Mankato Magazine

FAMILY TREES

For Christmas tree farm families, it’s definitely a group effort

Exploring the REASON for the SEASON Getting to know

CURT GERMUNDSON TOYS for TOTS’ Thompson twins

DECEMBER 2017 $2.95

The Free Press MEDIA

Mayo Clinic Health System is proud to support health and wellness in our community Whether you are facing complex health challenges or part of a growing family needing well-child visits and annual flu vaccines, choosing Mayo Clinic Health System means choosing the best path for getting well and staying well. During this season of gratitude, we want to thank you for trusting us to deliver the best team-based health care in the region. It’s our privilege to be part of your health journey.

The future of health care is promising — in our community, in our region and within Mayo Clinic Health System. Working together, we’ll continue putting the needs of the patients first and delivering trusted, high-quality health care to everyone who needs healing.”

— James Hebl, M.D. Regional vice president, Mayo Clinic Health System

Beyond the exam room — connecting in the community National Children’s Memorial Service This annual service is for parents who have lost a child during pregnancy, infancy, childhood or adulthood. Sunday, Dec. 10, Hilltop United Methodist Church, 108 S. Manitou Drive, Mankato. Call 507-594-2989 for information.

Mayo Clinic Health System Volunteer Night at Kiwanis Holiday Lights Look for Mayo Clinic Health System employee volunteers in the blue stocking hats. We’ll be greeting visitors, assisting families throughout the park and collecting donations for area food shelves. Thursday, Dec. 7, 5–9 p.m., Sibley Park, Mankato. Free and open to all.

Winter Break Feed and Read — BackPack Food Program Mayo Clinic Health System employee volunteers will be distributing healthy food to families, ensuring area youth have fresh and nutritious food over the holidays.

mayoclinichealthsystem.org

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F EATUR ES DECEMBER 2017 Volume 12, Issue 12

16

Family trees

It might seem like it’s a simple business, but growing Christmas trees is growing memories, and it takes a family to do it.

22

The reason for the season American Christmases long ago were hijacked by capitalism. But in area religious organizations, priorities are where they should be.

26

The curious case of Curt Germundson

Born in the U.S. and raised in Switzerland, Curt Germundson is one of the quirky and pleasant personalities of Mankato’s art scene.

ABOUT THE COVER It’s all in the family at Guggisberg Tree Farm. The family was photographed by Pat Christman.

MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 3

DEPARTMENTS 6 From the Editor 8 This Day in History 9 The Gallery

9

Yvette Spagenberg

10 Beyond the Margin Eternal flame 12 Familiar Faces Bernie and Sue Thompson 14 Day Trip Destinations

Mayo House in Le Sueur

26 Then & Now Standard Brewery 31 Food, Drink & Dine 32 Food

10

Cookie exchanges

34 Wine

Wine, 101

35 Beer Holiday brews 36 Happy Hour

Become a cocktailsmith

38 That’s Life TV times

14

32

40 Garden Chat The saviors of blighted planters 42 Your Style Permterrogation.

44 Coming Attractions 45 Faces & Places 48 From This Valley Annual Christmas letter

Coming in January

42 4 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

44

We go behind the scenes of KEYC’s “Bandwagon”

Holiday Events Sunday

DECEMBER 10

3:00 pm at christ chapel gustavus adolphus college st. peter, minnesota

Saturday, December 9 at 7:30PM Chapel of Our Lady of Good Counsel

TICKETS

$12 for adults $10 for seniors $10 for children 5+ $5 for children under 5

170 Good Counsel Drive, Mankato General Admission: $15 Seniors/Students: $10

available at the door and by searching “mankatochildrenschorus” on eventbrite

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Prairie Lakes Regional Arts Council, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.

Ch ristmas at th e Hubbard House A Parlor Game History Mystery

Saturday, December 2 3:00 - 7:00 p.m.

Sunday, December 3 .

1:00 - 4:00 p.m.

Historic R.D. Hubbard House 606 South Broad Street, Mankato

Victorian Christmas Experience with Special Display of Classic Board Games Adults $8, Children/Members $5

OPEN FOR GUIDED TOURS Purchase tickets at: Ted Paul Theatre MSU - Mankato, Performing Arts Center 507-389-6661 or visit www.mankatoballet.org

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CASH DONATIONS ARE ACCEPTED NIGHTLY AS WELL AS NON-PERISHABLE FOOD ITEMS FOR AREA FOOD SHELVES

www.kiwanisholidaylights.com • 507-385-9129 MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 5

ĆŞĆ˜ĆłĆą ơƏƊ ƼƜƜƳƧƭƼơƊ ĆŠĆ¨Ć­ĆˇĆłĆ˜

By Robb Murray DECEMBER 2017 • VOLUME 12, ISSUE 12 PUBLISHER

Steve Jameson

EDITOR Joe Spear ASSOCIATE Robb Murray EDITOR CONTRIBUTORS Nell Musolf Pete Steiner Jean Lundquist Leigh Pomeroy Bert Mattson Leticia Gonzales Ann Rosenquist Fee Bryce O. Stenzel James Figy Amanda Dyslin Brian Arola

PHOTOGRAPHERS Pat Christman Jackson Forderer PAGE DESIGNER

Christina Sankey

ADVERTISING Phil Seibel MANAGER ADVERTISING Jordan Greer-Friesz SALES 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.

6 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

Tree lot memories T

here’s a great scene in “A C h r i s t m a s S t o r y � that doesn’t get a lot of attention, but probably reminds a lot of people of how Christmas tree shopping used to be.

Ralph’s mom and dad are at a Christmas tree lot, haggling with the salesman over prices and tree varieties. Finally, they decide upon one. It’s a quick scene. But every time I see it, it takes me back to the parking lot of the Dairy Queen on White Bear Avenue in St. Paul.

To a 6-year-old kid who grew up on asphalt, the Dairy Queen parking lot during Christmas was a wonder. It would have been closed for months by then, but for a few weeks in November and December, dozens of trees sprouted up in the lot seemingly overnight. Some gorgeous, some homely, some big, some small, some within our family budget (which was small) and many that were not.

The humble Murray family would always leave with what my dad called the “diamond in the rough� of Christmas trees, even if every one of those diamonds had an ugly backside that we’d strategically face to the corner.

And that’s where I thought Christmas trees came from. Dairy Queen parking lots.

As I got older, I learned the truth, of course. I also had a front

ŀŲ

Ŀ Christmas trees. My best friend Kenny had a dad, Bill, who was always looking for ways to made a few extra bucks. He was a truck farmer, raised homing pigeons in their backyard, and every Christmas he turned their family Ǖ ŕŲ Ǖ \ He had this contraption that

Ç• Ç• Ĺą

sprayed tree branches with faux

snow. It was all the rage for a while in Middle America. There were several Christmases where we skipped the Dairy Queen parking lot and bought one of Bill’s trees (at a reduced rate, of course.) I thought it was beautiful at the time. Now the thought of a Ų

Ç” Ç• to everything we hold sacred about the holiday. I mean, how dare Ç— ǘ ǘ H Ç—Ç?Ç— Ç— ǘ with fake snow!

Our cover story this month takes us light years away from trees bought in Dairy Queen parking lots or covered with fake snow. We visit with a trio of family-owned tree farms that get tons of visitors this time of year as families make their annual pilgrimage — saws in hand — to “chop� down a forest pine.

T h e C h r i s t m a s t re e f a r m business is a tough one, but these families are happy to be able to provide not only trees to happy customers, but also memories.

Also in this issue, we touch base with area churches because, you know, Jesus. In a culture awash in reasons to loathe what the American Christmas tradition has become, you can rest easy knowing our religious institutions are busy reminding us what the season is really all about.

Finally, our familiar faces feature introduces you to Bernie and Sue Thompson, the Mankato couple that has run the Toys for Tots program for years.

Happy holidays, everyone!

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 • DECEMBER 2017 • 7

This Day in history

Happy Holidays

By Jean Lundquist

Tuesday, Dec. 16, 1946 Bob Hodgsons farm talks When the land is frozen solid, there isn’t much farm work to do, and the farm settles down to the routine of chores and preparation for spring. I’ve never lived on a grain farm, where one can leave for Florida when it’s too cold to plow. That may have its advantages, but most farms in southern Minnesota grow their crops through livestock. And that means a busy routine through winter as well as summer. Fall pigs are past the critical point of infancy, and can finish making hogs of themselves. They need feed and straw hauled to them, but there are enough warm days to choose to do these chores. How those pork chop producers do make the feed disappear.

Friday, Dec. 1, 1911 How many times can you write Hallet and Davis on a card 3 by 4 inches?

This is a great competition of skill to win a $325 piano for free.

Everyone had an equal opportunity to win. Reason for the competition: to reach those interested in pianos in order to win a fine piano free will interest all music lovers. Plus, the publicity will pay for the piano many times over. On a card or piece of paper measuring 3 by 4 inches, the words Hallet and Davis must be written clearly and plainly, numbered in sequential order, with no words overlapping another. Contest closes 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 2, 1911. Write one side of the paper only. Only one card submitted by one family. Send your card to Jos. G. Fredrichs Piano company, 412 S. Front Street, Factory Distributors of Hallet and Davis.

Tuesday, Dec. 12, 1939 Judges named for UTC Amateur Talent Contest Friday Judges for the United Commercial Travelers talent contest, which will be held Friday evening at 8 o’clock, include Alexis Panlova and Elias J. Halling, both music instructors at the Mankato Teachers College, and one of the assistant managers at the Minnesota Theater in Minneapolis, Don Heflin. There are 41 entrants in the contest representing many sectors of southern Minnesota. The winner of the contest will be given the opportunity to perform over WTCN on Dec. 22, and a week’s engagement at the Minnesota Theater.

Tuesday, Dec. 9, 1959 Direct line to the North Pole at Le Sueur If Santa Claus doesn’t bring the right gifts to the children of Le Sueur, it won’t be the fault of the Chamber of Commerce. It has provided a direct line from Santa’s Wonderland in downtown Le Sueur to his home at the North Pole. From the time it opened Friday afternoon, a steady stream of young telephoners has kept the line humming. Santa’s Wonderland has set up in the former creamery building on Main Street.

Here the young people can see Santa’s workshop, his sleigh and reindeer, and lots of toys. They can also go for rides in the little cars.

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Friday, Dec. 16, 1983 Snow narrowing parking choices It just keeps on snowing, and since little of it is melting, city workers are hard put to stow it. The streets are becoming narrower and more dangerous. It may be a long time before Mankato is anywhere near normal – like spring. So in the meantime, the city has once again decided to enforce no parking on one side of especially dangerous streets. These streets will have only one side open for parking until spring. Large red, white and blue signs with the picture of a snowflake and No Parking, Tow-Away Zone, will remind motorists of the parking plan.

The Gallery: Yvette Spagenberg Story by Leticia Gonzales

Culture Class

A

St. Peter artist’s globetrotting inspires her art

world traveler and native of South Africa, St. Peter resident Yvette Spagenberg is bringing her culturallyinfused artistic skills to homeschool families in the area.

“My mother was an oil painter and did commission work when we grew up,” said Spagenberg of her early upbringing in the art. “I was just always exposed to art. I just grew up in that environment.”

Spagenberg said her mother’s background in fine arts had a strong impact on her decision to study children’s art at NorthWest University in Potchefstroom, North-West Province in South Africa.

“I always painted with her,” she shared. “There was no limit to what we could do.”

While in school, Spagenberg traveled up and down South Africa, which gave her a lot of exposure to many cultures.

“I love street art,” she said. “Just to be with the artists in the street in the middle of Lusaka, which is in Zimbabwe; just soaking up and just painting with them in the street.”

Despite moving around the world from St. Peter to New Zealand to Canada and back to St. Peter, Spagenberg says the culture of Africa has stayed with her.

“The expression of how they see the world and how they like the world to be; that was a big deal to us,” she said. “I have an African mindset when it comes to art. I just loving what art can be.”

Having lived in the area now for the past four years, Spagenberg works as a paraprofessional in special education during the day, juggles a few commission-based illustration

projects, and teaches art after school to several homeschool families.

“I teach mostly the masters with a foundation in painting and drawing,” she shared. “We have such a good resource in artists that we can use. I like to work with maps. And we map who the artists are and where they come from and what their inspirations were.”

During her instruction, Spagenberg also focuses heavily on character development and how it intertwines with curriculum-based illustration.

“I’m just bringing it to life,” she said. “I’m bringing it to life in a way that it’s a little bit eccentric.”

Whether it’s a study on Joan Miro or drafting illustrations about various characters, her goal at the end of each session is to motivate her students.

Having taught children in some many different countries, Spagenberg has found common ground in one aspect — how alike the children are no matter where they live.

“They have the same dreams, they have the same laugh, they share the same emotions,” she said.

