Memory Lane, New Ulm, MN (Vacation Part 3)

Tuesday morning we were up early. By 6:45 we had the Escape packed and I was knocking on Mom and Pat's door to get them to get up and come out and have waffles and bagels with us before we left.

The night before, Uncle Bernie gave us his MN map and pointed out a route that would take us across southern MN to I-35 which would take us all the way to San Antonio. This was no short cut but the county and state roads -- some represented on the map by a faint dotted line -- were actually pretty straight and smooth, easy traveling with little to no traffic.

I opened the map and pointed out the window, "Go that way boy." But the road was barricaded off. This end of the highway was closed. I consulted Dick on an alternative path.

The limp Dick recommendation

Even so, the road was smoother than IL interstate. Later all we needed was a quickie car wash, not balancing and realignment.

The advantage to land this flat was that we could travel at 75mph in a 55mph zone, once on pavement again, because we could spot a sheriff's deputy before being tagged by his radar. Except in August when the corn is taller than your average police cruiser.

Our excursion across southern MN carried us through a town I used to live in as a child (1978 and 1979 I think). New Ulm, a lovely city in south central MN sitting between the Minnesota River and the statue of Herman the Hun in a park on the hill. I used to wonder if "hun" meant he was a real sweetie or a man with his penis removed. What does "hun" mean any way? That was long before I had internet and could look it up. I am no longer curious enough to open a new browser window and research it so I'll let that slide for now. New Ulm is also the place where one of my mother's distant relatives was kidnapped by the Indians (Sioux Uprising?), was scalped, escaped, and lived to brag about it.

I had Rick help me search for the house we lived in. We entered the city backwards of the way I was used to. I knew the street name but was a little lost until I started seeing streets with presidents' names on them. I remembered when we ran out of president names the next street was State. And there it was. We passed by my old junior high school, I had forgotten what a long walk from school it had been, the court house, a park --one of the charming things about this place was there was a park every couple of blocks -- and finally there it was. It was harder to find than I though because I was looking for a hospital that sat across the street. The hospital is no longer there, just ordinary siding houses that did not exactly fit in with the brick fortresses looking over them.

It looks just the same as it did 30 some years ago sans Mother's pretty flowers. It probably looks just the same as it did 80 some years ago when it was built.

The front door is on the right side but the door we usually used is behind the sun room on the left. When entering there are steps going up into the kitchen and steps going down into the basement. In the winter, I used to sit on these steps and lace up my ice skates. I'd trek across the street to the park and skate on the baseball field that was flooded every winter and used as an ice rink. There was a little warming house with a fire place, snack and drink machines, and coffee. Several times a week I would skate until I was nearly frozen then stomp back across the street again.

The street next to the park was on a hill, a steep hill. It usually didn't get cleared by the plow when it snowed. This made for good sledding with none of those pesky tree obstacles. Of course nothing is perfect, there was a stop sign at the bottom of the hill and beyond that a cross street. Since sleds are seldom equipped with brakes and horns, not getting smashed at the bottom by on-coming traffic took a little negotiating sled speed with traffic not visible until about two thirds of the way down and I was not good at math.

In the summer time, my brother and I used to ride our bikes everywhere. As an adult, I can't imagine wanting to ride a bike any where in New Ulm. East to west it's not so bad, mostly level ground but north to south there's going to be some heavy peddling. Up hill, down hill, up hill, down again and on the big hill there was a brewery. Schell's Brewery was perched up on the hill about the city surrounded by gardens of lovely flowers and a dumpster at the back door. This dumpster was the reason for all the huffing and puffing up the hill, down a winding narrow road, and a cut through the woods to shorten the trip. Quite a feat for the little fat girl.

My brother collected beer cans out of the dumpster. Our home had a huge two story detached garage and he proudly displayed a hundred or more in the attic of the garage. There were even more stored in boxes. Sometimes the workers at the brewery would give him empty but sealed cans. He bought some there too. The Schells cans were special because they were artfully decorated. Special cans came out for each new flavor, each season, and many special occasions. Dave begged Dad to go buy beer every time a new can came out.

Dad often did go buy the new can Dave covetted. But Dad couldn't just pop the top and throw one back. Oh no, he had to turn it upside down and carefully poke two holes in the bottom and let it drain into his glass. Then rinse the can and let it dry. A nice cold one after a hard day's work was never simple.

This little trip down memory lane made us think we needed a trip down Main Street to the liuor store. We couldn't locate a liquor store on Main Street. A good chunk of Main Street had been turned into an indoor mall with parking below. We stopped at a gas station but the clerk told us they didn't sell Schells beer and gave us directions to a nearby beverage store.

At the liquor store, we were greeted by a clerk who handed us a menu of more than a dozen different Schells beers he carried along with a discription of each. He even had a rack with all different kinds of Schells and cartons available for the customer to individually pick and choose his own sampler pack. My husband is not god with choices like that so finally I convinced him to take a case of the Fire Brick, a dark beer, and the Zommer Fest (did I mention this was a German town?), a light summery beer, and get back on the road.

Off we went traveling east again across MN to Waseca where we boarded I-35 and headed south to Texas.