Ventura a hit in New Ulm

By RON LARSEN

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM--It was pure, vintage Jesse Ventura, and New Ulmites loved every minute of it.

Whether it was hawking Schell's original beer on the street and his weekly radio program, "Lunch With The Governor," tweaking the "jackals" of the press corps, climbing the Hermann statue, signing a beer bottle, T-shirts and what-have-you, the Jesse "spell" was cast Friday from one end of Broadway to the other.

Smiling broadly as a man claimed, "I didn't realize I'd get so much mileage out of one vote as I did with you, Jesse," the governor busily signed just about anything thrust toward him, as he and his party paused to admire the city's downtown centerpiece, the Glockenspiel.

Turning to his host, Mayor Arnold Koelpin, he asked,"How come it doesn't do zickee, zickee?" He was referring to a toast he had learned at a community dinner in his honor the night before. (The German toast is made by holding beer glasses high and chanting loudly, "Zicke, Zacke, Zicke, Zacke. Heu, Heu, Heu!")

A woman asked him to do what he could to resolve the state employees' negotiations stalemate.

"There's not much I can do because that's all part of the collective bargaining process," Ventura answered.

He had just come from a walk-through tour of the August Schell Brewery, the second-oldest family owned brewery in the country, according to host and owner Ted Marti.

Ventura overruled Marti when his host suggested skipping a walk through the gardens surrounding the house where August Schell lived.

When a ground hog scurried away, Ventura turned to those walking with him and said, "Did you see that ground hog? He's running because his natural enemy, the jackal, is around and out to get him!"

In the brew house, Ventura was made "honorary brewmaster" and poured a bucket of hops into the still. After sampling a light "original" and a dark beer which he proclaimed "amazingly light," the governor refused a third sample, saying, "I'd better not; I've got a radio show to do."

When given a gift box containing 12 bottles of Schell beer and two glasses, Ventura told the media, "I can accept this because it's under 25 bucks. I'm going to drink these individually, so I don't want to hear about it in the press."

After drive-by views of the Kraft Foods and 3-M plants, Ventura got a close-up look at "Hermann the German," the Hermann Monument, the one which Ventura had once described as a "tin man on a gazebo."

Having climbed the stairs and admired the view, Ventura came down with a different view of Hermann.

"It is very impressive, terrific; the view is beautiful," Ventura extolled. "Is it worthy of being a national monument? Absolutely!"

He even weighed into the cast-iron lion controversy, advising the mayor and others to talk with officials in the Department of Finance and the state Historical Society.

"Tell them we're going to put a copper penny under each one of them (lions), and then it will be copper. We can nit-pick, too, and I'll donate the four pennies," he said.

Before reboarding the bus, Ventura stopped to chat with Koelpin's grandsons, four-year-old Joshua and two-year-old Joel Koelpin. He asked Joel where he got the "yellow" hair.

"I hope it isn't dyed," Ventura said, taking off his cap. "I dyed mine yellow and look what happened."

After the Glockenspiel, Ventura, his ever-present cigar stub between his fingers, started his walk through New Ulm's downtown, Minnesota Street, stopping at Double Dimension Family Hair Care Center to have his picture taken with the center's owner twins, Ann Olsen and Nan Nonnemacher, who had gotten his autograph on dinner tickets at the Glockenspiel.

Ventura doffed his Schell's cap, baring his shaved scalp, and asked, "Can I get this buffed in there?" He certainly could, Ann and Nan chorused.

That wasn't the last "bald" joke from Ventura.

An elderly woman who caught up with him as he neared German park apologized for not having the time to take the curlers out of her hair. "Well, you'd better get them out," Ventura said, taking his cap off. "Look what they did to me."

At one point, he carried on an across-the-street dialogue with women about rebate checks.

"Have I received my rebate check? I don't know," Ventura responded. "I have a wife; I never see any rebate checks."

But, Ventura's finest hour was when he was finally seated before a microphone in German park, preparing for his weekly broadcast. Told there was a marine in the audience, Ventura put down his headphones and walked up the slope to talk with Marine Corporal Jonathon Taralseth of Lafayette.

Taralseth, in dress uniform, was home on leave from Camp Lejeune, N.C. Asked what Ventura said to him, Taralseth answered diplomatically, "it was just a military joke."

Before taking his place at the mike, Ventura had been welcomed by New Ulm's Battery with a "three-shot" salute from its cannon.

As the smoke cleared from the first round, Ventura exclaimed, "Aw right, that will stop 'em. You know who we are after. We're after those Virginians who want their flag back."

Ventura later explained during his broadcast that the Virginia legislature has wanted a flag taken by Minnesotans during the Civil War returned. "They'll have to come and get it."

Koelpin joined Ventura at the microphone for much of the broadcast. Ventura quizzed him about how he happened to be appointed to the post.

Koelpin replied that members of the council asked him to be a candidate for election to the unexpired term of the late Bert Schapekahm.

"Then I got a call that they had been appointed me mayor," Koelpin said, "and I was in Germany."

"Well, that just shows that they're smarter than they look," Ventura joked.

Calling New Ulm a "beautiful town here in southern Minnesota," Ventura added, "It's probably the only town that would have a sign outside a bar saying, 'Welcome Back Students.' I thought they were talking about K-through-12, but I found out later they have a college here, too.

"Now, I'd better add that I am joking; otherwise, these jackals will have it spread all over the (Twin Cities) newspapers," Ventura noted.

Then, Ventura gave Koelpin several minutes of air time to "sell" the community to the tourists, emphasizing "all the festivals you have here."

When Koelpin said the community has four major festivals a year, Ventura noted, "I thought you were down to one a month. You might as well."

Ventura found air time to poke a little fun at the House Republican leadership, as well as to chastise Minnesota's senior senator, Paul Wellstone, for "not doing nothing in 12 years to get the feds to fully fund their commitment to special education."

He also asked for help from the German Park audience in a poll about his political future.

"How many here think I should announce my intentions right now and start campaigning?" he asked, to light applause.

"Now, how many here think I should continue to do my job right through the next legislative session and then make my decision?" This time there was heavier applause.

"There you have it; that's what I'm going to do," Ventura said.