It is the mix of culture that ultimately has a strong influence on the children, said Spagenberg, who described art as not only more than just painting and drawing, but also an important resource that can enrich many subjects.

“I think if we can get people to understand that and get that exposure out, especially at the younger levels, we are going to have a more enriched community,” she said. “It will bring the community together. It will bring connections.”

MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 9

The Chankaska Creek Ranch & Winery offers a large outdoor fireplace where different people can gather in comfortable proximity to each other.

Flames of knowledge burn bright….and long I

n November and December we’re drawn together as people.

Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. We have a reason to gather. And celebrate.

But whatever our creed or faith, it seems light, and by ùã ÃÜ«Êà ăØ ʃ Ø ÕØ Ü ÃãÜ èë¡ú«Ã¢ Õ¨úÜ« ¼ Õ¨ ÃÊ à ʈ And so it’s worth considering the presence and power of light à ăØ ʃ 㨠ÂÊÜã à ãèØ ¼ ¡ÊØ ʡ ¼«¢¨ãʈ Fire is not easily explained to those not schooled in sciences. So it’s mysterious, though its universal attraction is undeniable.

According to the website sciencelearn.org fire is “the ó«Ü« ¼ ė ã Ê¡ 㨠ÕØÊ ÜÜ Ê¡ Ê èÜã«Êà ʡ ÜÕ « ¼ ãúÕ of chemical reaction. It occurs between oxygen in the air and some sort of fuel. The products from the chemical reaction Ø ÊÂÕ¼ ã ¼ú «ė Ø Ãã ¡ØÊ 㨠Üã Øã«Ã¢  ã Ø« ¼ʈ “The fuel must be heated to its ignition temperature for 10 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

combustion to occur. The reaction will keep going as long as there is enough heat, fuel and oxygen. This is known as the ăØ ãØ« â¼ ʈʮ ,à A ù ãÊʃ 㨠ÜúÂ Ê¼Ü Ê¡ ăØ ÜèØØÊèà èÜʈ A«Ãà ÜÊã Zã ã fëó ØÜ«ãúʰÜ ãØ Â Ø¹ Ą  ¼Ê¢Ê ¨ ¢è« èÜ ¡ÊØ Üʈ a¨ AZf Ą  ¨ Ü ÜÊ ô¨ ã ÂúÜã Ø«ÊèÜ ÊØ«¢«ÃÜʃ èã 㨠ăÃ Õ ÊÕ¼ ã 㨠AZf Ø ¨«ó Ü ¨ ó ¡Êèà «ã ãÊ have appeared on the cover of the 1951 Katonian — the MSU yearbook.

However, as university archivist Daardi Sizemore astutely points out, the flame icon did not appear on university commencement programs or the undergraduate catalog in the 1950s.

In 1963, the flame appeared to have burned out as a university logo and a new seal/logo was adopted. The new logo was designed by university art teacher Alice Ottinger and represented the university’s connection to the Indian heritage with a geometric like design that represented

ƌƊƟƳƲƨ ơƏƊ ĆąĆĽĆ˜ĆŤĆ­Ć˛

By Joe Spear

“a totem pole with Indians hovering in the background,� according to a story in the university Reporter.

Ottinger told the newspaper the administration wanted a distinctive logo, different from most universities that ÂŤĂƒÂ?Ÿè“—“ 㨗 ãúՍÂ? Ÿ Â?ÂŤĂ˜Â?ÂźÂ—Ęƒ Ą Â— ĂŠĂ˜ ĂŠĂ•Â—Ăƒ ÂŒĂŠĂŠÂšĘˆ a¨— Ą Â— Ă˜Â—Ę˘Â Ă•Ă•Â—Â Ă˜Â—Â“ ÂŤĂƒ 㨗 ĂƒÂ—Ă´ ĂœÂ—Â Âź “—ó—ŸÊ՗“ ÂŒĂş  ¨Â? ¢Ê Â“Â—ĂœÂŤÂ˘Ăƒ ÄƒĂ˜Ă‚ ÂŤĂƒ ČşÉ‚É€ČşĘˆ Ă•Ă•Ă˜ĂŠĂłÂ—Â“ ÂŒĂş AZf SĂ˜Â—ĂœÂŤÂ“Â—ĂƒĂŁ 7Â Ă‚Â—Ăœ BÂŤÂ?ÂšÂ—Ă˜ĂœĂŠĂƒ 㨗 ʭĄ Â— ĂŠÂĄ ÂšĂƒĂŠĂ´ÂźÂ—Â“Â˘Â—ĘŽ Ă´Â Ăœ Œ Â?š ÂĄĂ˜ĂŠĂƒĂŁ and center, atop a stylized “Mâ€? for Mankato.

The design lasted until 1999 when the university became “Minnesota State University.â€? The logo was changed to include a globe and the outline of the state of Minnesota, indicating the university’s global reach. a¨— ʭĄ Â— ĂŠÂĄ ÂšĂƒĂŠĂ´ÂźÂ—Â“Â˘Â—ĘŽ Ă´Â Ăœ Â ÂźĂœĂŠ Â?Â¨Â ĂƒÂ˘Â—Â“ ĂŁĂŠ Â Ă‚ĂŠĂ˜Â— modern design that seems to have stood the test of time and Â?Â Ăƒ Œ— ĂœÂ—Â—Ăƒ Ă‚ĂŠĂœĂŁ Ă•Ă˜ĂŠĂ‚ÂŤĂƒÂ—ĂƒĂŁÂźĂş ĂŠĂƒ Ä„Â Â˘Ăœ Â¨Ă¨ĂƒÂ˘ ÂĄĂ˜ĂŠĂ‚ ÂźÂ Ă‚Ă•Ă•ĂŠĂœĂŁĂœ around campus and on the side of the Wigley Administration Building. , Ă´Â Ăœ ÂŤĂƒĂœĂ•ÂŤĂ˜Â—Â“ ÂŒĂş 㨠ã Ą Â— Ă´Â¨Â—Ăƒ , Ă´Â Ăœ  ã AZf ÂŤĂƒ ČşÉ‚É ČťĘˆ ,ĂŁ was March and a hint of spring was in the air, but it was just cold enough to motivate socializing college students to desire Â ÄƒĂ˜Â— ÂŒÂ—ĂşĂŠĂƒÂ“ 㨠ã Ă•Ă˜ĂŠĂłÂŤÂ“Â—Â“ ÂŒĂş 7 Â?š Â ĂƒÂŤÂ—ÂźĂœ ĂŠĂ˜ ĂƒĂƒÂŤÂ— #Ă˜Â—Â—Ăƒ ZĂ•Ă˜ÂŤĂƒÂ˘Ăœ Ă´ÂŤĂƒÂ— ĘĄ Â Â“Ă˜ÂŤĂƒÂš Ę­ÂĄĂŠĂ˜ 㨗 ÂźÂ Â“ÂŤÂ—ĂœĘŽ Â Ăœ ĂŠĂƒÂ— ŸÊÂ? Ÿ ÂźÂŤĂ—Ă¨ĂŠĂ˜ store ad suggested.

Friends had a new rental house downtown, on the edge of Ă•Â Ă˜Âš ôã¨ Â ÄƒĂ˜Â—Ă•ÂźÂ Â?— 㨠ã ÂŒÂ—Â˘Â˘Â—Â“ ÂĄĂŠĂ˜ Â Ă•Ă¨Ă˜Ă•ĂŠĂœÂ— ÂŤĂƒ ÂźÂŤÂĄÂ—Ęˆ èã ô— Ÿ Â?š—“ Ă´ĂŠĂŠÂ“Ęˆ rÂ¨Â—Ăƒ ô— ÄƒĂƒÂŤĂœÂ¨Â—Â“ èÕ Ă•Ă¨ĂŁĂŁÂŤĂƒÂ˘ Êèã a¨— VÂ—Ă•ĂŠĂ˜ĂŁÂ—Ă˜ college newspaper, I remembered wood I had seen earlier in the day. I had an inspiration. , Ă´Â—ĂƒĂŁ ĂŁĂŠ 㨗 ĂœĂŁĂ¨Â“Â—ĂƒĂŁ Ă¨ĂƒÂŤĂŠĂƒ ÂźĂŠÂ Â“ÂŤĂƒÂ˘ “ÊÂ?š Â ĂƒÂ“ ÄƒĂšÂ ĂŁÂ—Â“ ĂŠĂƒ 㨗 pallets just sitting there. I must admit, in my next action, beer was involved. I took a pallet and with my bare hands smacked it against the ground about half a dozen times until we had several pieces of kindling.

You might say I had a “big ideaâ€? and was “real world thinkingâ€? here. I will surmise this is not the way the founding ÂĄÂ ĂŁÂ¨Â—Ă˜Ăœ ĂŠÂĄ AZf ÂŤĂƒĂŁÂ—ĂƒÂ“Â—Â“ 㨗 Ą Â— ŸÊ¢Ê ĂŁĂŠ ¥è—Ÿ 㨗 ÂŤĂƒĂœĂ•ÂŤĂ˜Â ĂŁÂŤĂŠĂƒ of its students. For that, I apologize.

It’s a bit surprising to me that my longtime college friends remember and remind me of this story. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s a claim to fame or dubious distinction.

Bottom line: we now had some wood.

Fireplaces have long been part of the American tradition and we were not to be denied.

According to Oldhouseonline.com, modern fireplaces came about due to an American-born English count, who fought with the Brits in the American Revolution. Ę­r¨Ÿ— ÄƒĂ˜Â—Ă•ÂźÂ Â?Â—Ăœ ÂźÂ Ă˜Â˘Â— Â—ĂƒĂŠĂ¨Â˘Â¨ ĂŁĂŠ ĂœĂŁÂ ÂŒÂźÂ—  Â?ĂŠĂ´ Â?ĂŠĂƒĂŁÂŤĂƒĂ¨Â—Â“ ĂŁĂŠ Œ— Ă•ĂŠĂ•Ă¨ÂźÂ Ă˜ ô—ŸŸ ÂŤĂƒĂŁĂŠ 㨗 Â—Â Ă˜ÂźĂş Ⱥɂ㨠Â?Â—ĂƒĂŁĂ¨Ă˜ĂşĘƒ Â Ă˜ĂŠĂ¨ĂƒÂ“ ȺɀɂȞ ZÂŤĂ˜ Â—ĂƒÂśÂ Ă‚ÂŤĂƒ aÂ¨ĂŠĂ‚Ă•ĂœĂŠĂƒ Ę Â ÂšÂ ĂŠĂ¨ĂƒĂŁ VĂ¨Ă‚ÂĄĂŠĂ˜Â“ Ę ÂŒÂ—Â˘Â Ăƒ ÄƒÂ“Â“ÂźÂŤĂƒÂ˘ ôã¨ 㨗 Â“Â—ĂœÂŤÂ˘Ăƒ ĂŠÂĄ 㨗 ÄƒĂ˜Â—ÂŒĂŠĂšĘˆ a¨— Ă˜Â—ĂœĂ¨ÂźĂŁ ĂŠÂĄ Â¨ÂŤĂœ Â—Ä—ĂŠĂ˜ĂŁĂœ ÂŤĂœ 㨗 ÂŒÂ ĂœÂŤĂœ ÂĄĂŠĂ˜  ŸŸ ĂŠĂ•Â—Ăƒ ÄƒĂ˜Â—Ă•ÂźÂ Â?Â—Ăœ ĂŁĂŠÂ“Â ĂşĘˆ aÂ ÂźÂźÂ—Ă˜ ĂŁÂ¨Â Ăƒ ÂŤĂŁ ÂŤĂœ 􍓗 and smaller and shallower than older styles, the Rumford ÄƒĂ˜Â—Ă•ÂźÂ Â?— Â¨Â Ăœ ĂœÂ¨Â Ă˜Ă•ÂźĂş Â ĂƒÂ˘ÂźÂ—Â“ Â?ĂŠĂłÂŤĂƒÂ˘Ăœ ĂŠĂƒ Â—ÂŤĂŁÂ¨Â—Ă˜ ĂœÂŤÂ“Â—Ęˆ a¨— ingenious design throws more radiant heat into a room than its predecessors.â€? , Ă‚Â Ăş Œ— Ă´Ă˜ĂŠĂƒÂ˘Ęƒ ÂŒĂ¨ĂŁ ,Ę°Ă‚ Ă•Ă˜Â—ĂŁĂŁĂş ĂœĂ¨Ă˜Â— 㨗 ÄƒĂ˜Â—Ă•ÂźÂ Â?—  ã Â¨Â ĂƒÂ“ was a Rumford, though this was not the subject of our intellectual discussions that night. , ¨ ó—  ¥ ÂŸú Â¨ÂŤĂœĂŁĂŠĂ˜Ăş ôã¨ ÄƒĂ˜Â—Ă•ÂźÂ Â?Â—Ăœ Â ĂƒÂ“ Ă‚Ăş ÂŤĂƒĂŁÂ—ĂƒĂœÂ— interest in them may be hereditary. My dad was not a count, but he was a sheet metal worker and when I was about 10

he installed a sheet metal fireplace kit in our St. Paul rambler, some of the parts of which were handcrafted by him in our basement workshop.

