School day reflections: Chapter 2

Rick Wimer

I felt blessed by their strength and conviction and that they, along with all the other nuns, priests and teachers at St.Mary’s provided deep, wonderful roots on how I was able to live my life with a modicum of respect, strength and success.”

— Rick Rimer to retired nuns many years later

Contributor Rick Wimer has written a lengthy piece on his many memories from attending St. Mary’s School in Storm Lake. So many details, and we couldn’t bear to cut any of them out, so we have divided it into two sections. Here is the second….

The time I ‘ruined’ the musical

In my Senior year while Sr. Dominica was the music director, Ed Bodaken, a previous graduate from St. Mary’s and a college graduate, returned as an assistant to Sr. Dominica. That year he was put in charge of the production of the year’s annual musical. Ed was very, very serious and strict, requiring that every aspect of the production be exact and precise. I’d say he was a perfectionist, and rehearsals were not a fun as they had been in the past.

The musical production had a Spanish theme. I played “Todoro” a rancher. On the evening of performance, during a serious scene where the barn was on fire, I was to rush out and shout “Let’s get the horses out of the stable!” Instead, however I rushed out and shouted, “Let’s get the stable out of the horses!”

The audience, including myself, burst into, not just a chuckle, but full-blown guffaws of laughter. While I don’t remember how it ended, I know that my line had totally blown the roof off of the seriousness of the whole scene. I then left the stage as the skit continued and went to my designated area off-stage for my next scene. 

Once there, I was met by a very, very unhappy Ed Bodaken, who somehow implied, very sternly, that I had ruined the entire program. I don’t remember anything after that moment other than being crestfallen that I had spoiled everything. However, looking back occasionally, over the years to that moment, I always chuckle about what I said and the amazing laughter of the moment, and how good it made me feel. Shame on me.

‘I thought I would be a shoe in’

Amazingly, when I got out of the Air Force four to five years later, having not sang a lick of organized music since high school, I went out for the choir while attending Iowa Lakes Community College in Estherville.

In spite of being absent from music for all that time, I thought I would be a shoe in to be selected. Amazingly, out of all the choir candidates that year, a whole bleacher full of them, I was the only one, the only one who was rejected.

It was actually intriguing how the director found me amidst all of them.  But truthfully, my musical skill had totally abandoned the deep inner recesses of my brain, and I could no longer read music, nor sing a note on key. Sr. Dominica would probably never have believed it, until I told her about it in the late 80s/early 90s at the end of the RAGBRAI route in Dubuque.

When Srs. Ignatius and Dominica apologized

That year, I had learned that the Sisters of the Presentation’s motherhouse was located in Dubuque and that both Srs. Ignatius and Dominica were both living there in their retirement. After completing RAGBRAI I rode my bike there and asked if I could meet with them. What a memorable moment it was when they both walked into the lobby, somewhat older, yet just as I remembered them.

We had a wonderful conversation that went on for hours, reminiscing about our history at St. Mary’s. I advised and thanked Sr. Ignatius for inspiring my writing skills and Sr. Dominica, sadly that I no longer could carry a tune. We had a good laugh.

At a point in our meeting, the conversation for them became serious. 

They both apologized. They felt that they should have been less strict in their teaching methods and more personable and caring with the students.

I communicated to them that they were wrong. I told them for me, growing up without a mother, I felt blessed by their strength and conviction and that they, along with all the other nuns, priests and teachers at St. Mary’s provided deep, wonderful roots on how I was able to live my life with a modicum of respect, strength and success.

I left them smiling!

Spanish class, Latin class

My senior year was also the first year that St. Marys offered a Spanish curriculum. I qualified for the class having had two years of Latin. My teacher and newly found confidante was Señora Cruz. If my memory is on point, she and her husband Felix were Cuban exiles. While she taught us Spanish, he was a professor at Buena Vista College.  I never have remembered her first name; she was and always has been respectfully Señora Cruz. 

I got straight A grades in everything I did: homework, classwork, speaking. Señora Cruz would work with me out of the classroom on proper pronunciations, accents and how to “roll Rs.” Not only was she my teacher, but she also took the time to listen to my frustrations in life and help me get through some of them.

Of all the classes I had, learning Spanish and being able to speak it, at least “a poquito” was amazing to me. (Lo siento mucho) “I’m very sorry” that I did not continue with it in college. Yet, over the years, I have remembered and used key phrases with my Hispanic friends and employees, whenever it was beneficial. I cannot carry on a conversation, because my ears just can’t keep up with the rapidity that it’s spoken. I respect Chief Cole at SLPD who has learned to speak it fluently to the benefit of and out of respect for Storm Lake’s large Hispanic community. 

One of my most difficult classes in high school was Latin. I have no memory as to who taught it. I can’t even visualize who it was. As much as I enjoyed and absorbed Spanish, I was 100% the polar opposite when it came to Latin. It did help me, as an altar boy, along with Monsignor Ivis’s tutelage, to understand our Mass at the time, which was, in retrospect “the” base for my religious beliefs for my entire life. 

I surmise the class was not intended to teach us to speak it, it was more to comprehend it’s use primarily in celebrating the Mass, but possibly the legal profession and the formation of our United States government. As explained online, “E Pluribus Unum” “Out of many, one” once Americas motto, along with other Latin phrases that are found on the back of our one-dollar bill that all allude to our country’s unity and God given rights.

Typing pays off later in the Air Force

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. And on and on and on and on and on. And of course, on our Royals, there was the manual return after each line filling the class room with a chorus of, words can’t describe zeeps and clunks.

Typing! I don’t remember who taught it, possibly Sr. Ignatius, but I’m sure I passed it.  Amazingly it was a precursor to my Advanced Training in the Air Force at Keesler AFB, Biloxi, Miss. I spent six months there improving my typing skills and learning morse code: dah dah dit dah, dit dit dit, dit dah, dit dit dah dah dit dit, dah dit dah? (How are you? In code language) preparing to spend the next two years in the foothills of Alaska copying coded Russian secret transmissions of all kinds.

My proficiency at both typing and copying code reached a rate of 80 words per minute. Whenever I’ve been asked what I did in the military, I tell all that I was a spy.  Well, when you consider that I had a top secret clearance, copied the Russians and after that assigned to NSA in Washington, why not? Amazingly, if all of my typing experience hadn’t happened, I might not be able to write these little gems for you.

A stalwart class

My Class of ‘63 was relatively small: Mike Bauer, Ellen Connell, Jim Knebel, Wanda Domayer, Bill Stock, Carol Flowers, Ardan Dirkx, Mary Ellen George, Alan Dirkx, Paula Zubradt, Donnie Overmohle, Carolyn Miller, Howard Korwes, Louise Miller, Dennis Moriarity, Peggy Morgan, Al Steinkamp, Judy Wolf, Linda McLaughlin, Molly Larkin, Frances Struck and yours truly Rick Wimer. Additionally, we have three honorary members, Frances Struck, Barb Steffen and Jacque Main.

We have been a rather stalwart class. We have lost Wanda, Bill, Dennis, Donnie and most recently, Mary Ellen. The rest of us, as we have since graduation, without fail, will continue to reunite in Storm Lake every five years. If for unseen reasons, some could not attend, in recent years with the advent of cell phones, we call them and speak to them during our reunion gathering.

The next one, our “65th” to be held at the “Cobb” in 2028, where I will once again ask my prom date Judy Wolf for a dance.

My time at St. Marys was life shaping in so, so many ways. Not only educationally, but also for instilling my at times wavering, yet deep-seated faith in my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen to that!

Rick Wimer writes from Storm Lake.