawdads Sing” is quite good; in fact, it made “crawdad” one of the most-searched words of 2019. George Orwell’s “1984” did not become irrelevant 35 years ago; in fact, with all of our 21st-century worries about Big Brother and mind control and thought crimes, it’s a best-seller all over again. For me, going into a bookstore is like going to Mom’s for Thanksgiving dinner, a lot of overload. You want to gobble everything but realize it’s impractical (and could make you really feel like sh*t!). From that must-read table, I’d LIKE to read a couple of novels and Chernow’s bio of Grant, AND Isaacson’s bio of the original Renaissance man, DaVinci, AS WELL AS the auto-bio “Time is Tight,” about modern Renaissance man Booker T. To manage bookstore gluttony, I buy maybe two books and end up reading one.
based. Great book, but I actually preferred the condensed cinematic version. “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” so deeply researched by Dee Brown, left me reluctant to claim my white European heritage: The utter treachery and brutality used to remove Native Americans from their lands leaves one wondering how we can claim any high ground in condemning more recent genocides in Cambodia or Rwanda or Bosnia or Myanmar. I judged “Reservation Blues” by Sherman Alexie in not quite as glowing terms as the cover blurbs, but I liked the premise of blues legend Robert Johnson showing up on the Rez. I’ve recently begun another tome on the long list I didn’t get to during the decades of full employment: Jean Auel’s classic “Clan of the Cave Bear.” It lets this technophobe escape to a less comfortable but less complicated and less neurotic age. Going over my reading lists, I recall the late critic and author John Leonard of The New York Times and CBS and Harper’s magazine. With brilliant, mind-bending linguistic facility, he gave the impression he’d read nearly every book ever published. With selfpublishing now flourishing, more books than ever are waiting to be read. A plodding reader like me could really use a new John Leonard for recommendations. nnnn By my calculation, we’re down to just two bookstores in Mankato – the expansive chain store up on the hill, and — don’t forget it — the little independent used store downtown. I was chatting recently at a favorite hangout with a millennial who’d just been at the used bookstore where he picked up a copy of Heinlein’s “Stranger in a Strange Land.” “The story of my life!” I snarked, but he glossed over that and told me how much he was already enjoying the book. It made me recall how I was comforted by an article last year in The Wall Street Journal that reported, even in this digital, smart-phone age, more than 60 percent of Americans still read print books, while the number who read e-books or listen to audiobooks is growing significantly. And millennials, it said, are even gravitating toward the more esoteric art of poetry! I better shout that out to my late, great friend John Rezmerski in the next world. I have to believe, as long as we support bookstores and libraries, there’s still hope.
nnnn Over the past year, I read James Dickey’s novel “Deliverance,” on which the Burt Reynolds’ movie was 60 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
Longtime radio guy Pete Steiner is now a free lance writer in Mankato.
» C OME JU DGE
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 offers three magnificent 18-hole championship golf courses. 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. MANKATO MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2020 • 61
FIND THE FREEDOM TO LAUGH, SNEEZE AND JOG AGAIN.
Although loss of bladder control may be embarrassing, it doesn’t have to mean giving up belly laughs with friends. Our OB-GYN experts, led by a board certified urogynecologist, partner with you to help determine the best urinary incontinence treatment option, surgical or non-surgical, to fit your lifestyle and needs.
Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato Call 507-479-1591 to schedule an appointment. mayoclinichealthsystem.org
62 • FEBRUARY 2020 • MANKATO MAGAZINE
7.875x10.375”
Mankato Magazine - Feb 2019