By Casandra Leff RICEVILLE - The past

weekend (Aug. 1) we would have been celebrating Riceville’s annual Wapsi Day, and the Mitchell County Fair would have also been taking place. Because this is the year 2020, though, nothing is normal.

We are working on some of our customary August things, though – sports calendars, get-ting ready for the start of school, etc. And there will be some un-usual events for this time of year, also.

The primary of those events is Riceville’s Homecoming. You read that right – Riceville’s Homecoming coverage is cur-rently on pace to start in August this year. That’s because the game is currently scheduled to take place on Sept. 4.

Why is that? If you read the article in last week’s newspaper about fall sports, you already know why. The eight-man class, to which Riceville belongs, is starting with District action right

away. That means the Wildcats’ schedule had the first two previ-ously-scheduled weeks cut off. Therefore, the fourth game of the season – Homecoming – be-came the second game. Only time will tell if and how the week will be affected, but we will provide what coverage we can.

It’s hard to know what other events take place in the fall. Cus-tomary events I can think of as I write this column include church fall festivals, meals, school sporting events and concerts and much more outside our commu-nities. The Norman Borlaug Harvest Festival is scheduled to take place in Cresco. Autumn Artistry will be in Osage. If they can be safely pulled off, and if the weather cooperates, I think a lot of people would be very happy.

And even now, just over a month away, it’s hard to say what those festivities will look like. In June, members of Riceville Community Club held

a meeting where the decision to host or cancel Wapsi Days was made. Members discussed vari-ous possibilities and how they might be able to pull off an event. Attending that meeting and talking with members, I guarantee no one made the deci-sion lightly – it was a 6-4 vote against holding an abbreviated schedule.

That was at a time where it looked like the increase in cases was on the decline, and then things were starting to pick up again. Almost two months later, unfortunately, cases have picked up, and schools have been facing the difficult decision of how to best open schools again. There is a lot that goes into this process. I’ve had the privilege of attend-ing meetings, and I know mem-bers of school membership are agonizing over the decisions that are being made. They are not easy.

Whenever things reopen, it seems we hear stories about great resistance, but as we move forward, please do your best to support the teachers, students, administration and school board members. They are making the best possible decisions they can for as many students as they can.

How do you do that? Well, in Riceville, signing up for school is currently underway. One way of supporting our schools is to send your children if possible. That means signing up for an on-line or in-person learning option. I’ll say it straight out – I don’t think I could be a teacher. I’ve helped my nephew, Colten, with a couple projects, but I couldn’t work with children all day, every day. I don’t feel like I have the patience for it.

Before I started college, I worked at the Girl Scout camp in Clear Lake during the summer,

and by late July/early August, I was ready for school to start again. My happiest summers came when I worked with the kitchen staff – I still saw the kids, but it was in a little bit more of a limited capacity.

And that’s fine – I wasn’t made to be a teacher. Very few people are. If you don’t think you can send your son and/or daughter to school but don’t want to home school, sign up for an on-line option. That way, your children are getting access to school teachers and school re-sources, and the schools are get-ting financial support as well. Make no mistake – they need it!

Our children need to be in school, too – if it’s safe to do so. Colten, and all the children at Riceville, have been home since mid-March. In a normal year, he starts getting anxious for the year to start again in August. Well, guess what? This year, June was a normal year’s Au-gust. Thankfully, we got summer rec and the summer reading pro-gram in, so there was something to do in June, but July was long, and August already feels that way. Let’s be safe and hopefully get back to normal soon.

“You live in the middle of nowhere.”

The visitor who said that was from a big city.

That caused me to reply in the traditional way, “Not really, but I can see nowhere from here.”

I live not far from St. Aidan Catholic Cemetery. It’s near Bath, Minn., which falls in the category of a ghost town. The population is zero, but has 100% response to the Census. I visit there often.

Myron visited cemeteries. He’d been born musical. He played on the floor before he started school. By the first grade, he could play the radio. He was a virtuoso on the recorder in grade school. Only the PK (Preacher’s Kid) was better. He was forced to give up the recorder when he entered junior high and tried to replace music with other things. He became a scout, but learned that when it came to making s’mores, he was a s’moron.

