Creative Connections by Sara Aeikens

This is my article about interrupting an old story and the process of how a new story might amazingly unfold for me. For the last couple of decades I’ve written numerous columns as a volunteer for the Albert Lea Tribune about every other month. At this moment, my last publication occurred in mid-July.

My brain is starting to let guilt seep in for not keeping my self-imposed schedule of writing a column, especially since summer seems to be feeling like fall. While composing this in my journal, I sat outside the front entry of the Freeborn County Historical Society on a gray, metal folding chair hauled out to the sidewalk by a young woman helping with a history-sharing day for Freeborn County residents. I’m sitting because I managed to break my right hip, due to twisting my entire torso to the right on our kitchen entryway carpet. My brand new black grippy  tennis shoes stayed very stuck to the secure carpet, and I tumbled backwards, which has never happened in the 39 years of living in our house full of Persian carpets.

Outdoors at the museum I felt rather stuck, sitting on a hard chair, which increased my interest in those who passed by. A man with his grandson stopped to say hello and ended up telling me a story. He talked about a young girl walking down a trail in Minnesota when a man riding on a bay horse came up next to her. He offered to give her a ride on the back of his horse and the jaunt took about a half hour. She really enjoyed the experience and didn’t meet him again until 20 years later.

At the first meeting, she shared with the man, Cole Younger, that she wanted to become a writer when she grew up. When she discovered Cole was in prison for robbing a bank in Northfield with the Jesse James gang and learned she’d met him several decades earlier, she was able to interview him as a writer. She also decided to set a goal to help him gain his freedom. 

That seemed to be the end of the interesting story for me, until I arrived home and discussed that adventure with my husband while we both lounged in our recliners. He decided to check some facts on his computer about the Jesse James adventures. Even though his computer wasn’t functioning very well, he found out that Cole and his brother got captured near a swamp by Medilia. When Cole got out of prison, he made his goal in life to relate to others the folly of living a life of crime and being constantly on the run. 

Because of my husband, Leo’s, interest in the story, he could embellish it with both his own information and his computer’s. He told me that a person interested in receiving a reward for information about the Jesse James gang shot and killed Jesse while the gangster stood on a chair making adjustments to a picture on the wall in the room where they were together.

My interest in the gangster story increased when I recalled a former neighbor a few houses to the north once told me a famous Minnesota robber stopped to have a meal at their home. 

About this time, Leo began to have difficulties with his computer, so I decided to hobble over to the new neighbors to see if I could check out the facts of the story with them. I actually went twice to their big, white house on our side of the street before they returned home. They informed me it was the Dillinger brothers who visited years ago, not Jesse James. When I came home about an hour later, Leo still struggled to get his computer to work. I offered to call the computer business, where we had just received $12 for recycling two printers, but with no answer, decided to try one I’d never heard of before. 

Its owner, Bill, said he was out of town, as usual, and couldn’t help us. He did connect with me by saying that he’s the one who found my husband’s hardware store blue money bag that had fallen off Leo’s truck roof a few years ago. What a fun phone call — to thank a stranger again years later for his kind deed of returning our lost money to our front door.

The intertwining of sitting on the sidelines and choosing to listen to a story instead of feeling stuck helped me solve a few puzzles, to let go and move forward. We’re ready for a trip to Cuba since my doctor just informed me that I don’t have a screw loose (in my healing hip!) as feared.

Sara Aeikens is an Albert Lea resident.