Globe Gazette
Mason City, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa
June 26, 2005

SWALEDALE — You know you're nearing Swaledale when you see the small Burma Shave-type wooden signs along the road.

"If you're looking for Swaledale/Here it is/Next 7 exits/Welcome you is."

And there, amid the shady oak, elm and maple trees in city park, residents of this Cerro Gordo County community celebrated their annual Big Day Saturday with music, food and friends.

"Get comfortable," lifelong Swaledale resident Orville Caspers told his wife and others setting up lawn chairs nearby.

Caspers, 80, sitting back in a lawn chair in his red seed corn cap and blue and white striped engineer overalls, chatted amiably with Marvin Sletten, of Mason City, seated at a redwood picnic table to his right.

They had enjoyed the program by Denny's School of Dance and were waiting for the four members of the Beaver Creek Bluegrass Band of Waverly to perform, they said.

"They'll wake us up," Caspers said, with a laid-back drawl.

Sletten said he often comes to Big Day for the parade, the food and especially the homemade pie.

Luckily, the rain stopped about 4 a.m., well before the sunrise pancake breakfast at 6:30 a.m. and the parade at 11 a.m. "It settled the dust all right," Caspers said. Taking seats at the picnic table across from Sletten, Doug Sturges and his niece, Kara Ditsworth, 12, both of Rockwell, dug into slices of apple pie.

"We've been here since the parade," said Sturges, who participated as a member of the Rockwell Lions Club. "(Kara's) dad and I are playing the softball tournament (just down the street). We have a family team."

Sturges likes to support the Rockwell and Swaledale communities by taking part in activities such as these.

"I like the family stuff, the low-key, relaxed atmosphere. Everybody's friends. Some people, this is the only time you see 'em."

A few feet away, on a flatbed trailer, the Beaver Creek Band entertains with their rhythmic renditions of "You're Perfect Just the Way You Are" and "Let's Chase Each Other Around the Room Tonight."

Standing at the counter of a busy root beer stand, Dale Caspers of Swaledale purchased a root beer float.

It's been a long day, he said, one that began with the pancake breakfast and continued with the parade. Caspers drove three floats in the parade this year.

"And it won't end 'til 2 or 2:30 (a.m.)," with clean-up for the street dance, he said, with a smile.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, October of 2013