Myron tried playing the clar-inet. Everybody did. He moved to a tuba. Tote that barge, lift that bale. He checked it off and went to the drums. He wasn’t good, but he was loud. He was drummed out of the junior high school band. That left him with the big decision as to what his life’s path would be. He knew the future was important because his favorite baseball player, Dan

Quisenberry said, “I have seen the future, and it is much like the present, only longer.” Over the years, he narrowed it down to becoming either an underwater welder or a bagpipe player (piper). He decided to become a piper. His parents entertained doubts, but were supportive and consented. His father called it one of those “What was I think-ing?” moments. The neighbors claimed it was just bad parent-ing. “I don’t mind the boy own-ing bagpipes. What I mind is him playing them,” said one.

The family had to mortgage the farm to keep Myron in musi-cal instruments. “Why couldn’t you have taken up whittling?” his father muttered often.

“You just don’t appreciate good music,” he told his father.

“I do appreciate good music. That’s the problem.”

“Put it down, you’re hurting it!” his siblings said all too fre-quently.

Myron practiced. Bagpipes squawked. Then a sound was produced that could almost be called pleasing. It was as if he’d been cast adrift in an ocean of cosmic awareness. He became one with the universe.

He liked the company of bag-pipes and became a great piper. As good on the bagpipes as Lawrence Welk was on the ac-cordion. It was likely both had to put up with jokes like this one. What is the definition of perfect

pitch? If you pitch an accordion into a dumpster and it lands on the bagpipes.

He had two jobs one day, pip-ing at graveside committal serv-ices. The first one was in the morning and included lunch at a church. They served funeral po-tatoes. He loved scalloped pota-toes and ham. If someone offered him scalloped potato and ham pie, he’d eat two pieces with whipped cream on them. The church found it difficult to get shed of Myron. He got a late start.

He jumped into his Dodge Caravan. He believed a Dodge was perfect for swerving to miss a pothole. His second job was at the first burial in a new cemetery in the middle of nowhere. Ceme-tery and graveyard are used in-terchangeably, but a graveyard adjoins a church (in a church-yard), whereas a cemetery does-n't. This was before GPS and smartphones. His directions were scribbled on the back of a funeral home brochure. He ei-ther read them wrong or they were written wrong. He became lost several times.

Then the fog lifted. He saw a vehicle and some excavating equipment. He turned in the drive, parked and jumped from his van. The wonderful writer Patrick McManus wrote of two ways to deal with great chal-lenges, “proper full-bore linear panic” and “modified stationary

panic.” Myron used a third method. He grabbed the bag-pipes and hustled as fast as a man in kilts could to the gravesite. The vault lid was al-ready in place. Everyone was gone, but he’d signed up to play and he would.

He played “Amazing Grace” better than anyone had before. It was divine.

Two workers had been de-canting behind a tree. One said, “I’ve been installing septic tanks for 34 years and this is the first time I’ve ever cried while doing it.”

And that’s about the end of the story.

No eardrums were injured during the making of this col-umn.

©� Al Batt 2020

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‘Batt’ing for the Good Times, by Al Batt

Al Batt

It drowned out the sounds of many clarinets

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Page 4 - Monitor Recorder EDITORIAL Thursday, Aug. 6, 2020

Moving toward the start of the school year

Casandra Leff

Old Black Guy On my many trips to the south-

ern states for nearly 60 years, I met and talked with many black folks. They were mostly working people, and I learned many things from them.

I found they were very musical and quite religious. On Sunday morning in church, they would sing very peppy songs, even getting up and dancing in the aisles.

One day, I was talking with a young black driver. He told me he came from a large family, and his father was getting old. They told him he should retire, and he said, “I can’t – my house isn’t paid for yet.”

So all the children chipped in and paid off his loan and told him, “Now, you can retire!”

Well, guess what? He sold his old house and bought a newer, more expensive one. Then he said, “I can’t retire yet – my house isn’t paid paid for.”

The truth is, he just didn’t want to retire. One other time, I was talking with an old black gentleman

about life in general. He said, “You know, when you put your pants on in the morning, you don’t know who will be taking them off at night!”

With age comes wisdom. Thank you, Papa Bear

Galen Hansen is a retired trucker from McIntire. His col-umn, “Diesel Smoke,” tells stories from his days as a trucker traveling around the United States.

Diesel Smoke By Galen Hansen

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Peek into the Past

Local resident writes early Riceville historyBy Mrs. Aldis Dunton (Originally appearing in the June 28, 1945 Riceville Recorder. Note: Where possible, locations have been pinpointed using today’s businesses.)

RICEVILLE - Prehistoric Riceville consisted of an old In-dian trail which crossed the Wapsie at the fork of the river com-ing from the east and leading out toward the western prairies and the old war trail that led to the north to the famous battle ground of the Sioux and the Chippewas.

