(uplifting music) - [Announcer] Funding for Off 90 is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota (birds singing) (upbeat rock music) - Cruising your way next Off 90, we hear music from three types of accordions, we attend a winter festival in Wabasha, we go into the dark room with a photographer, and we visit an unconventional shop in Austin.

It's all just ahead, Off 90.

(energetic blues music) Hi, I'm Barbara Keith.

Thanks for joining me on this trip Off 90.

We think of the accordion as a mainstay of polka music, but according to musicians, the accordion is not just one instrument, but a family of instruments.

We learn about three of them and hear the music they produce.

(lively polka music) - When you're talkin' squeezebox you're talking about a fairly broad field of bellow instruments.

We're all basically take off on a harmonica.

There has always been a steady flow of polka music in Minnesota.

Lots of bands and lots of interest in the type of music.

(people cheering) It's also a great feeling to share the music with other people.

I'm Jerry Minar.

I am a concertina player.

I build 'em and I play 'em.

My life revolves about concertinas.

Okidokie.

I'm gonna play a tune here for you.

A tune called "Auntie's Waltz."

(concertina music playing) We play what's known as a Chemnitzer concertina, and the Chemnitzer concertina was invented in Chemnitz, Germany, 1834.

Air flowing through the reeds is producing the sound on all of these squeezeboxes.

The rhythm of the polka music, whether you got a polka or waltz, seems to go hand in hand with people dancing, and that's been prevalent for centuries.

(concertina music) Well, what I'll do now, I'll play that same tune on this 1916 concertina.

And then you'll hear the difference in sound.

(concertina music) Of course we have, as you can see, the buttons that we work with our fingers, and when I take off the what's called the end cap, okay, then we can see the mechanism.

This is the treble side action mechanism.

When you press a button, there's a lever that teeters and opens a valve.

While the valve is open, a reed plays.

(reed tinks) Okay, and when the air hits it, it vibrates and produces a sound.

(reed tinks) And there are 374 reeds in the concertina that vibrate when the air pressure hits them.

(lively polka music) The manner in which they play and the manner which they sound, that's where the difference pops in, and the concertina performs to the way you want to express the music.

(lively polka music) In the digital world that we're living in, there's an appreciation for things that were handmade, and appreciation for creating music with your own hands and your own brain not digitally, just, you know, just doing it.

There's an interest in that, more so than years ago.

So we'll see where it goes.

(accordion music) - My goal as an accordion player is to tap into those places where the music comes from.

You know, I could bring the music with me and just read it like a typical, an American guy living in Minneapolis, just playing the tunes as they read 'em off the music, but that's not enough.

What you really want is to add that flavor of from where it came from.

So what I've always tried to do as an accordion player is to bring that authentic interpretation.

And that's what I like to do when I play music is make it sound like it's from over there.

(accordion music) I'm Mark Stillman.

I'm an accordionist who plays a variety of music from around the world, a lot of European countries, American music South American music, and I'm also a specialist in Klezmer.

(accordion music) Hey!

Klezmer is a style of music that comes from mainly Eastern Europe.

It evolved out of the (foreign language) of the old Jewish settlement in countries like Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Hungary.

These are places where the Jewish people who were hired to play for celebrations (foreign language) as they call them.

And they were the specialists in the lively entertainment for a good wedding, a good celebration.

You wanted to have a wedding guest, you needed those Klezmer musician to make it happen.

And they were wonderful musicians.

Some of them virtuosos.

(accordion music) Hey hey!

Hey!

Hey!

(audience applauds) (accordion music) As far as the future, well, good music will always have an audience.

It may not be as popular as a good rock band that everybody loves to go here.

But I will say that accordion music is something that will always be around because it's inherently great music.

Played on an accordion, but it is something special.

(accordion music) (conjunto music playing) - My name is Luke Cardona.

I play the button diatonic accordion.

What conjunto music does is it takes the history and the tradition of German polka and really adds flair and style to the music.

Hey!

Hey!

We've completely removed the left side of that accordion.

And we've focused strictly on the right side, and we've let the the guitars and the bass take the place of that left side.

