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Land of 10,000 Stories: A talent for writing wrong

Midwestern towns are known for their solid foundations. But what makes them interesting is people like Cheri Glesener.

Editor's Note: This story originally aired in 2011.

HUTCHINSON, Minn. - Midwestern towns are known for their solid foundations. But what makes them interesting is people like Cheri Glesener.

"I like quirky," says the bubbly 40-year-old when asked to describe her personality. "Quirky works."

Quirky also works for the employees of her bank and the local phone company who never know when she might be walking in with a fresh batch of cookies - or sending them through the drive-up window.

But what really sets Cheri apart is her deliveries through the mail.

"Doesn't take no thought, no effort, no nothing," says Cheri as she begins a letter to her sister -- on the right side of a sheet of stationary. "It's effortless to write backwards."

Cheri still remembers the first time she stumbled on her talent as a 5th grader doing school work at the blackboard. She wrote her words right to left with same ease as the other way around. "It's just one of them quirks I guess God took off the shelf and said 'Here you go.'"

What God gave Cheri her husband Cody would later inherit in the backwards notes she leaves for him on a dry erase board on their refrigerator -- notes he often carries into the bathroom to decipher on the mirror.

"I can't figure out my own brain. I've asked doctors, they can't figure me out either," laughs Cheri.

She can do one better. By holding a pen in each hand, Cheri can simultaneously write a mirror copy of the same sentence, frontwards and backwards, from the middle of a sheet of paper out.

"I'd rather be quirky than normal you know," she laughs.

More recently she's attempted her mirror image writing with markers held in the toes on both of her feet. "When I can get all four going, then I can call you back," she laughs to the visiting television crew. "Wouldn't that be fun?"

Be it baking or backing, Cheri Glesener believes whatever talent you're blessed with should be used to serve others. So with a nod to the calendar, the last words in Cheri's story are hers.

"edutitarg fo lluf eb gnivigsknahT rouy yaM"

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