Recently over a glass of wine, I was comparing notes with my friend, Cindy, on our teenage pageant experiences. Cindy clearly beat me out with winning the honor of being crowned Pork Queen in Ohio. Although my claiming first runner up in the Remsen Oktoberfest Queen competition felt very admirable at the time in 1984; the reality is that I was a mere runner up. No queen for me. Fortunately for my hometown of Remsen (coined the "Little Luxembourg of Iowa”) our crowned Oktoberfest Queen, Beth, did an awesome job which did not necessitate the need for me to take over her duties (admittedly the silent dream of every first runner up).
So after sharing some laughs as we revisited our parade float waves, Cindy and I moved on to the next conversation. I hadn't thought about my Oktoberfest runner up honor in years and believed that this memory would once again be tucked away for a few more years. Then ironically within a week of having this discussion with Cindy, I stumbled across an old scrapbook in the bowels of my storage area that contained my handwritten speech for the 1984 Oktoberfest Queen contest. I'm quite sure I have not touched these notes since they were written the night before giving my speech. The speech was written in my trademark chicken scratch and then tucked away in my cherished teenage scrapbook. Also included in my scrapbook were the contest rules and requirements of the queen and her court and all of the papers documenting the glory of this honor.
This "time capsule" data threw me back to 1984 with the raw feelings of my small town innocence now emerging from my forty-four year old self. I was quickly reminded of those days of my youthful past and love for the only life that I knew and the community of which I felt a great deal of love. These were the days of knowing the name and the stories of all my neighbors (which basically included the entire town). My small town was my backyard playground with a community feeling similar a warm blanket. Ah, yes, those were the days of ingenuousness with no worries.
Let me give you some background on my hometown roots. I grew up Remsen, Iowa. When I moved out of town in 1985 to attend college, the population was 1,500 and our town motto was “Not a town, but a way of life”. Sometime post 1986 (the year my parents moved to Arizona), the motto was changed to “Neat, but hard to beat”. I do have to say that I don’t know how a town motto that had been in place for a hundred years is changed. I would like to believe there was some type of vote by the city council with great debate rather than simply an individual decision to update the town welcome sign with a new motto. I guess this is one of life’s mysteries of which I may never know the answer. Regardless, “Not a town, but a way of life” was the central theme to the Oktoberfest Queen contest of 1984. As one of the contestants, I was asked to write a speech around this topic and present it to a panel of judges.
You will note in my speech (in its full and unedited form below :)), my heartfelt desire to have Remsen as a part of my future (post-age 16). One could now deduce this to be wishful thinking and a distant memory. But the reality is that it was my golden Remsen upbringing with my family, friends, neighbors, and endless farmland that has formed me as a person and will always be a part of me. I am very proud of my Remsen roots. This upbringing has taught me great life lessons in work ethic, the value of a sense of community, human dignity, Christian values; and for that, I will always be grateful. And being named first runner-up…not such a bad gig. I am honored to have my name included as part of my town’s heritage and history.
Below is my “almost winning” speech in all of its glory. And there is a timeliness to this blog post as Remsen is celebrating its 38th annual Oktoberfest and their Luxembourg heritage tomorrow. Know that as you read this blog, there is a high likelihood that the 2011 Queen and her court are proudly performing their crowned duties of greeting the crowd and polka dancing to “In Heaven There is No Beer”. <sigh> And although I am not advocating a “Freaky Friday” experience of my reliving life as a 16 year old; I do have to admit that spending a day dancing the polka in my Oktoberfest dress without a care in the world while bursting with the pride of my hometown is a welcomed daydream.
Oktoberfest Queen Contest Speech
My name is Sandy Wagner. I was born in Remsen and have lived here my whole life. So when we were told to write a speech on what we like about Remsen, there was no way I could even begin to name all the reasons. I love Remsen. This is my home. I can walk around town and tell you something about practically every house and street and town. Every tree, every road holds a memory for me. Remsen is my life. It holds all of my memories of the past and hopefully it will be part of my future too.
So when I ask myself what I like about Remsen many things come to mind like clean air, the facilities and businesses, safety, and the friendly atmosphere. But I can’t really use these as reasons because I’ve never known anything different. I don’t know what it would be like to walk down a street in my hometown without being greeted and knowing everyone. I don’t know what it would be like to have to worry about locking our doors all of the time or not being able to run at night because of fear or gangs or rapes. I have never had to worry about things like this and hopefully never will. These are definitely good reasons for liking Remsen, but these are just external reasons to me. The real reason why I love my town is for what Remsen really is; the people. Every reason I can possibly think of for liking Remsen is because of one thing – our special community of people.
I could babble on for hours on the different things to do in Remsen, but to me all these things aren’t as important as the one thing that made them possible and keeps them going. That is our community. It is the people that keep our town safe and clean. It is the people that start businesses and run our facilities. It is the people of Remsen you care about the education of our children. They pay the taxes to support our public school. And it is the members of our Catholic church who have such high religious beliefs who keep our private school going. This gives the people a choice between religious and public education. This shows how high our community’s religious and educational priorities are. I feel special and privileged to be part of this community of Remsen. I truly feel that it is the people who make Remsen so special.
It is through our Oktoberfest that we show the rest of the world what Remsen is like. And it is our people who are so proud of our town and of our Luxembourg heritage who work all year long planning and preparing for the best Oktoberfest ever. It is the one thing that our entire community can work together on so we proud Remsenites can let everyone else know how special we are! Being a Luxembourger and proud of my heritage, I would do anything possible to help promote an Oktoberfest that would show how proud our community is. Because I’m part of this community, I want to represent all the people of Remsen. These are the same people that greet me on the streets. These are the same people who give donations with a smile to our schools and churches. These are the same people who have been a big part of my first 16 years of my life. Remsen is definitely a town and a way of life, but most importantly Remsen is the people who live here. It is the people sitting in front of me now who care enough to keep our town running strong and proud as I am to call Remsen home.
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