It had three open sides and threw plenty of heat, an art deco version of the Rumford. )— ÄƒĂƒÂŤĂœÂ¨Â—Â“ 㨗 ÄƒĂ˜Â—Ă•ÂźÂ Â?— in July. And if you build a fireplace in July, you, of course must test it in July.

We turned on the fans.

My e a rl y f i re p l a c e experiences influenced the places I now seek out.

If they have a fireplace, MSU’s “flame of knowledgeâ€? they’re in. There’s a has been an iconic symbol since the 1950s. beautiful Kasota stone ĂŠĂ¨ĂŁÂ“ĂŠĂŠĂ˜ ÄƒĂ˜Â—Ă•ÂźÂ Â?—  ã Â¨Â ĂƒÂšÂ ĂœÂšÂ Ă˜Â—Â—Âš VÂ ĂƒÂ?¨ Â ĂƒÂ“ rÂŤĂƒÂ—Ă˜ĂşĘˆ When you go to a winery you wonder if you are sophisticated enough to hang out with this crowd of bespectacled professors drinking chardonnay until you see their Bud Light drinking sons-in-law, who roll their eyes discreetly. èã ĂŁÂ¨Â—Ă˜Â—Ę°Ăœ Â ÄƒĂ˜Â—Ă•ÂźÂ Â?Â—Ęˆ ĂƒÂ“ 㨗 Â?Â¨Â Ă˜Â“ĂŠĂƒĂƒÂ ĂşĂœ Â ĂƒÂ“ 㨗 è“ Lights and the pinot noirs gather without worry of occupying the same space. Fireplaces break down class barriers, and sometimes numb the senses that remind the professors who their daughters married.  Â?ÂšĂşÂ Ă˜Â“ ÄƒĂ˜Â—Ăœ Â“Ă˜Â Ă´ ĂşĂŠĂ¨Ă˜ ĂƒÂ—ÂŤÂ˘Â¨ÂŒĂŠĂ˜Ăœ Ÿ ã—  ã ĂƒÂŤÂ˘Â¨ĂŁ Ă´Â¨Â—Ăƒ 㨗ú are thinking of some things they don’t think about during the day. And maybe you don’t talk to them much, but you like them nonetheless, or ever more so because they’ve walked ĂŠĂłÂ—Ă˜ ĂŁĂŠ ĂşĂŠĂ¨Ă˜ ÄƒĂ˜Â—Ęƒ Ă¨ĂƒÂŤĂƒĂłÂŤĂŁÂ—Â“Ęƒ Â ĂƒÂ“ úÊè ÂšĂƒĂŠĂ´ 㨗ú ¨ ó— ĂŁÂ¨ÂŤĂƒÂ˘Ăœ to say. a¨—ú ĂŁÂ¨Ă˜ĂŠĂ´ ĂŁÂ¨ĂŠĂ¨Â˘Â¨ĂŁĂœ Êèã ĂŠĂłÂ—Ă˜ 㨗 ÄƒĂ˜Â— Ÿš— Ă´ĂŠĂƒÂ“Â—Ă˜ÂŤĂƒÂ˘ Â ÂŒĂŠĂ¨ĂŁ how many kids they should have and when they should have ĂŁÂ¨Â—Ă‚Ęˆ ĂƒÂ“ ĂœĂŠĂ‚Â—ĂŠĂƒÂ— ĂœÂ ĂşĂœ ĂŁÂ¨Â—Ă˜Â—Ę°Ăœ ĂŁÂŤĂ‚Â—Ęˆ xĂŠĂ¨Ę°Ă˜Â— ĂŠĂƒÂźĂş ČťČżĘˆ ĂƒÂ“ 㨗 ÄƒĂ˜Â— ĂœĂŠĂŠĂŁÂ¨Â—Ăœ ĂŁÂ¨ĂŠĂœÂ— Ă´ĂŠĂ˜Â“Ăœ ÂŤĂƒĂŁĂŠ ĂŁÂ¨Â—ÂŤĂ˜ Ă‚ÂŤĂƒÂ“ Â ĂƒÂ“ 㨗ú ¥——Ÿ Ă‚ĂŠĂ˜Â— comfortable, and decisive.

And you see your friends on Facebook who you haven’t talked too much except at class reunions every 10 years and 㨗ú Â Ă˜Â—  ã 㨗 ĂœÂ Ă‚Â— ÄƒĂ˜Â— Ă•ÂŤĂŁ úÊè Ă´Â—Ă˜Â—  ã ĂŠĂƒ 㨗 BĂŠĂ˜ĂŁÂ¨ ZÂ¨ĂŠĂ˜Â—Ęˆ And you’re connected once again.

And you sit alone at home where the noise of kids and ÂŤĂœĂƒÂ—Ăş Ă‚ĂŠĂłÂŤÂ—Ăœ ĂŠĂƒÂ?— ÄƒÂźÂźÂ—Â“ 㨗 ÂźÂŤĂłÂŤĂƒÂ˘ Ă˜ĂŠĂŠĂ‚Ęˆ BĂŠĂ´ úÊè ĂœÂŤĂŁ ÂŤĂƒ ÂĄĂ˜ĂŠĂƒĂŁ ĂŠÂĄ Â Ă˜Â—Â Âź ÄƒĂ˜Â— ÂŤĂƒ 㨗 Ă˜Â—Â Âź ÄƒĂ˜Â—Ă•ÂźÂ Â?— ôã¨ Ă˜Â—Â Âź Ă‚Â Ă•ÂźÂ—Ęƒ Ê š and pine crackling and there’s no other noise and no Disney movies.

There’s no better way to spend a long winter than in front ĂŠÂĄ Â ÄƒĂ˜Â—Ęˆ ,ĂŁĘ°Ăœ Â?ĂŠĂ‚ÂĄĂŠĂ˜ĂŁÂŤĂƒÂ˘ Â—ĂšĂ•Â—Ă˜ÂŤÂ—ĂƒÂ?— ÂŤĂƒ Â Ă´ĂŠĂ˜ÂźÂ“ Œ—Â?ĂŠĂ‚ÂŤĂƒÂ˘ more divided.

ZÊ— ĂœÂ¨Â—Ă•Â¨Â—Ă˜Â“Ăœ Â˘Â ĂŁÂ¨Â—Ă˜Â—Â“ ĂŠĂƒ Â Â¨ÂŤÂźÂźĂœÂŤÂ“Â— Â Ă˜ĂŠĂ¨ĂƒÂ“ Â ÄƒĂ˜Â— Â ÂŒĂŠĂ¨ĂŁ ȝȚȚȚ ĂşÂ—Â Ă˜Ăœ Â Â˘ĂŠĘˆ ŸÊã ĂŠÂĄ ՗ Â?— Â ĂƒÂ“ Â?óŸãú Â¨Â Ăœ Ÿ—¥ã Ă¨Ăœ ĂœÂŤĂƒÂ?— ĂŁÂ¨Â—ĂƒĘƒ ÂŒĂ¨ĂŁ 㨗 ÄƒĂ˜Â— ÂŤĂœ ĂœĂŁÂŤÂźÂź ôã¨ Ă¨ĂœĘˆ Joe Spear is editor of Mankato Magazine.

Contact him at jspear@mankatofreepress.com or 344-6382. Follow on Twitter @jfspear.

MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 11

Familiar Faces: Bernie And Sue Thompson

By Amanda Dyslin

Sue and Bernie Thompson have made toy collecting for the needy part of their Christmas tradition.

For the love of kids, Christmas and country Marine Corps vet and wife are longtime coordinators of Mankato Toys for Tots Photos by Pat Christman

T

he United States Marine Corps is a big part of Bernie and Sue Thompson’s family.

Bernie served from 1983-1987, and now two of their children are Marines, one having served from 2009-2013 and the other from 2012-2017.

“You never stop being a Marine,” Bernie said.

And it was also through Bernie’s involvement in the Marine Corps League veterans’ organization that he and Sue became coordinators of Mankato’s U.S. Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots chapter in 2004.

There hadn’t been a chapter in the area since the

12 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

early 1990s, and the league wanted to get a local chapter going again. Despite not having any previous personal or professional affiliation with Toys for Tots, the Thompsons were happy to sign on, and the charity dedicated to getting toys to needy children at Christmas has been an enormous part of their holiday season ever since.

“As the years have gone by, I’ve understood that it’s a good thing for the community, and it’s a great thing for the kids,” Bernie said. “When I was younger, if I hadn’t got any toys, how would I feel?”

Bernie and Sue Thompson Name:

Age: Bernie, 56; Sue, 49 City of residence: North Mankato Job title: Coordinators of Mankato Toys for Tots (serving Blue Earth, Nicollet and Waseca counties); Bernie is also a mechanic at A to Z Rental, and Sue is an on-call branch office administrator for Edward Jones and was a nurse for 26 years at St. Marys Hospital in Rochester Family: Four kids ranging in age from 15 to 27 years old

Most families sign up for the program through social services, and they come to the distribution site at the Mankato Armory for pickup a week or so before Christmas.

Mankato Magazine: What is the scope of the need in the three counties you serve? How many toys are collected and distributed in our area every year?

Sue Thompson: About 12,000 toys.

We’ve already got 300 or 400 families signed up (as of Nov. 1). We serve about 3,500 children.

MM: Of all the charity work that happens during the holiday season, what makes Toys for Tots special and important in our community?

ST: For one, it’s for the kids. That is the huge, biggest seller of our program. And we have a great ratio of our spending: 97 percent nationally goes toward toys (3 percent is administrative).

Bernie Thompson: It stays local, and it’s just for kids. And also it’s unique in the way that it’s the only official program run by the military that interfaces directly with the public. It’s an official program of the United State Marine Corps.

MM: Do you personally get to see the positive effects the charity has on families?

ST: Oh yes, we have. I have to tell you this story about one of the first years we did it. The families come in, and Bernie was going to be at the end of the line to say goodbye to everyone. And a mom came in and got her bag (of toys), and she just started crying and said, “Thank you so much,” and, of course, Bernie started tearing up. And then he said, “OK, I can’t be at

the end of the line anymore.”

BT: We have had people who are really grateful. I gave a boy a bike about five years ago, in 2013. We had a bad snowstorm, and a child came in with his mother, and he was kind of sitting there all by himself, so I went and was talking to him.

I said, “Do you have a bicycle?” And he said no, so I said, “Do you want a bicycle?” He wasn’t sure about it, so I went in the back, and I took one of the bicycles out, and it was snowing so hard you couldn’t even see across the street. But he took that bicycle and rode it right out the door. He was so happy to have that bicycle. … Even now, thinking about it, I get kind of choked up.

MM: Was there a toy that you remember receiving as a child that meant a great deal to you?

BT: It was a yellow, 25-pound bow and arrow. Santa Claus brought it. It was actually a neighbor who pulled up on a sleigh with horses, and he gave us all these things. I was young, 10 maybe. … My parents also used to take toys and put them in the chimney.

My mom never liked to wrap stuff, so that made it easy. We would look inside, and there were all these toys in there.

MM: What is Christmas like for your family now?

ST: We don’t have Christmas here because we run this program (laughs).

BT: We get up on Christmas morning; most of our kids are around here, so we have Christmas morning here. We do (Toys for Tots) distribution a week before, and that gives us the week before Christmas to do our shopping. We’re not big on Christmas decorations, though.

ST: We just don’t have time. Our youngest daughter was 18 months old when we started this program. That’s all she knows is us doing this program. Our hope is that we are really good role models (for our kids).

MM: What are some of your interests or hobbies beyond the Christmas season?

BT: We like to travel. I was stationed in Hawaii, so we have been there quite a few times.

ST: Also, San Diego and the coast of California. And the mountains. We like Colorado.

MM: What would the community be surprised to

learn about you?

BT: We met in the hospital. She was my nurse. I was in a really bad farm accident. I spent a little time in the hospital, and I must have had a really good health plan because they sent me home with a nurse.

MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 13

Day Trip Destinations: W.W. Mayo House

By James Figy

The Mayo House, built in 1859, housed the founders of Mayo Clinic, Green Giant, and later housed the Le Sueur library before becoming a designated historical site. Photo by James Figy

Olde Fashioned Christmas Candlelit tours of the W.W. Mayo House harken to holidays of yore

A

visit to the doctor probably doesn’t scream Christmas cheer to most people. But it’s different if the doctor’s office is the historic W.W. Mayo House in Le Sueur. Each year, Site Manager Becky Pollack and her staff decorate the gothic-style home on Main St. for afternoon and evening tours.