So because of that, it adds a little bit more spunk, a little bit more zest to it.

We got a little bit faster tempo, um-pah, um-pah, um-pah, um-pah.

And then he adds some electric guitar into that, and you've got Tex-Mex music.

(singing in a foreign language) I play a 32-button diatonic, which is smaller, makes it for more flexibility and mobility.

It's a lightweight, versatile box that we play in Tex-Mex music.

(conjunto music playing) Our music, conjunto music, was really popular even in Minnesota, back in the 1950s, in the 1960s all the migrant workers that were coming to work in the the fields brought the music with them from south Texas.

And it was really their form of entertainment.

So when they got done working long hours in the fields, there was nothing else for them to do besides grab an accordion and grab a guitar and play some traditional Mexican folk tunes.

(singing in foreign language) You can find the accordion being played like this a lot in Texas and California, but you really don't find this type of accordion being played in the Midwest, let alone Southern Minnesota.

Not all Mexican music is the same.

Just like not all rock and roll is the same, and not all hip hop is the same.

There's different genres within genres, and so there's room for all of us.

There's an audience for everyone.

And the accordion is a staple in Mexican music, but it's not the only instrument that exists out there.

(conjunto music playing) And so we're just really excited to be able to keep playing.

We don't know how long it's gonna last.

We don't know how long the accordion's gonna be popular for, but it feels like it's gonna be popular for a little bit longer here in Minnesota and we're excited for that.

(audience cheers) - [Man] All righty!

(upbeat rock music) - 1993 was a year for blockbuster movies like "Jurassic Park," "The Fugitive" and 'Sleepless in Seattle."

People in Wabasha, Minnesota remember another film from that year, "Grumpy Old Men."

It was set in Wabasha, where we join in the fun at the Annual Grumpy Old Men Festival.

(lively music) - [Woman] This is the 29th Annual Grumpy Old Men Festival that is held in Wabasha, Minnesota, the last full weekend of February.

We're on the beautiful Mississippi River backwaters and we'll have a fishing contest and many, many more events to happen during the day.

- The Grumpy Old Men Festival started in 1993 when the film was made, and we were fortunate enough to have the writer of the book, Michael Johnson from Hastings spent all of his time off from school with his grandfather, Chuck Gilbert, who ran Slippery's Bait Shop.

- There's two gentlemen, played by Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, that have this ongoing fun camaraderie about fishing.

Woman moves to town.

She's pretty out there.

And they are now trying to vie for her affection.

There's just two men that like to sit around and fish and play jokes on each other and do one ups on each other.

- The movie really, you know, people always ask is it really true?

Is that what really happens in Wabasha when people go ice fishing and how they act?

And generally speaking, the two guys, Walter Matthau and his partner fed off one another, and it it's pretty true depictive of the old guys in Wabasha and how they kind of act.

They talk about going to hot dish luncheons.

Hot dishes are the thing in Wabasha.

So it's true to life.

I don't think it's...

I mean, it's funny.

It's good history.

- Well, I remember Richard Bach, the owner of Slippery's at that time.

Great guy, and he did act like that.

He had a cigar hanging out of his mouth every day.

He was, he argued, he argued with people just like in the movie, but it was Slippery.

(laughs) And it was it, I think the movie gave a lot of credit to Slippery's in Wabasha, how it was.

It's just a fun day, and we love to have people come with their costumes on and celebrate with us.

- [Jane] Everyone pays $10 a person to ice fish, and we have four categories that we award cash prizes from payback from the entry's fees.

Last year, we had over 400 fisher people here.

So the ice is full.

I mean, it's exciting to see that many people, and it's families.

- [Lori] I take care of the concession stand, which will be in Rotary Beach Park.

Along with the plunge.

Our local establishments are all excited.

They'll all wear plaid.

They'll all have specials for you.

- [Jane] Ragetti spaghetti was a big deal.

So Urban Arrow Pantry downtown will be doing a spaghetti meal.

So that's also part of what the movie had, was Ragetti spaghetti.

And that's where they all went.