The old springs, now utilized for water works, probably fur-nished a favorite camping ground. Numerous arrow heads have been picked up in this vicinity, and a large lance head was found near where the post office now stands. (Note: The post office in 1945 was located on the north side of Main Street, where D&E Carpet is today.) The old road passing from the terminus of the railroad at McGregor out over the western prairie was the first white man’s trail. The discovery of these springs made it the camping ground for the white man on his travels through the country.

Dennis Rice, who was searching for a mill site and town site, stopped at the spring; he noticed the lay of the land, the fork in the river, which then poured a turbulent flood to the south, much deeper than at present – so deep that it was difficult to cross above the forks. He observed that by placing a dam below the forks, he could get waterpower and would have a good area for a mill site and mill pond.

He spent nearly one half day in exploring the creeks and forming his plans for locating on this particular quarter. At noon, he repaired to the spring for a lunch, where he found a stranger also enjoying his noonday meal. Dennis was rather a talkative fellow and unfolded to the stranger his plans for a town site and that he proposed to locate upon this quarter. The stranger smiled and showed him where he had put his name upon a quarter stick and had done enough improvement upon the land to give him a right to the claim. Dennis loudly expressed his regrets when the other man offered to sell to him and at last, the deal was closed for a five dollar bill.

Rice located upon the quarter and got his relatives and his mother to come with him and take a portion of the land. They built some buildings and commenced improvements; the saw mill was built below where the old mill now stands; the lumber for which was sawed at the old Jamestown saw mill out on the little creek between Marshal Fox’s and where Sherman Mulks now lives (approximately the intersection of Highway 9 and Dale Avenue, where the Jamestown Cheese factory was located).

A little log cabin situated in the middle of the road directly in front of the old Methodist church property (on east Main Street before the 1901 fire) is probably the first building built in Riceville. The old log cabin standing behind the large brick building where the late L.M. Mosher lived was one of the next buildings, and at that place a Mr. Kerr kept a grocery store. The Rices had built a log house where the old opera house formerly stood (There used to be one on the northwest corner of Main Street and Woodland Ave.) and there kept a small stock of gro-ceries, probably the first business in Riceville.

A frame hotel was afterwards built where the old opera house stood and a small brick office for Dr. Allman and across the street was erected what was known here for years as the old store building. This was occupied by the first settlers as a gen-eral store, then across the street to the south was built what was known as the old brick store. One remarkable thing about this building is that it is now about to be sold upon a sheriff sale as the result of litigation from facts which occurred about 35 years ago.

The growth of Riceville has been steady and strong and is at present well up with the surrounding country. It has numbered among its ministers some of the ablest men in the state. The teachers in our schools have become renowned in their several situations.

The most important event in the history of Riceville was the fire, which destroyed over 60 buildings in an hour-and-a-half on the 20th day of July 1901. The business portion of the city at that time consisted of five blocks of wooden buildings, practi-cally all of which were burned. The actual loss of property amounted to between $200,000 and $300,000, on which there was about $100,000 insurance. But out of the ashes of the old wooden buildings, there now stands over 40 brick places of busi-ness, and almost without exception, these places of business were built since the fire. In spite of the fact that this immense amount of property was wiped out in about an hour, not a sin-gle business failure resulted. Teams were preparing the old site for the new before the ashes ceased to smolder, and in one build-ing, men were obliged to stop until they cooled.

Many of these buildings were built by resident carpenters and planned by a resident architect. The spirit of liberality built and paid for two churches, which together cost $25,000 since the fire.

Last year, the heavy rains washed out the old dam planned so many years ago by Dennis Rice, and it was thought impractical by the owner to replace it. In less than an hour, $85 was col-lected by private subscriptions to go toward keeping the old landmark in place.

Since then, the brick business places heretofore mentioned have been erected, a complete system of waterworks embrac-ing constant pressure and elevated tank is in full operation, a competent fire department organized, a complete telephone ex-change and a complete system of electric lights running until midnight and on the verge of putting on all-night service.

More money can be raised in Riceville for a charitable en-terprise in the same length of time than in any town of its size in the state. There is not an empty business place in town that is not contracted for. The future of Riceville is as full of promise as the past is full of action.

The top picture is looking west on Main Street from east of the Congregational Church, and the bottom is of Woodland Avenue, looking north toward the first block of buildings. Both pictures are from the early 1900s.