The historic residence housed two prestigious families. William Worrall Mayo, a doctor and jack of all trades who eventually

14 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

opened the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, built the house and much of the original furniture by hand around 1859 when the family moved in. In 1874, Carson Nesbit Cosgrove, who started Green Giant, moved into the house, and it stayed in the family’s possession until the 1920s.

On the Christmas tours, Pollack discusses the families’ histories as well as the Christmas traditions they would have practiced while living at the house.

The Mayos were of English descent, with the doctor immigrating to the U.S. in 1845, so they would’ve hung holly and ivy around the house. The Cosgroves had Irish heritage, which would’ve led them to hang wreaths and light candles in the front windows.

Christmas trees, of course, were a German tradition.

“Out here on the frontier, this was a melting pot of people with all sorts of traditions based around Christmas,” Pollack said. “...We see

William Worrall Mayo had a small doctor’s office upstairs, though he, like other doctors of his time, would have treated his patients in their own homes. Photo by James Figy

GO IF YOU

Christmas tours of the W.W. Mayo House

Where: 118 N. Main St., Le Sueur, Minnesota 56058 When: Dec. 2, 1-4 p.m., Dec. 8 and 9, 6-8 p.m. or by appointment Admission: $4 to $6, free for Minnesota Historical Society Members and children under 4 Visit mayohouse.org for more information

how those traditions come together to be what we have for Christmas today.”

Mayo had moved slowly westward and married his wife, Louise, in Indiana. They had work and might’ve settled, but things changed when the two contracted Malaria. “Dr. Mayo, in one of his fits of fever, hooked up his horse and buggy and said, ‘I’m going to drive until I get well or die,’” Pollack said. At the Mississippi River, he boarded a steamboat to St. Paul. Minnesota was advertising as “Malaria Free” to draw people to the then territory, and he soon relocated the family.

The Mayos lived in Le Sueur for five years, and the doctor became an important figure. “He edited the first newspaper in town. He operated a ferry boat to get people back and forth across the river, as a bridge was not built yet. He either captained or clerked on a riverboat that was moving goods.

He had some cattle across the

river ... where he also served as justice of the peace,” Pollack said.

Upstairs the home has bedrooms and a small doctor’s office.

Downstairs is a kitchen, a formal parlor and a living area where Louise, a self-educated New Englander who loved astronomy and botany, would teach their children.

“Dr. Mayo was an avid book collector. Louise is quoted as saying, ‘If a book dealer was in town, the children would go without shoes,’” Pollack said. “But that was a little cheeky of her, because we know she would read all of his books as well.”

The family moved to Rochester in 1864 when the Minnesota Civil War draft board named Mayo examining surgeon, and the rest is history.

The W.W. Mayo House is open Saturdays during the summer, but those interested can tour the home by appointment. Also, for those who can’t make it to the

December tours, a few different events — a tea party and possibly a bridge tournament fundraiser — should happen early in 2018, Pollack said. Anyone interested should watch the Mayo House Facebook page and website or send an email to request a tour.

History buffs can also stop yearround at the nearby Ney Nature Center in Henderson, of which Pollack is executive director, to see a restored log cabin and homestead from the same era as the Mayo House. Either way, Pollack and her staff are happy to transport people back in time.

“History is just fascinating in general, but also it’s important that we watch how time changes and reflect upon what we have and what people had before us,” she said. “...I think the fact that this house is so nicely furnished and has great stories to go with it can really get people to interact more with this historic time period.”

MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 15

The Guggisberg family has been selling Christmas trees at its New Ulm farm since 1994.

FAMILY TREES

Growing Christmas trees brings families together

By James Figy | Photos by Pat Christman

P

icking out a Christmas tree is most often a family event, from loading everyone in the car and driving past snow-covered woods to walking row after row of fir and pine, shivering and debating about which is the right one. Eventually, the perfect tree just seems to appear. Most folks cut it down, take it home, and don’t worry about it again until next December.

16 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

For area farmers, though, Christmas trees are a family production year-round.

The holiday season brings cutting and wrapping trees, keeping the cocoa stocked and helping customers enjoy their experience. It also brings together these three tree-growing families. Each one has different a story about how they started farming Christmas trees, but none believes they could do it all without their loved ones.

‘All the beautiful trees’

Tony Guggisberg knows that southern Minnesota isn’t the easiest place to farm Christmas trees. The soil and growing conditions in general are more amenable further north. Also, it’s difficult to predict what type of trees customers will want a decade later when they’re ready to harvest. But since 1994, he’s made things work for Guggisberg Tree Farm in New Ulm, with the help of his wife, Marie, and their six kids — Elizabeth, Megan, Rachel, Matt, Jacob and Emily.

“This is corn and bean country,” he said. “So it’s not a huge money-maker for us, but I enjoy it. I have so many families who want to come out and cut the tree, and get out of the house and do a family activity.”

Guggisberg sells about 500 to 600 trees each winter. So in the

spring, his family plants about 1,000 new trees by hand. As the kids have grown, they’ve become able to assist more, and together the family can plant about a hundred trees per hour. He does most of the tree trimming during the summer, shaping the branches by swinging a long machete-like blade, but when the ground dries out, the kids water each tree with pails.

During the Christmas season, the farm demands a lot of hard work, but the whole family is usually excited. The kids help with selling, shaking out and tying trees on vehicles and sometimes just setting out cider and cookies.

The most difficult thing, with six kids, is choosing a tree for their own home. “Some years, I just bring one,” Guggisberg said.

“Other years, we have to vote. We let them pick some trees, and then all the kids can choose, and whoever has the majority, that’s the one we go with. The thing they do agree on is they like the short needles.”

But Guggisberg wouldn’t trade celebrating Christmas with a real tree. His was a very different experience growing up.

“My mom would wait until the day before Christmas to find a tree that maybe had half its branches. It was a last-minute thing,” he said, with a laugh.

“Then when I went to college for horticulture, … I worked for Christmas tree farms, cutting trees, and I thought, ‘Look at all the beautiful trees, and I had to grow up with a little scrubby one.’

“I will have people who come out looking for a Charlie Brownlooking tree, just because they say, ‘It’s got character, and I want to give it a home,’” he added. “So I’ve always said, too, they all serve the same purpose.”

Guggisberg Christmas Tree Farm

Open Nov. 24 to Dec. 24, by appointment weekdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday 17703 Grandview Road New Ulm MN, 56073

‘Engaging with your family’

Jenny Wilson didn’t always see herself as a tree farmer. Still, she and her four siblings helped as their parents, Scott and Mary Wilson, grew Brewery Hill Christmas Tree Farm from the ground up.

Wilson’s parents first purchased the farm as a partnership with her grandparents in 1980. They planned and worked even after selling their first trees in 1989.

However, the ’90s saw multiple droughts, and they spent much MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 17

John Beckwith planted trees in 2006. Today the family is building a Janesville-area tradition of the decade combating Mother Nature. Finally, everything clicked after 2000, and Wilson’s parents bought Brewery Hill outright.

“The farm really took off,” Wilson said. “…And today we’re close to 100,000 acres, and we manage about 60,000 trees.”

Over time, Wilson developed a love for tree farming. When she’s not busy working as a school teacher, she gets to work in nature with her parents. “It’s relaxing. It’s peaceful. It’s a way to let go of stress,” she said. “And like our customers, you’re engaging with your family.”

However, the peacefulness grows scarce around the end of November. The family’s holiday traditions revolve around celebration as much as they revolve around work. Every Thanksgiving morning, Wilson, her parents, her siblings and a cousin head out to the tree field to make wreaths, gather trees for their pre-cut area and generally prepare to open on Black Friday.

Brewery Hill offers an experience, not just a product, Wilson said. This draws customers to the farm’s you-pick 18 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

strawberry field in the summer and the pumpkin patch in the fall, too. It’s what the Wilsons have that big box hardware stores don’t. It’s a place for people to celebrate the holidays with their families — and with the Wilson family.

“I think people continuously come to Brewery Hill because we are family operated,” she said.

“We do have that notion that when you come to the farm one of us Wilsons are going to attend to you.”

Brewery Hill Christmas Tree Farm

Open Nov. 24 to Dec. 24, 3:30 p.m. to dark weekdays and 8 a.m. to dark on weekends 820 Ottawa Rd., Le Sueur, Minnesota 56058

‘Give other people the opportunity’

John Beckwith sees his tree farm as “more than a hobby, but less than a living.” Beckwith and his family began planting trees in 2006, five years before he retired. Since then, his wife, Cindy, and their three children,

Jason, Katie and Peter, have pitched in at The Back Forty in Janesville. The kids are all grown and don’t live in the area, but they still travel each year to help plant in the spring and then to sell trees just one weekend in December.

“For most people, it’s a family venture. It’s a fair amount of work at some times,” Beckwith said. “The third week of April, we’ll be planting trees. It’s not that I can’t do it myself, but it’s a lot easier if I have help.”

Although the Beckwiths have lived at the Janesville house a short time, it’s part of the family’s history. Cindy’s great grandmother purchased it in 1892. “She had a bunch of sons, and bought the farm and put them to work,” he said.

The farm has provided an experiment for Beckwith, who worked for years as a water conservation specialist for the Natural Resources Conservation Service. He’s planted Balsam, Fraser and Canaan fir, along with white and red pine to see what will work. He’s run irrigation, joined growers associations and contacted university scientists

when something strange appears on a tree.

So many things could go wrong that it’s necessary to make sure the trees are okay. After all, Beckwith can’t risk losing the decade it took to grow the tree because an aphid attacked it, because root rot from the alfalfa that once grew in that field made a comeback. There’s a lot riding on keeping the trees healthy, including money, the memories and also the environment.

Buying a real tree reduces greenhouse gases, because it limits the amount of petroleum derived trees coming from factories, according to the Minnesota Christmas Tree Association. Also, Christmas tree growers usually plant two trees for every one that’s cut down, and the younger trees convert carbon dioxide to oxygen at a higher rate. (For cost-conscious shoppers, artificial trees can save you money if you reuse the tree for several years, and newer manufacturing techniques taken the lead and other toxins out of the process.)

For his part, Beckwith has always had a real tree. He remembers going out as a boy in northern Minnesota and cutting down tall black pines in the woods near Grand Rapids. Ever since he married Cindy and they started a family, getting a real tree has been a family tradition.

No matter where they moved across the nation, the Beckwiths would bundle up, drive past snowy woods, debate about who got to pick this time and, eventually, bring one home.

“We moved to several places in Minnesota; Eau Claire, (Wis.); Lincoln, Nebraska; and Salt Lake City. We moved around quite a bit, but we always went to a tree farm and cut a tree down,” he said. “We liked it. Now we give other people the opportunity.”

MM

The Back Forty

Open Dec. 1 and 2 63005 172nd, Janesville, Minnesota 56048

Something for Everyone on Your Christmas List!

• Hand and Power Tools • Western & Flannel Shirts • Automotive Accessories • Winter Outerwear • Ertl Farm Toys • Printed & Embroidered Sweatshirts • Carhartt Casual Wear • Radio Flyer Wagons • Fleecewear • Year-Round Workwear • Housewares • Winter Workwear • Horse Tack • Western & Work Boots

• Air Compressors & Accessories • Weber Grills and Grilling Accessories • Barco, Cherokee, Dickies & Carhartt Nursing Uniforms • Echo & Stihl Power Equipment

Gift Cards Available!

EXPIRES DEC. 24TH 2017

Employee owned - Local company since 1957 HOME • FARM • COMMERCIAL

MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 19

During the holiday season, the Salvation Army’s bell ringers come out in full force. The red kettles are a substantial part of the organization’s fundraising efforts, and help it provide housing for the homeless and food for the hungry all year long.

season Tis the

Mankato Christmas a time for generosity, reflection

By Brian Arola

H

ave you felt it in the air?

If not, you’ve probably heard it while out shopping. The musical selections at various stores around town do take on a more jingly tone after Thanksgiving — or before, depending on your jollyness.

Or you’ve noticed it at that neighbor of yours, their home lit up with apparently no regard for their bloated electric bill. Some things are just more important than money, and one of those things 20 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

seems to be the celebration of Christmas.

Like most of its midwestern city peers, Mankato’s Christmas season is felt across the community come November and December. The reason for the season, for Christians at least, is of course the birth of Christ. But how churches and organizations spend the lead-up to one of their most important holidays differs.

For some, Christmas’ imminent approach kicks them into high gear. Their ability to help people in

Michele Ekstrom (left) leads a choir of youngsters through a song at Hosanna Lutheran Church. The choir from late October into early November picked up over 20 new members. Photo by Casey Ek need throughout the following year depends on a strong fundraising push around the holidays.

The Salvation Army knows this feeling well. Come November, its bell ringers and red kettles deploy at area stores. Bell ringing is one of the single most crucial fundraising opportunities the nonprofit has, said Major Jonathan Fjellman of the Mankato Salvation Army.

“It makes it so we can keep the men’s shelter going, provide the Christmas assistance, keep the feeding program going,” he said.

