We visited my parents for Easter, and as we drove through New Ulm to get to their place, a thought occurred to me: New Ulm has a lot of bricks.
I’ve read a couple articles recently about older, historic buildings in Faribault and Mankato, how they sometimes look shabby because of the material used to build them over a century ago, but with some work can look fantastic. This is very noticeable as you drive down Broadway in New Ulm and see how many homes were built with bricks that are lining that main drag. No big bad wolf is getting into any of those!
New Ulm has a lot of history, and it’s not something you really appreciate until you don’t live there anymore. Each time I return, though, I find myself becoming more nostalgic. I look a little more closely at some of those buildings that I drove past hundreds of times in my youth. I notice little subtle touches and wonder if they were part of the original design or have since been added by different owners.
Viewing the Glockenspiel or Herman Heights or Schell’s Brewery hasn’t seemed that special to me since I grew up seeing those things on a daily basis at times. (Okay, not the brewery; don’t get the wrong idea!) But I have started thinking about how few trips I’ve taken there during the pandemic and wonder how many I’ll still take. I hope my parents have many years left, but one never knows.
What is especially startling when one looks closer at historic buildings is the growth of new developments. The high school in New Ulm is on the outskirts of town as you head toward my parents’ place. It is not that old and is nowhere near where the old building was located. Even as you drive by the downtown area, some new buildings really stick out next to the ones that had a year chiseled into a brick to tell you when they were built.
I need to get out sometime and just walk around downtown and see how much has changed. I noticed the drugstore when we drove by and recalled stopping in there to buy much cheaper candy before going through the alley to the movie theater. I’m not sure if that building is still a drug store, but the movie theater moved while I was still in high school. I’d like to see what’s in the building where a bookstore I worked at was located. What is left of the Marktplatz Mall? How does the Kaiserhoff restaurant look?
I did walk around out at my parents’ hobby farm. I took a stroll by myself into the pasture, found my way across the creek, and wandered among the trees and scrub, recalling many days in my youth wandering around there, creating imaginative stories to play out, either by myself or with some of the neighbors, and dodging the sheep and their leavings on my way back to the house.
We spent many hours every winter sledding down the hill in the pasture; it always seemed much larger than it does now. There was a lot of time spent in the barns and the sheds, whether it was working or having fun. Those look a lot smaller too. Funny, since I’ve been the same height since I was in eighth grade.
Does time shrink everything around us? Do our imaginations make everything larger than life when we’re young? I’m not sure, but a lot of great memories floated through my head on a gorgeous Easter afternoon. (I also had to dodge some special pies in the pasture. My parents haven’t had sheep in quite some time, but they let a friend keep some of his cattle in there at times.)
Then my dad and my two-year-old nephew, Jack, came down in the pasture. Jack is of an age that he is awed by so much. I watched him just look around. Then he squatted on the ground to look at a strange-looking bug. That held his attention for some time. And I thought about the wonderment of it all to a little boy. And I figured that was me about 45 years ago.
I’m not sure why I’ve been so nostalgic recently, but I’m looking more at the details of life. Among the many ways life has changed over the past year, I think many of us are learning to appreciate the little things that we had previously missed in our hurry-up lifestyles. That’s certainly a positive thing among the many negatives.
I’m certain that by the time young Jack graduates from high school, my parents won’t be out in the country anymore. I’m glad he and his younger brother are getting opportunities to explore and enjoy life in the country. I hope that they can look back with fondness on those times someday and appreciate the good things as they get older.
And some of the really good things are those memories we make without knowing it at the time. Those are the bricks we add to the foundation of good memories to enjoy later in life.
Word of the Week: This week’s word is struldbrug, which means old and decrepit, as in, “Even though the struldbrug was in tough shape, members of the community wanted to fix it up rather than tear it down.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!