Last week there wasn’t room for many articles so the last part of my Personals was cut short. It will be in this week’s last paragraphs.
I was at the program on Thursday (March 24) at the Marcus Public Library when Quin Black gave an interesting program on Prehistoric Peoples of Northwest Iowa. When we go back in history, chances are that we think the Native American Indians were the peoples here before the Mayflower landed. His presentation told us of the peoples before the Indians. It is hard to believe a glacier that once was in Iowa. There were probably dinosaurs, too.
This week was all about “school plays”. Friday night and Saturday afternoon, the MMCRU Middle School gave their play on Wagon Wheels a-Rollin’. I counted 69 names in their program that was given to us. That is a lot of students to work with! The cast members were dressed according to what that time period would have been. The play was all about a “Snake” (Smiling Slade Claggett) that had the small town of Vinegar Bottle believing in him_that is probably everyone except a woman who called herself a “fighter” for law and order.
The stage scenery was a Vinegar Bottle Hotel, a Jail of sorts, a Sasparilly Saloon and off to the side was a sign with Outhouse with house crossed off and now called Outlaw’s cabin.
There was a section of land outside of the town called Vinegar Bottle that as of late had “busted” the wheels on wagon trains going west to California. This is what happened when a wagon train had no choice but to go to this town and wait for all their wheels to get fixed. Was someone responsible for all these wheels being broken? If so, was it the person called “Snake”? This play was very amusing! I hope the Middle School keeps on giving plays.
Saturday night and Sunday afternoon, the high school was giving a play on the board game, “Clue”. Remember those board games we used to play before the games being played on the cell phone came about? “Clue” had Miss Scarlet, Mr. White, etc. that were under observation for a murder. We had to figure out which person and what the murder weapon was that killed the man. Hopefully the play “Clue” was as interesting as the board game.
I have had some freak things that have happened to me the last two weeks! The first incident was after Steve let me off. The inside bottom door sometimes sticks and I can’t get it open, so I tell him to wait by the curb mailbox until I wave him on or if I need some help in getting the door open. I did get in and remembered I had something to give him_but he had already gone on. As I opened the outside door to tell him, I found I couldn’t get out! A snow shovel that was sitting along the outside north wall had suddenly fallen in front of the outside door. Of course it wasn’t headed east but rather south. I finally got enough of an opening to get outside and found the handle of the door had caught the snow shovel handle. Talk about a freak happening.
After midnight this past Sunday, I was working on an article until just about 3 a.m. About 10 minutes before that I heard a very loud crash. I was hoping it wasn’t someone that had hit our mailbox again. I shut off the light and was going to go down the hall that had a very dim light coming from the bathroom off to the side at the end of the hallway. I found out what the crash was about. Years ago the railing by the computer room was taken down (so some furniture could come up) and put along the south wall of the hallway. It was this long railing, complete with both heavy ends, that had fallen and covered the entire width of the hallway. I knew I couldn’t call Zachary at this hour as his phone is “off”. I yelled for Bethany to come and help lift this up but there was no answer! Would I have to sit in the computer room until someone woke up in the morning? I kept calling her name and finally she looked out her doorway and wanted to know what I had waken her up for. I told her to look at the floor in front of her. It did take both of us to get the railing back against the south wall. I couldn’t figure out why this fell after all these years. I was hoping her cat hadn’t been the reason and was probably laying dead under the fallen railing. No, the cat was still here.
I got into bed and remembered I had a loaf of bread that probably was ready to bake. Downstairs I went and the bread was ready. While waiting for this, I did a load of laundry. Then I heard the outside door shut and went to get the newspaper. It was after 5 o’clock before I finally got to bed! I am cutting the Personals short as there isn’t much room in the newspaper this week due to other necessities that have to be printed.
Remember in your thoughts and prayers those who have lost loved ones to death, are experiencing health problems, some of which are terminal, are trying to make ends meet even though they have a job, encourage those who are not working to find a job, especially since their weekly government checks will begin being reduced, and encourage those who have distanced themselves from friends and family to build a bridge rather than a wall. Count your blessings.
I will close with a quote from Mark Twain (1835-1910) author and humorist, “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”