Christmas season, as you might imagine, becomes quite hectic down there. Fjellman and wife, Linda, have been overseeing Salvation Army holiday efforts for decades across various communities. Last year was their first in Mankato, but they’ve been encouraged by the community’s generosity come Christmas time.

“I think the best thing about Christmas is it changes people’s attitudes from receiving to giving,” Jonathan Fjellman said.

“Our country really needs that at

this time.”

The spirit of giving extends to other programs this time of year as well. The Holiday Sharing Tree program takes in enough donations to provide gifts to more than 900 families in a given year. Toys for Tots of Blue Earth, Nicollet and Waseca counties brings in between 10,000 and 12,000 toys for distribution most years.

Operation Christmas Child collected 6,462 shoe boxes full of goods last year from area collection sites before shipping them to children who likely wouldn’t see a gift otherwise across the globe.

Those are just a few of the efforts coinciding with the Christmas season every year in Mankato, but they’re all going strong because generosity always seems to come through in the clutch.

“It’s been amazing, it really has,” said Sue Thompson, a longtime coordinator of Toys for Tots with her husband, Bernie.

“We’re so blessed to live in a

community that gives so much, both toys and monetary.”

What about the holiday season induces this heightened willingness to give? Paulette Adams, coordinator of Operation Christmas Child, said it likely has to do with the positive memories many have of their own childhood Christmases. The thought of others not experiencing that joy hits home.

“Christmas is an excellent time to remind you how fortunate you are in our town and country,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to reach out for others.”

Adams oversees the shoebox drive at its main site in Mankato, Hilltop United Methodist Church.

She said the effort is community wide with drop sites spread throughout the area, but members at Hilltop take to the drive with fervor, volunteering to pack boxes and load trucks year after year. She’s quick to note her church is just one of many faith communities that give back as the holidays approach.

“We certainly have active church communities, that ties MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 21

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into that in terms of Mankato being a generous community,” Adams said.

It’s true, service projects at churches are common come Christmas season. You can expect them just as you can expect churches to have their own unique celebrations of the holiday. Christmas is a big deal in Christian faith communities, after all. Easter is the only occasion that tops it in importance for the Christian faith.

Many churches transform to mark the coming of baby Jesus, bringing in evergreens, nativity scenes, wreaths and more to their sanctuaries. It creates the festive backdrop to what’s meant to be a reflective time of year, said Deacon John Rudd of St. Joseph the Worker Catholic Church in west Mankato.

Catholics, he said, see Advent — the four weeks leading up to Christmas — as a time to prepare for Jesus’ birth. Weddings and baptisms are held off for the most part in deference to the larger meaning of the season.

“It’s kind of a time for

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Hosanna Lutheran Church choir accompanist Sarah Keller works through notes for the youth choir, made up of children from first to sixth grade. Photo by Casey Ek

preparation, the scripture readings are about preparing the way for Christ’s birth,” Rudd said.

This ultimate meaning for the holiday can get clouded out by the consumerism of our society.

Keeping in mind the spirit of giving, or seeing the season as a chance to reconnect with family and friends becomes that much more important, Rudd said.

“I think you have to recognize that really faith and family are the most important things,” he said.

It’s up to the churches to tie

faith and family together in their Christmas traditions, which are meant to bring their faith community together. You can see this at just about any area church this time of year, even if it’s just a packed chapel for Christmas services.

Some in the pews are no doubt the ones who come only for Christmas and Easter, but others are family members of regular congregants in town to spend the holiday with local loved ones.

Either way, what church would complain about a packed house?

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Other churches come together before Christmas day to celebrate annual traditions. Hosanna Lutheran Church’s annual Christmas festivities require weeks of rehearsals, culminating in young and old coming together to sing in praise to the lord on Dec. 15-17. This year’s theme? What else but “Welcome the Newborn King.”

Sarah Keller, director of music ministry at the church, said it’s a beautiful service with a singular aim.

“Everybody has the same focus,” she said. “They just want to glorify Jesus.”

Then there are the personal traditions people hold dear. It can be as simple as sending out Christmas cards to family and friends.

Those cards are one of Rudd’s favorite parts about Christmas.

It’s a chance to see smiling faces and be updated on the lives of family and friends.

Rudd came from a childhood steeped in Christmas traditions.

He remembers up to 50 or 60 family coming to his house to spend the holiday together.

That’s what Christmas was about for his family: togetherness.

His mother died earlier this year, days away from what would’ve been her 100th birthday. Her death got him thinking about how the Christmas season should also be used to remember loved ones no longer with us. It was they, remember, who passed on so many holiday traditions to their children.

“A lot of them are with us in spirit,” Rudd said. “And a lot of those traditions that were started in our families live on.”

So while Christmas is above all about a birth, the birth spurs people to give, spurs them to come together, spurs them to help others over the holidays and beyond, and spurs traditions to live on even when the people who taught you the tradition physically don’t.

Now think about how all these happenings occur every single year in the lead up to Christmas in Mankato and so many other communities like it. You don’t have to be a believer to realize what an extraordinary birth it was. MM MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 23

Reflections

By Pat Christman

24 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

P

eople celebrate the Christmas season in a variety of ways. Most Christians find their way to Christmas church services during the holiday. Others celebrate by attending Christmas themed musical performances, volunteering or doing service projects, decorating homes with colorful lights and setting up a Christmas tree. It can be a joyous time of year.

For others, Christmas can be a struggle. It may remind them of lost loved ones. Maybe all the noise and bustle of the season is just a little too much.

Christmas can be a time where it can be hard to find a little peace and quiet.

No matter how, or if, you celebrate Christmas it can be a beautiful, and peaceful, time of year. MM

MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 25

Then & Now: Mankato’s Standard Brewing Company By: BRYCE O. STENZEL

Mankato’s Standard Brewing Company (1900-1908) S

tandard Brewing Company was located on North Fourth Street and the southeast corner of Elm Street in downtown Mankato. It occupied the site of the previous Mankato Lindseed Oil Company, which had operated there for 25 years.

26 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

Like several other local businesses that failed in the poor financial climate of 1897, Mankato Lindseed Oil Company declared bankruptcy.

After extensive improvements and remodeling of the building had taken place, Standard Brewing opened its doors in 1900. Its owners intended to produce beer and other bottled goods, including soft drinks.

The Mankato Review of Aug. 7, 1900, contained an article praising the establishment of the brewery: “It will repay the people of Mankato to visit the plant and look it over from basement to garret. They will find one of the finest and most complete breweries in the northwest, machinery and appliances of modern design, capable of turning out the best brew possible. The annual capacity of the brewery is 25,000 barrels…that it will succeed, there is no question.”

In its first year, the brewery did do well. The company even gave a Christmas party for 200 Mankato businessmen.

The Mankato Review provided an account of this party in its Dec. 24, 1901 edition. However, problems began to arise in the next few years.

In 1906, Henry Himmelman Jr. sold the Standard Brewing Company to Smart and Borders of Chicago. They operated it until November 1907 when it was taken over by John H. Hohmann (married to Stephen Lamm’s daughter, Carrie), Otto and Robert Lamm (sons of Stephen Lamm), as a means of protecting the Lamm family’s extensive investments in the business.

Despite their efforts to recover their losses, by 1908 it was all over; Standard Brewing Company closed its doors. It was too large of a physical plant to maintain, for

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the amount of business it was actually generating. Competition from the older Bierbauer Brewery made it impossible to secure additional business to bring Standard up to its full capacity, without investing an additional $75,000-$100,000.

All of the local trade was sold to the Bierbauer Brewing Company.

However; the soft drink segment of the business continued under the name of Standard Bottling, operated by William and Alex Coleman. It too, eventually went out of business. The Standard Brewing Company building was torn down in 1911.

Standard Brewing Company’s most enduring legacy was neither its business model nor its building.

Rather it was in the souvenir items it produced to advertise its product. One of the more dubious of these was a circular, metal serving tray with a full-color image, depicting the execution of the 38 Dakota warriors at Mankato on Dec. 26, 1862. The image was based on W. H. Child’s drawing of the scene, first published in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated News on Jan. 24, 1863.

Another was a rectangular tray, which was a wooden frame with handles, and had a glass surface on top. Under the glass was the same image. Attached to the wooden bottom of the tray was a written “history” of the Dakota Uprising, to provide a more detailed description of the events leading up to the execution.

Still another item was a rectangular metal sign depicting the same execution image (Child’s drawing became the “official” account of the event, since no known photograph of it was made: whether Childs was actually present at the execution or not

remains unknown), but with a twist. The sign shows a group of soldiers sitting on a wooden porch consuming bottles of beer as they watched the proceedings.

The glaring historical inaccuracies of this sign (martial law had been declared in Mankato, so drinking was prohibited, as well as the fact that the location of the porch would put it in the Minnesota River!) did not deter its creators. They had found an effective way to market their product, and they exploited the tragedy of the hanging in Mankato to do it. It was, after all, the largest mass-execution in U.S. history.

This sort of macabre art was both popular and politically correct in barrooms all over the west at the turn of the 20th century.

Offensive as they may seem today, the Dakota Uprising souvenir items were popular advertising tools.

Standard Brewing Company also gave out sturdy, ceramic beer mugs to its preferred customers. For a select few, cobalt-blue seltzer bottles were produced. Like the trays and beer signs, they are now highlysought collectables that fetch good prices on E-bay.

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MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 27

The curious case of

Curt Germundson An MSU art professor, he’s a ubiquitous presence downtown and at Mankato art galleries

By Robb Murray | Photos by Jackson Forderer

I

Curt Germundson is a regular presence in Mankato’s arts scene, especially at the 410 Project (top). The bottom photo shows him at work in an MSU classroom.

28 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

n a plain black ball cap and a T-shirt, Curt Germundson sits down behind what looks like a donated card table in the back room of the 410 Project. In a few hours, the gallery’s humble space will fill with art students and curious onlookers who have come to behold the latest up-and-coming artist, but for now Germundson is holding down the fort. An art professor at Minnesota State University, Germundson is the “volunteer on duty” at the moment. Friday is his regular day.

The 410’s back room — which anyone who has been there knows — is feast for the eyes.

Overhead, netting that nearly spans the room holds a few hundred balloons. (Looks like the ball pit at the YMCA, only you can’t jump into it; you can only gaze upward in wonder.) The hardwood floor is flecked with paint. Framed art is stacked everywhere. The 410 has recently had a show, and now the artists’ works are waiting for their owners to retrieve them. Paint brushes, jars, spray paint cans, extension cords, coffee pots, dart boards, giant rolls of newsprint all mingle together as your eyes try to navigate a room full of wonders.

One of those wonders, of course, is Germundson, himself.

Germundson takes pen in hand and grabs a blue essay book off the stack to his right. He’s grading midterms and Germundson is the kind of professor who still loves those blue essay exam booklets no one uses anymore. It’s important, he says, that his art history students know how to write, with pen on paper, about the thoughts in their heads regarding Gauguin, Goya, Ingres, Delacroix, Van Gogh.

A simple dresser, you won’t find Germundson in a suit as he’s talking to his students in the classroom about the impressionists. And you sure as heck won’t find him in one now. The same T-shirt, jeans, ballcap ensemble he wears to mold the minds of young artists, he wears to the back room of the 410 to put in his volunteer hours.

But perhaps the most undeniably peculiar thing about the back room is that Germundson’s likeness is … kind of everywhere. There’s a life-sized likeness directly behind him. Another one above that.

Another to the left of that one. Across the room there’s a few more.

He’s not the executive director here. Yet his face is

… sort of the face you’d remember about the 410 if you visited the back room.

When asked about it, Germundson shrugs it off.

No big deal, he says in his thick German accent (which is curious because he’s never lived in Germany.)

What is this guy’s story, you’d ask yourself.

Well, sit back. We’re going to tell you the story of Curt Germundson.

Disco Fever

First that accent.

“I have a German accent,” he says, “because I grew up in German-speaking part of Switzerland.”

But wait. Let’s back up. All the way to 1965.

Germundson was born in New Jersey. But not long after he was born, his parents moved to Switzerland.

He grew up primarily in Zurich, and remembers vividly walking past a disco that sort of changed his life.

“It had a sign that said, ‘This is where Dada was formed,’” he said.

Dada, the art form, was a drastic reaction by European artists to the horrors humanity inflicted upon itself during the World War I. Imagine a bunch of artists angry and upset at the level of idiocy that would lead dozens of countries to start fighting with each other. Now imagine those artists deciding to have regular meetings where they create poetry, music and sculptures with the very idea of rejecting the quarrelsome tendencies so common in international relations. Now imagine this clubhouse of sorts is literally on the way to school for a young boy born in New Jersey but whose parents decided to move to Zurich.

Of course, by the time Germundson walked by the Cabaret Voltaire, home to that rowdy group of artists who called themselves the Dadaists, the Cabaret Voltaire had become a disco.