- [Lori] Hotdishes are a big thing in Minnesota.

I think we're known for hotdishes and we will, our local church will have a hotdish lunch, and then we always have bingo and other games for people to play.

We have something for everybody.

We try to cover every age.

I think it'll be a fun and ending with the plunge which is a very good organization.

- [Woman] So the polar plunge started 10 or 11 years ago and it is all about raising funds for two local charities.

Great River Homes and then the other is Wabasha Rotary, which all of their money raised goes back to local events, scholarships.

So it raises funds to continue good things in our community.

- [Lori] And then Hoppy Girl Brewery is a cute outdoor facility we have, and she will have bonfires going all day.

- We will have a look-alike contest and best dressed buffalo plaid.

It's a lot of fun.

It's just a way for people to get out and feel like they're partaking in a community event.

The ice bar, and a lot of outdoor activities happens at the pioneer club, which is on the outer skirts and down by the backwaters of the Mississippi Tipiota Point.

But you can sit out at the the frozen bar and have a few cocktails and tell tall tales.

- I think it means a big boost for the community financially.

I think winter in small rural Minnesota towns is slow and they have to count on locals to support mainly to keep our restaurants going.

So I think by even just giving this little boost, whether it be a day or day and a half and bring people to town that aren't necessarily here just helps the community in general.

- [Jane] Grumpy Old Men Fest does put us on the map.

So it it's great.

(upbeat rock music) - Jeff Thompson practices photography as it was done years ago, using black and white film developed with chemicals in a darkroom.

He says black and white helps him see the world differently.

We visit Jeff at his home to find out more.

- Hello, I'm Jeff Thompson.

I'm a retired Mayo physician and a black and white photographer (gentle music) In high school, I had a class, a photography class and that kind of got me interested in it and learned some of the basics.

When my grandpa died, and we had a big box of photographs, and I noticed that all the color photographs were faded and looked crappy.

And, but the black and white ones, some of that were like 70, 80 years old, still looked great.

I just like the aesthetics of black and white photography.

With color, it's more about the color.

If the colors are there, it's pretty and it's a nice picture.

With black and white, it's more about the composition and the textures.

It takes a different way of looking at the world to get good black and white photography.

Plus, I was inspired by Ansel Adams and the cool pictures he took.

(gentle music) My dad bought this camera in 1978, and so he let me borrow it.

I've had it over since with black and white photography.

I think of it as not using electronics or computers and you know, things like that to get the picture right.

But just using my own skills in composition, and then in the post-production.

Getting the picture to look right, doing it on a computer just feels kind of sterile.

The darkroom is part of the fun part, because that's where you take the image from the the negative and kind of manually manipulate it to match what your vision of the picture was.

Once it's gone through the chemistry and so on, you wash it.

And I usually, you know, stick it up here, then I'll turn the light on and see what I've got and then decide on where the burning and so on needs to happen.

Most of what I do is landscape photography or, you know buildings.

When we're traveling, going on trips I'll bring the black and white camera and take some pictures.

But usually it's landscape.

Those are some of my favorites.

We were going touring just along the shore of Thailand.

And that was a little hut that was perched on the cliff there that I thought was kind of neat.

Zion and Bryce Canyons in Utah.

(gentle music) Of course my kids and my grandkid.

(laughs) I took a series of pictures.

This is at like three weeks, four weeks or so.

And then every few months as he aged and this was this year at Christmas, at the end some of the scenery in the out west and then the Boundary Waters.

And the Boundary Waters, there's not a lot of soil.

It was, you know, it's really rocky and then a little thin layer of soil.

And so trees will start out on a rock and then become, you know, big trees balancing on a rock.

So I took a series of photos, "Rooted in the Rock," I call it.

(gentle music) You have to learn to see in black and white.

You have to kind of ignore the colors.

And if it's the colors that are making it interesting, it may not be an interesting black and white picture.

So those are the kinds of manipulations you would do.

And then when you're done, it looks like this.

So you can actually see the leaves and the trees.

And they're not just all whited out.