Still, it had that plaque. And that was enough to pique a young art fan’s curiosity.

“In high school,” he says, “I already knew I wanted to study art history.”

But why Dadaism?

“I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and Dada still hadn’t died out. It had something very liberating about it.

Some people used a different word. ‘Nihilism.’ But I found it liberating,” he says, pointing to a Dada-ized version of the Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, the one where the iconic lady has a moustache, and a transcription beneath the portrait that translates roughly, Germundson says, to “She’s got a nice ass.”

‘Not good enough’

In high school, Germundson was a good student but … not quite good enough.

Education operates a little differently in Europe.

Whereas in America we allow just about everyone a shot at higher education — provided they can pay for it — the European system is much more merit based. And Germundson’s academic proficiency, by European academic standards, didn’t have much merit. He wasn’t offered a chance to study at a university.

His family moved back to the U.S. when he was 19, and Germundson, because of the differing educational systems, found himself back in high

Germundson not only volunteers his time at the 410 Project, but he’s also a financial contributor. school for a bit. But after a few years, he was ready to begin his collegiate career at the University of California at San Diego. Two years later, he transferred to UC-Berkeley. After Berkeley, he enrolled in an art history program at the University of Iowa that allowed him to bypass the master’s program and go straight to the Ph.D. And after finishing that, he started looking for work. It didn’t take him long to find his way to Mankato.

In fact, the day after U of I commencement, he made his first-ever trip here to interview for the job.

He got that job and started fall semester of 2001.

During his interview, he’d asked if the university would be interested in starting an art history major.

So he got going on that right away. By 2003, the program had its first students.

410

Germundson didn’t even want this mentioned.

But we’re mentioning it anyway. He donates a lot of time and money to the 410. And when you ask him about it, he’ll never waver on his reasons for doing it.

Supporting the little gallery means that art students who may not be able to show their work at a “real” gallery can still get their blood, sweat and tears in front of the eyes of art enthusiasts. He truly believes in the mission of the 410, which is why he was instrumental in the gallery’s formation in the early 2000s, and why he’s at nearly every gallery opening and, of course, volunteering on Fridays.

Dana Sikkila, director of the 410 Project, says Germundson’s presence is irreplaceable.

“Curt has been volunteering, donating, and has been a huge part of the soul of the 410 Project since 2003,” Sikkila said. “Without him and his dedication I don’t know if the 410 would still be open to this day. He provides the space with knowledge, positive energy, and laughter.”

Germundson also serves as a mentor and positive presence to students of all ages.

“He can relate to students and help them out. He’s a young soul who’s always willing to try new things and of course is always sharing a pun or two,” Sikkila said. “Even our really young artists 4-10 years old that come into the 410 have a great time with him.

He’s creative and fun and people can feel that from him.” MM

MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 29

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Y

ou know how every year at this time you’ll see articles about how it’s possible — with smart choices, strategic eating and a well-mapped-out set of goals — to get through the holiday season without consuming tons of unnecessary calories?

Yeah, well, forget that.

I’m officially giving you permission, dear readers, to eat as much as you want. Eat all the ham, all the appetizers and, especially, eat all the cookies.

When it comes to cookies, Christmas is like the Superbowl.

This is the big show. All the best cookies and cookie makers come out and make enough sugary morsels to kill an army of flying reindeer. And that’s how it should be. Now is not the time to “keep a close eye on your blood sugar,” or to “not forget what the doctor told you about your cholesterol.”

It is the season of gluttony. You’ve earned it. So go for it.

And as long as you’re plowing into December with this shiny new permission slip, go ahead and check out our feature on cookie-swaps. Then plan one. And bake cookies.

Swap them. And most of all … Eat.

— Robb Murray, Associate Editor, Mankato Magazine

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MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 31

Food SOUTHERN MN STYLE

From two cookie-swap gurus Here are a few tips for making your Christmas cookie exchange a success

By Amanda Dyslin

C

harlan (Pierce) Freundl is a social gal, but in 1968, with two twin baby girls at home, nights on the town just weren’t happening. And that’s how it all started. “I love Christmas. It’s my favorite time of year. And I thought, ‘I could bake cookies and have people over who would bring cookies, and I would even have them bring their babies,’� Freundl said. “Everybody had such a good time. We ate the cookies and shared the recipes.�

So what started as a way for moms to socialize grew into an almost 50-year tradition, with Freundl hosting an annual cookie swap and adding games and competitions and prizes over the years to keep things fresh and fun.

The cookie swap followed Freundl from city to city as she and her husband moved their young family, and when they landed in Mankato (with three daughters), the swap grew the largest, she said, always being held in early December. She had to cut the Ç” Ĺ°

Ǖ Ǖ Ĩ Ĩ at a certain point, “it’s just too many cookies.� “My favorite cookie was always the peanut butter ones with a Hershey’s kiss on top,� said Freundl’s daughter, Shelley Pierce, a Mankato baker at Hilltop HyVee. “My mom would have so many cookies lying

ǎ Ĩ Ǖ Ǖ ğ Ź

myself even eating the ones I didn’t care for just in order to have a cookie.�

Amy Lauters, chair of the Mass Media department at Minnesota State University, started a cookie 32 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

exchange with her cousins in the mid-1990s as a way

ÇŽ Ç• Ç” \ &

Ĺ° ĹˆĹ† Ĩ

Ç”

house and grew to include almost everybody in the family. “It was just kind of a fun holiday thing to do,�

Lauters said. “It got everybody into the spirit of the holidays.�

Reflecting on their decades of experience with Christmas cookie exchanges, Freundl and Lauters

Ç•

Ĺ°

Ç• Ĺ• Ç• \

Plan ahead

Knowing your numbers is of the utmost importance, both women agree. “Get a hard count of who is coming,� Lauters said. “Make sure people know before they come how many they are supposed to bring.�

If, say, a dozen people show up with only eight dozen cookies each (or worse, a varying number of dozens), math will need to be involved in order to evenly exchange the cookies. But if the exact same number of people arrive toting that same number of dozen cookies, then everyone will leave with one dozen of each kind of cookie, plus an extra dozen of each that can be eaten at the party, Freundl said. Ç” ] 1 Ç• Ĺ‡Ĺˆ

Ǖ and leave with 11 dozen of everyone else’s cookies (because you do not leave with a dozen of your own; that dozen is eaten at the party!).

Freundl said making a dozen for each person isn’t

necessary if that’s too much baking for everyone to do.

“Start with six cookies apiece and see how that goes,” she suggested.

Pre-package Lauters’ family learned by trial and error to bring each set of cookies to be exchanged already prepackaged. Put a dozen on a decorative Christmas paper plate covered in plastic wrap, for example. That way there aren’t loose cookies everywhere, creating chaos as the divvying up begins.

“It makes the swapping part much easier,” she said.

Make extra The smell of baking and the colorful assortment of cookies will put people in the mood for one thing more than any other: eating. Both Freundl and Lauters always encourage people to bring extra cookies.

Whether it was an extra dozen in Freundl’s case – or a heck of a lot ot more to share with all the members ers of Lauters’ clan who came for fellowship wship and not for the swap – the holidays days make sharing a lot more fun.

At Freundl’s house, the women men have even started to give cookies kies away to those in need, such as someone who has lost a spouse se and could use some holiday cheer. er.

“We like to share our cookies,” s,” she said. “So we make extras.”

– sometimes as late as 3 a.m. – with lots of fun extras.

0 ļ Ǖ Ǖǎ Ǖ \ 0 ļ asked the women to share their favorite Christmas memories, poems, pictures or stories of their funniest ( Ǖ ǔ Ǖǎ\ She has had everyone also bring a Christmas ornament to exchange.

“I have over 600 ornaments and 50 are from cookie exchanges,” she said.

Freundl has also made out little awards, and guests can vote on the most Christmas-looking cookie, the most chocolately cookie and the best overall cookie, among others.

Lauters’ family incorporated a cupcake competition into their last event, and the men who liked to do the eating (and not the baking) got to judge.

This year’s fun little extra for Freundl is a new one.

“Everybody’s coming in their pajamas,” she said.

Share the recipes Freundl made a rule: Guestss had to come with a Christmass cookie or other interesting g baked good or bar. “It had to o be something different than just your oatmeal and yourr chocolate chip,” she said.

And they had to bring the recipes to exchange as well.

Some of the warmest memories are of the recipe exchanges, when someone would talk about a special cookie that her grandma or mom had made.

“Some recipes I’ve had over the years are exceptional,” she said. & Ĩ !

has made numerous kindss of cookies, from snowballs to o Russian tea cakes to date ballss to variations on the classic sugarr cookie.

Lauters also has loved to switch ch

Ǖ ǎ \ % % real crowd-pleaser was her peanut nut butter bon bon, she said.

Get creative The cookie swap itself takes akes minutes. Freundl has made e an art out of filling the rest of evening vening MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 33

Wine & Beer

wines

By Leigh Pomeroy

Developing your wine knowledge

southern mn style

P

art of enjoying wine is also learning about wine. When I first started getting into wine, I devoured nearly every book on the subject available at that time. Today there is so much more, thanks to the Internet. When I want to learn about a wine, varietal or wine region — and certainly when I’m fact-checking these articles — Google is my first go-to resource.

Once the results come up, I peruse the sources I find most valuable. A good one is cellartracker. com, a wine ratings website based on input from regular wine drinkers. Once you find the wine you’re looking for and you’ve read the reviews, you will find a button on the upper right side on the page that reads, “Where to buy.” This takes you to wine-searcher.com, which lists prices for the wine from various stores and often ratings scores from several resources. Wine-searcher.com also offers a dictionary of varietals from albariño to zinfandel, and a thorough compilation of wine regions, most of which you’ve never heard of.

Both of the sites are free, though cellartracker.com requests a donation and wine-searcher.com offers a premium upgrade option.

If you want to learn more about a varietal or region, Wikipedia is an excellent resource and, as far as I can tell, quite accurate. Further, Wikipedia entries offer links to other resources, like a wine region’s official growers or a winemakers association’s website.

Like Alice’s Restaurant, you can find (nearly) everything you want on the Internet. For example, if you want to learn what the wine additive Mega Purple is, just ask Google. Searching will also lead you to vintage charts and numerous other wine ratings and information sites. Of the two major U.S. wine publications, Wine Enthusiast magazine (winemag.com) offers its information for free, while you have to pay for access to Wine Spectator reviews (winespectator.com), which I don’t.

Winter is a great time to catch up on your wine reading and media watching. I’ve just finished Cork Dork, by Bianca Bosker, a young Oregonian transplanted to New York, who decided that becoming a certified Master Sommelier was more interesting than being a technology writer. The book takes the reader through her journey, but also imparts information about the chemistry behind the smells and tastes of wine juxtaposed with stories of the crazy lives of the new breed of young “somms” as they pursue their passion.

Many years ago, I was a young sommelier in a

34 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

well-known restaurant in southern California that featured one of the top wine lists in the state, if not the country. Many of my friends and family thought I was obsessed with my love and pursuit of wine, but I was an amateur compared to the somms of today.

My good friend Dr. Steven Kipp, an astronomer at Minnesota State University who is not a wine drinker but loves a good story, has led me to several film-viewing pleasures. One is “Sour Grapes,” a documentary about a young wine lover and big spender, Rudy Kurniawan, who, in order to support his lavish hobby and lifestyle, begins assembling, packaging and selling fake copies of rare, old, expensive bottles to rich, gullible collectors.

Strangely enough, he got away with it for many years before he was finally caught.

You can view the same story from a slightly different point of view in an episode of American Greed entitled “Vintage Wine Fraud” (available online at dailymotion.com/video/x3crbd9 and elsewhere).

A favorite documentary of mine is “Mondovino” (2004) which extols the virtues of small, artisan, family-owned wineries over the corporate behemoths that now dominate the industry. And then there is “Somm” (2012), later released as “SOMM: Into the Bottle,” (2015), about the same subject that Bianca Bosker addresses.

Perhaps the most famous wine movie is “Sideways” (2004), which singlehandedly raised the profile of Pinot Noir at the expense of then-popular Merlot. On the other hand, avoid “Bottle Shock” (2008), which, although amusing, plays fast and loose with the facts about the famous 1976 Judgment of Paris tasting, where U.S. wines bested their French counterparts.

If you’re into older films, check out “The Secret of Santa Vittoria” (1969), starring Anthony Quinn, and “This Earth Is Mine” (1959), starring Rock Hudson and Jean Simmons.

There is plenty to absorb about your favorite beverage, so pop a cork (or unscrew a cap) and pour a glass, then prepare yourself for an evening of clicking, reading or viewing.

Leigh Pomeroy is a Mankato-based writer and wine lover.

Beer

By Bert Mattson

Dickens, dinner, dubbel, and stout W

hile midwinter feasts and festivals have been celebrated back to antiquity, the modern tradition traces its roots to Victorian times.