If you can kind of see in shades of intensity and patterns and textures and see what you think is gonna be a good picture, then you try to get that visualization to come to life in the dark room.

(gentle music) (upbeat rock music) - Cannabis dealers say they're misunderstood.

Although the medical community is still studying CBD, shop owners say their products are safe and effective for treating conditions such as pain and stress.

We visit a small cannabis shop in Austin.

(smooth jazz music) - I think we are misunderstood because of just the what's been hanging over marijuana for so long.

All the demonization of it over the years.

I really wish more people would understand that this is a valuable plan.

- Some people think of it as a, you know, still a schedule one drug.

You know, if they're new to it or haven't really researched it, that's kind of the the lens that they look through.

So sometimes it can be difficult to explain benefits if they're not real open to it.

- So we opened in June of 2019.

It came about the the December before end of 2018.

Myself and my two partners sat down.

We talked about this crazy idea to start the shop.

And here we are.

(smooth jazz music) - Now we have a lot of our families involved in every part of production and part of sales and marketing.

So it's really important for our families, but really the the main point of starting this was to help people.

- Well, the first time they come in, you know, they usually, you a little bit of a strange look on their face.

- I think they're a little bit surprised.

It's very welcoming, if you noticed.

And I think they enjoy their experience here and they learn a lot.

If we weren't educating as we were going along, I don't think we would grow at all.

- We see anything from a 21-year-old to a 90-year-old, all different reasons.

Two of the most being pain, and then anxiety and stress.

- I would say about 80% of our customers utilize it for pain.

- Right now, stress seems to be playing a major role in a lot of people's lives.

And they're looking to find something that will help alleviate that.

(smooth jazz music) - Surprisingly, we thought it would be the younger generation, maybe, you know, 20s to 40s, but our biggest clientele is actually 60 and over.

One thing we've noticed is if they've had a friend or or a family member that have had some success with CBD, usually word of mouth is really the, you know the most effective way to promote it and educate.

So marijuana is very high in an intoxicating effects of THC and very low in CBD.

And then hemp is really the inverse.

So it's very in CBD and then very low in the THC.

So in Minnesota, we have to be under 0.3% of that THC threshold to be able to sell our product.

- The flower is it's a smokeable, it's a vapable.

It can be put into recipes also.

(smooth jazz music) - The difference with the oil and the flower is the flower is really effective, very fast through inhalation.

The oils take about like that 45 minute window to take effect.

There's so many modes of taking it.

So if some people don't enjoy it or like it, you know, in one way, shape or form, they can kind of switch to even a topical.

It's very effective, even absorption topically or internally, so.

- And we're regenerative farmers.

We try to work with our soil to make it better every year naturally - We all live in Austin.

We all grow.

We all grow separate plots.

Southern Minnesota's just this wonderful climate.

We have a beautiful rich soil.

And then our plants just thrive down here (smooth jazz music) (upbeat rock music) - Long before cars, people who lived in towns along the Minnesota River might have taken a Steamboat to go from city to city.

Let's find out more on this video from the blue Earth County Historical Society (gentle music) - [Narrator] Steamboats once applied the Minnesota River carrying passengers and freight to the communities forming along the river.

Names like the Jeannette Roberts Franklin Steel or Julia are all remembered in historical accounts.

For a decade, steamboats were the major means of transportation between Mankato and St. Paul.

As boats could only run during the early summer before the river became too low and rail service took over the transportation of people and produce, the steam boats disappeared from the river.

However, not all boats were carrying freight.

The first boat to come up the river as far as the future site of the city was the Anthony Wayne, an excursion boat, traveling up the Mississippi from St. Louis with passengers waiting to see this new country.

Years after the steamboat era ended, the Henrietta docked in Mankato.

It was an excursion boat previously sailing out of Stillwater.

Its first trip from St. Peter to Mankato and back took three hours, moving at 12 miles per hour.

It carried 175 people.

For more information on historical topics, visit our website at BlueEarthCountyHistory.com.

- That's all for this episode.

See you next time Off 90 (upbeat rock music) - [Announcer] Funding for Off 90 is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(birds calling) (uplifting music)