In my extended family, a trek to see a stage performance of “A Christmas Carol” became an annual tradition that my sisters and I occasionally reenact. Our table didn’t look much like Cratchit’s, but the play planted the spirit of it in the recesses of my mind.

In reality, I remember a lot of talk about rutabaga. Is the Rutabaga done? Who’s doing the rutabaga? Man, peeling and dicing rutabaga doesn’t make for fond memories. But at Christmas I still always say the word at least once for nostalgia’s sake. I digress.

While we haven’t made the production for a few years, Dickensian dinner items do tend to creep onto our table — my sister made a mincemeat pie the other year. It causes me to pause and consider what beer I might sip with Mrs. Cratchit’s menu.

The passage about the Ghost of Christmas Present put a Father Christmas-like figure in a room surrounded by duck, goose, various joints of meat, oysters, chestnuts, plum-puddings, mince pies, apples and pears. It’s fair to say Cratchit’s table was an abridgement of that. With the exception of the oysters, I believe on the whole, I’d be happy with a Belgian Dubbel.

While the holiday season sees a spate of special releases in the for winter warmers, often adorned in the spirit of wassail, Dubbels tend to have those qualities inherently. Toffee, brown sugar, and treacle tend to surface in the aroma along with the impression of spice. Those features are a distinct echo of Victorian era desserts, such as

Christmas or Plum Pudding.

The trick there is get or make a version that’s not on the cloying end ... and perhaps substitute unsweetened whipped cream for the hard sauce. I’ve found whipped cream often helps in pairing pumpkin pie with beer by acting as a foil for some of the sweet and bitterness.

Roasted goose (or duck) and gravy makes good company for a Belgian Dubbel. Generally Dubbels have the carbonation to carry a rich meat gravy and the strength to tackle gamey and earthy elements in the roast meats. If there’s chestnut or the increasingly popular dried fruit in the dressing, there’s a fair chance they’ll find echoes in the Ale — the same if the classical fruit preserves or apple sauce are served as condiments for the meat.

Chimay Premiere Red was introduced to me, by a culinary college roommate, as the best beer one will ever have. The first ale brewed commercially by the Belgian monks at the Abby Notre-Dame de Scourmont, it smells of stone fruit, brown sugar, and mace. The flavor follows the nose. It pours the color of the copper pennies Ebenezer plucked of old Marley’s eyelids.

Brewery Ommegang’s Abbey Ale, out of New York, is more of a mahogany and brings raisins with the brown sugar, but tends toward anise on the spice end.

On those oysters, I’d keep it classic and stick with Guinness Stout.

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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Drinks

Happy Hour:

By M. Carrie Allan | Special to the Free Press

southern mn style

To make an excellent Cosmo, don’t mess up the key ingredient F

or years, the cranberry was one of my favorite fruits, based entirely on my experiences with it this time of year, slathering its saucified form onto everything on my Thanksgiving plate, be it bird, starch, starch or other starch. Its flavors - bright, tangy, sweet seemed the perfect complement to the rich, salty and herb-laced flavors of the season.

Imagine my shock some years ago when I first mixed up a Cosmopolitan, the most famous cocktail in which America’s favorite holiday berry plays a marquee role. Relying on a recipe I’d found online, which called for cranberry juice, orange liqueur, citrus vodka and lime, I mixed up the tipple that “Sex and the City” turned into a phenomenon, took a sip - and made the sort of

Cranberry Ginger Punch 10 servings MAKE AHEAD: The block of punch ice needs to freeze overnight.

Ingredients Water, for punch ice (see headnote) 1 large, seedless orange 1 teaspoon orange bitters 6 ounces ginger liqueur (see headnote) 10 ounces Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice Cocktail (see headnote) One chilled 750-milliliter bottle Brut-style sparkling wine 36 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

face Carrie Bradshaw would have made if someone had forced her to wear a scrunchie. Yuck.

“Had Carrie and friends really been slurping down this aggressively sour and bitter drink at glam NYC hotspots while chittering about the kinks and cruelties of New York men?”

I wondered, gazing CarrieBradshawishly out the window, my face lost in winsome CarrieBradshawish wonder at the masochism of the drinker who would order this concoction more than once. “When it comes to the Cosmo,” I wondered, “have we all just been fooling ourselves?”

For a long time afterward, I believed so, and avoided the drink, thinking it another fad I didn’t get, like “Transformers” movies or high-waisted jeans.

I didn’t know, then, that craft

Steps Prepare a block of ice for the punch by freezing a cereal bowl or Tupperware dish full of water.

Put the ice in a punch bowl. Cut the orange into thin wheels and distribute them around the punch bowl.

Combine the bitters, ginger liqueur and cranberry juice cocktail in a pitcher, stirring to incorporate. Pour the mixture gradually over the punch ice, then gently pour in the chilled sparkling wine. Stir gently to mix, then ladle into cocktail coupes.

cocktailers were doing the same, for different reasons — in part, that the drink’s sheer ubiquity had created a backlash. (Robert Simonson’s history of the cocktail renaissance, “A Proper Drink,” details the drink’s creation, including a very funny anecdote about how many bartenders have cussed out the drink’s inventor, Toby Cecchini, for foisting it upon the world.)

I only found out later, when a friend passed me her tasty pink drink without first I.D.’ing it as a Cosmo, that a vast portion of urban American women in their 30s hadn’t been victim to a sinister HBO booze brainwashing.

Cosmo lovers hadn’t been wrong; I’d been wrong about the very nature of the cranberry.

In prepping my first Cosmo, the recipe I used had called

Nutrition: Per serving: 140 calories, 0 g protein, 13 g carbohydrates, 0 g fat, 0 g saturated fat, 0 mg cholesterol, 10 mg sodium, 0 g dietary fiber, 11 g sugar

for “cranberry juice,” not “cranberry juice cocktail,” which is a different, sweetened sip.

Accordingly, I bought from our hippie co-op R.W. Knudsen’s Just Cranberry, a pure, unadulterated juice that should never be used in the classic Cosmo spec, because it makes cranberries taste like - the horror - cranberries.

Bite into a fresh one and try not to wince: Naked, our beloved berry is incredibly sour and bitter. What I’d loved all those years was not the cranberry, but the cosmetic enhancements of sugar, orange zest and ginger that made it palatable. The au naturel juice? I don’t know what kind of health-conscious ascetics are out there drinking the stuff, but the Puritans would salute their self-punishment, as I salute their commitment to the urinary tract health the fruit is purported to convey. These folks will probably live a thousand years, peeing cleanly, commuting by bike, avoiding glutens and correcting people’s grammar on the internet.

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ƷƬƥƷũƶ ưƭƪƩ

By Nell Musolf

Life’s good J

ust a little background information: Our washing machine stubbornly refuses to completely spin dry any load that is the least bit out of balance by so much as one sweat sock too many on the wrong side; our microwave could be used as a prop for a period play set in the 1980’s; and our furnace is dangerously close to qualifying for Social Security.

While my husband Mark and I have planned on replacing each of these items for quite some time, we haven’t actually gotten around to doing anything concrete about carrying out any of those plans beyond the talking stage.

“We’ll get a new washer the next time washers are on sale at Menards,” we vow after

38 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

rearranging one load of wet clothes for the tenth time and pressing HIGH SPIN yet again. We eye the ads for microwaves featuring sleek number pads instead of clunky dials, but that’s as far as we go. And the furnace? Well, it’s been a mild — warm, actually — fall so why worry about a new furnace now before it’s absolutely necessary?

Such is life with a couple of procrastinators. We are typically very content to stick with the status quo, until disaster strikes, that is. And disaster struck just the other morning.

The day began like any other Sunday with the two of us happily watching a DVD of “The Avengers,” the 1960’s classic featuring super suave British government agents John Steed and

uber hip Emma Peel. Peel had just delivered a perfectly placed kick with one of her fabulously mod go-go boots against some Cold War enemy when we heard an odd crackling noise followed by the distinct smell of melting plastic.

Mark and I watched in horror as our television screen went black. As in completely dead in spite of our urgent attempts at turning switches Êà à Êėʃ ¨ ¹«Ã¢ ÊØ Ü Ã ¢ Ã Ø ¼ panicking over the obviously deceased patient.

“What should we do?” I asked. “We can’t live without television.”

It was true. We apparently could live with an entire host of unreliable appliances, but the thought of going through even a morning without our constant companion was impossible to contemplate.

When Mark and I first met we bonded over a shared love of reruns.

I knew he was my potential soul mate when we compared favorite episodes of “The Dick Van Dyke Z¨Êôʃʮ à ¡ã Ø ¨ ÊÃă he rarely watched PBS. When we were young marrieds, watching television was our affordable form of entertainment.

Now that we’re old marrieds, television has remained what we do with our evenings. So when confronted with that black screen and ringing silence we acted quickly and with uncharacteristic decisiveness.

All I can say is thank goodness Walmart is open 24 hours. We sped over, picked out a new television set without any of the usual qualms over putting such a large purchase on our beleaguered credit card and were back home setting it up within the hour.

Wi t h t h e a s s i s t a n c e o f t w o Ą ܨ¼«¢¨ãÜʃ Ø «Ã¢ ¢¼ ÜÜ Üʃ 㨠èÜ Ø manual and a few furtive texts to our far more technologically savvy sons, peace reigned in our home once more approximately 123 minutes after that ¡ ã ¼ Ø ¹¼«Ã¢ ÃÊ«Ü ô Ü ăØÜã ¨ Ø ʃ feat for which I think we both deserve major pats on the back since setting up a television set now is nothing like it used to be, especially not for two people who still stop at gas stations to ask for directions instead of using a GPS. I realize it’s a sign of aging to repeatedly harken back to the “good old days” but now that I have, well, aged, I understand why the mature crowd has always done that. The days were better when you could buy a television, plug it into any available outlet and voila, there was “Knots Landing” in living color with absolutely nothing required from your end other than parking your backside on the closest couch and settling in for an hour of completely mindless entertainment.

As Mark and I watched the end of “The Avengers” and saw Emma Peel complete her high kick against communism, Mark commented, “I can’t believe we accomplished so much so quickly. I feel like we got a lot done this morning.”

“You know what else we did?” I asked. “We also did all of our Christmas shopping for each other this morning.”

Mark looked relieved. “That means I don’t have to go to the mall this year.”

Maybe next year we’ll get each other a new microwave. Or a washing machine. Or a furnace. But this year, as we watch “It’s a Wonderful Life” on our new TV, we’re going to count our many blessings, one of which is having a credit card we can use when it’s necessary to make truly emergency purchases.

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Nell Musolf is a mom and freelance writer from Mankato.

She blogs at: nellmusolf.com

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ƫƥƘƨƩƲ ƧƬƥƷ

By Jean Lundquist

The saviors of blighted planters F

or years there have been six raised concrete planters in a green space between the Blue Earth County Government Center and the VINE Adult Community Center, once called the Nichols Building, between South Fourth and South Fifth streets in downtown Mankato.

I don’t know the history of these planters, except that at some point when the County bought the buildings, it also acquired the green space and the planters.

For a time, a commercial landscaper was in charge of the planters. Then, at some point, it was not. For several years no one touched the planters, and they became the epitome of what urban blight looks like. Weeds gone to seed begat more weeds going to seed.

I often thought I should jump into those planters and just take over, as I work in the Government Center and began seeing the planters every day since I started taking my service dog outside at least once a day. I’d look at the planters with sadness, think about how much work was going to be involved, and just go back inside.

Enter Sandie Gibbs from Madison Lake and Darlene Schorn from North Mankato. Darlene was the assistant volunteer coordinator with VINE, and Sandie was a volunteer. A friendship 40 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

was forged between the two women and they discovered a mutual love of gardening. Sandie encouraged Darlene to take Master Gardener training, and the two began caring for the beds at the Center.

One day I noticed someone had been in the planters pulling out weeds.

Sandie later told me she spent hours and hours ridding one of the beds of quack grass and other weeds. I never saw her or Darlene at work, but the changes they made were and are breathtaking.

Overgrown and half dead shrubs were removed from a couple of the planters. Weeds of all shapes, sizes and ugliness were expunged. Then came the beauty.

Sandie and Darlene decided on a statement garden in the planters closest to Fifth Street. Tulips and other è¼ Üʃ ã ¼¼ʃ Üã ã ¼ú ÜèÃĄÊô ØÜʃ à Êà year, zinnias were grown.

I’ve taken in these statement plots every year, and the early tulips always bring me a smile. Sometimes I get a bit «ė ô¨ à , Ü ¼ÊÊ ¨ Ü Ã pilfered, but I guess if someone is needing beauty in their life, it’s OK to take one now and then.

Their pollinator beds are the next tier of planters, and these are my favorites. The wild flowers start so

early and last so long, and are always colorful. The first flowers to bloom last spring were beautiful bright blue blossoms. I don’t know what they are, but I harvested some seed. Look for ã¨ Ü ĄÊô ØÜ «Ã 㨠«ã ¨ «Ã ¡ØÊÃã Ê¡ my house next year.

I just met Sandie then confessed that I had interfered with her plantings.

In 2016 I unleased a packet of milkweed seeds in the wildflower beds for the monarch butterflies. I also planted a bell pepper and a tomato plant amongst them.

Both plants offered me and a few attentive others fresh veggies at lunch that summer.

That fall, I helped make sure some of the milkweed seeds stayed in the bed by sowing them back into the soil.

Then, in 2017, more extra tomato plants from my greenhouse found their way into the VINE beds.

That was fun, because they were discovered by co-workers in the Government Center, who somehow guessed I might have put them there.

I encouraged them to help themselves and enjoy. And the best part was that Sandie and Darlene weren’t mad at me for doing that.

There is apparently at least one other stealth planter. There was a border of Ü ¼¼ ô¨«ã ĄÊô ØÜ «Ã Êà ʡ ã¨ Ü that was not likely by happenstance,

they said. I didn’t do it.

Both Sandie and Darlene say they have been approached by people just passing by who thank them for their work. People stop to ask about certain ĄÊô ØÜʃ à ܨ Ø ã¨ «Ø Êôà «ÃÜ«¢¨ãÜʈ And while people learn from these skillful Master Gardeners, Sandie and Darlene also learn from them. One man told Sandie that bees like to be petted, and showed her how to do it.

Do they really like it, I asked? She said yes. I don’t know how she knows that. But Darlene says the message is to revere, not fear pollinators.

Sandie and Darlene – Thank you for your work making downtown Mankato just that much more beautiful!

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MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 41

Your style

By Ann Rosenquist Fee

Cynthia’s hair has seen the future.

P

rior to my interview with my newly permed friend Cynthia, I would have thought, what kind of friend gets a perm? I don’t mean “What kind of friend lets a friend get a perm.” I mean, what kind of friend who knows damn well her hair is the only thing in the room in every room she enters, like, for her whole life, show-stealing hair, strangers-stop-andstare hair, does this woman not realize she’s already winning? Does she honestly need to crush the rest of us with unnatural bounce?

I was not consulted prior to the perm but you had better believe I inserted myself into the conversation afterward. The conversation between Cynthia and her impossibly robust hair.

While I struggled with impartiality, my list of questions was as objective as possible.

Such as: 1) What’s your perm history? Please include home and salon perms; body waves and spirals; successful and humiliating experiences. 2) What were you hoping to achieve, personally, relative to your overall style? 3) How, as a person whose hair was already infuriatingly thick and shiny and wavy and blahblahblah, could you have the audacity to further outshine the rest of us by chemically pumping it up?

Not a speck of apology in Cynthia’s response. Here’s what I got: 42 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

Dear Ann,

I’ve seen the future and it’s a wave. Note: the beauty industry has rebranded them as “waves.” Waves have about 25 percent the chemical smell of the perms of yesteryear.

Stylists have all but abandoned elastic band rods and (ouch) the plastic locking-arm style for flexible, cushiony rods. Which, I will note, still deliver some pain.

My decision to wave was fully informed by my knowledge of recent advancements in permology. I’ve been down the perm path (professional and home) numerous times since the 1970s and up through the early 1990s.

Those jobs all had to be topped off by 30 minutes of daily curling and taming. Such measures are no longer necessary. This is probably partly due

to the new nature of the wave, and partly because I am older and wiser.

The stylist’s technique also comes into play, in a big way. In my case, the talented and meticulous Edda monitored — with a chemist’s precision — the length of time the only somewhat stinky solution was on my head (35 minutes, to be exact).

This was followed by a thorough, albeit painful, rinse and then five minutes of neutralizer.

At which time, Edda dropped on me the modern rules of aftercare: no pony tail holder or clips, no washing or product or curling or use of pick for 48 hours. Seriously, I thought I was going to slug her.

We’re living in our second summer in the city with no A/C. I had two days of golf booked which pretty much require hat, clip, pony tail.

I went rogue. The next morning I suited up with visor, pony tail and barrette. It really wasn’t frizzy like an old-school Lil’ Orphan Annie look, but when the sun came out tomorrow, my golfing buddies were going to notice.

Well they didn’t, because they were men.

This gets at the question of why I did this in the first place. My thick head of hair needed a little extra body to rebound from a summer of being pulled back to stay cool or in place for golf. It was still thick, but straighter than it had been in a while. My talks with Edda included detailed if not rapt discussion of changes in the wave process. I was sold.

And at this writing, I can

comfortably state that my goal has been achieved.

Body has been restored, body lost over five months of neardaily ponytailpulling. Mission accomplished, though as I write this letter I’m still leery of brushing it, let alone firing up the curling iron. Loose curls are fine for now and winter will make golf-hair unnecessary, for a while.

We already knew that middle age could give us permission to be authentic. What’s new to me, in all this, is that “authentic” doesn’t have to mean conceding to a natural shape or texture you don’t love. “Authentic” can also be about taking control, being your own source of joy, trying something new. Which in this case, for me, meant a perm. I mean wave.

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Coming Attractions: December 1-31

Kiwanis Holiday Lights Sunday through Thursday 5-9 p.m., Friday and Saturday 5-10 p.m. — Sibley Park — 903 Park Lane — Mankato — free and open to the public — www.kiwanisholidaylights.com.

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Holiday open house and sleigh rides 11 a.m.- 5 p.m. — Morgan Creek Vineyards — 23707 478th Ave. — New Ulm — free and open to the public — www.morgrancreekvineyards.com.

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9 Christmas with Musicorum,

7:30 p.m. — Chapel of Our Lady of Good Counsel — 170 Good Counsel Drive — Mankato — $15 general admission, $10 seniors/students — www. musicorum-mn.org.

17 Holiday Highlights: “The Nutcracker” and

“Hansel and Gretel” featuring soloist Aaron Humble, 3 p.m. — Grand Hall — Verizon Center — 1 Civic Center Plaza — Mankato — $35, $5 — www.mankatosymphony.com.

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3-6 p.m. — Belgrade Ave. — Lower North Mankato — free — www.businessonbelgrade.org.

7 p.m. Friday, 1 and 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday — Ted Paul Theatre — Minnesota State University — Mankato — $20, $15, $12 — www.mankatoballet.org.

16 The Last Revel, 7 p.m. — Mankato Brewery — 1119 Center St. — North Mankato — $10 advance, $12 at the door — Dealer Area 21+ event — www.mankatobrewery.com.

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Tonic Sol Fa 7 p.m. — Grand Hall — Verizon Center — 1 Civic Center Plaza — Mankato — $19.50, $24.50, $31.50 — www.verizoncentermn.com.

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A Charlie Brown Christmas: Live on Stage 7 p.m. — Grand Hall — Verizon Center — 1 Civic Center Plaza — Mankato — $45.50, $35.50, $25.50 — www.verizoncentermn.com.

14

Staged reading of Pat Ryan’s “The Humor of Pat Ryan and Parkinson’s,” 7 p.m. — Twin Rivers Council for the Arts — 523 S. Second St. — Mankato — free and open to the public — www.twinriversarts.org.

44 • MARCH 2018 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

Faces & Places: Photos By SPX Sports

MANKATO MARATHON 1. (Left to Right) Mike Swanson, Terena Wilkens, and Larry Macon were all smiles as they’d just completed the Mankato Marathon.

2. Aidan Gravelle wheeled himself on the Red Jacket Trail of the Half Marathon.

3. Youngsters complete the Toddler Trot and were eager to collect their prizes.

4. The crowd cheered on the runners as they completed the marathon.

5. Kerri (left) and Lizzy Ambrose in the process of completing the Half Marathon.

6. These 10K runners took a moment to be silly as they pushed through the race course.

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MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 45

Faces & Places: Photos By SPX Sports

RIVER RAMBLE

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1. Jenny Barnes dishes up some of her delicious Dam Store original pies.

2. Dan and Dianne Enders are en route to the Rapidan Dam to get a piece of pie at the Rapidan Dam Store.

3. Local bluegrass quartet Bullypulpit plays for the Mankato River Ramblers as they enjoy a break from the road.

4. Scheels employee Will Counter adjusts the breaks on a participant’s bike.

5. Emily McKay and her father Stuart bonded over a scenic bike ride and some delicious pie.

6. Many Mankato River Ramblers opted for the route that took them out to the Rapidan Dam.

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Faces & Places: Photos By SPX Sports

TRICK OR TREAT WITH THE MAVS 1. The Adams family was given a run for its money by the Hed family as Tom and Nicole choreographed a fantastic family costume ensemble with their three kids (from left) Spencer, Lucy and Kayle.

2. Damian Reyes flies over the hurdle with ease.

3. After skillfully putting the puck into the back of the net, Blake Chandler claims his prize from MSU hockey player Dallas Gerads.

4. MSU swimmer Morgan Seaton takes time out of the pool to paint Jase Schoenberner’s face.

5. Jon Corbett watches his son Aaron race on the track.

6. As a construction worker, Henry Ireland shows how to get the job done from the top of his John Deere backhoe.

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MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 47

From this Valley

By Pete Steiner

The Annual Christmas Letter, 2017

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fter a decade’s worth of these Christmas epistles, I’m proud to still keep it at one page. Maybe you won’t doze while perusing...

Hey, all, it’s been a wonderfully ordinary year. I completed seven decades on God’s green earth, and I’m still standing. There were highlights, of course — a cruise on the Danube, a trip to our nation’s capital, a chance to hear Tom Brokaw review a half-century of dramatic news during a trip to South Dakota to visit my cousin. And of course, the first, second, and fourth birthdays of our three grandchildren. There were naturally some sadnesses; I’ll detail those in next month’s column.

Putting this together on a glorious autumn afternoon, with plenty of gold leaves still clinging (the reds had mostly fallen), I began thinking of what I might say if I were to address this specifically to my grandchildren. Of course, by the time they could appreciate it, there would no longer be letters, just Facebook posts, Instagrams, and Snapchats (or whatever digital messaging is soon to replace those.)

But they could dig the paper artifact out of a cardboard box in which Gramps stored too much stuff. Its faded words would read thus: Dear Sweet One: I’m excited for you in this brave new world, with all of its possibilities for better health, longer lives, and expanded opportunities for travel. Just think, odds are you’ll still be here 80 or 90 years from the date on this letter! You will have witnessed unimaginable technological change and new innovations to revolutionize your life the way the automobile, television, the Polio vaccine, jet travel, the Internet and iPhones did my life.

Of course, there are plenty of things that could go very wrong, things my generation did not take seriously enough, so now you have to deal with them. Global warming. Nuclear weapons. Digital terrorists. And as always, there will be the cataclysms no human can control: a Krakatoa-sized volcano (an eruption of Yellowstone?), an 48 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE

errant giant meteor.

Not trying to scare you, but I read a distressing piece in the Washington Post about a scientist who has calculated how much time the human species might have left before EXTINCTION! Calculating on the assumption that humans are NOT at the center of the universe and are “profoundly ordinary,” he points out that mammalian species (you’ll learn in science class that we humans are mammals) typically last about one-million years. Humans have been around for about one-fifth of that time already. Still he thinks we could have another seven- or eight-million years left, OR as little as five-thousand! Like me, he worries about “a civilization-ending catastrophe.” He thinks, as The Animals, one of my favorite groups from the ’60’s, sang, “We gotta get out of this place!” So maybe you should think about becoming an astronaut. Might have a better chance on Mars.

You and I are living in contentious times. I find myself wondering if this might be how the country felt in the 1850’s prior to the Civil War. (Hard to imagine what loose rhetoric would have gone viral had there been the Internet then.) When people ask me if I’m worried about the age we’re living in, I say yes. But then I add, we DID make it through 1968. Google it. One shock after another. Wars, assassinations, riots in the streets of our cities. Month after month. It felt apocalyptic. But we muddled through.

I hope we can muddle through again. If beyond that, I struggle with advice for you. I at least hope you will promote Beauty, and will honor and adore the miraculous processes of Creation. In spite of us, it is still beautiful.

Knowing that, may your days be merry and bright, and may you have many Merry Christmases and Happy New Years.

Peter Steiner is host of “Talk of the Town” weekdays at 1:05 p.m. on KTOE.

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MANKATO MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2017 • 49

HELPING FAMILIES FOR 25 YEARS.

Accra provides support to children, adolescents, adults and families that need help in their homes for a loved one with a disability. We’ll help you navigate the different services available to you. PCA Choice services allows you to choose a family member or friend to be your paid caregiver.

More Choice. More Flexibility.

We accept major insurance plans; Medicaid and private pay.

Call us and ask about the possibilities!

New Ulm: 507-225-0623

SERVING PEOPLE STATEWIDE

www.accracare.org

50 • DECEMBER 2017 • MANKATO MAGAZINE