When I go to a reunion every few years, not only do people look older but they still don’t remember me because I only visited Murdo during the summer as a kid with my parents and only lived in Murdo as a baby then again in 7th-8th grades. So I tell people my cousin’s names, grandparents, uncle’s and aunt’s names and that I’m a Sanderson, but basically I am a nobody.
Ralph Thomas had the introduction of me down pat. He automatically repeated a spiel. He got good at it and didn’t seem to get tired of explaining who I was. He acted like an interpreter pointing at me and detailing my background. I heard him do it at least 10 times during the reunion week. He made me feel like somebody even though the person he was telling, looked at me like I don’t know you. You’re nobody.
As I mentioned in Part 1, the people in Murdo are the best part of visiting this small town. I heard there were over 300 people at just the luncheon alone on July 18th in the Harold Thune Auditorium. There was a lot going on and many people came for just the reunion.
One citizen who has since left the town is Eddie Jackson. He’s in his seventies but looks like he’s early sixties, gray hair, solid smile and engaging personality. I saw him at the Auditorium then again for a light breakfast on Sunday the 19th with others who were meeting at Range Country to say goodbye and go to their respective homes. But Ralph, Eddie and I stayed to talk and exchange stories. Eddie was a star athlete at Murdo High and his times for some track events still hold records. He seemed to enjoy sharing times about his past in school in Murdo.
As I remember it, Eddie dated my cousin,Stephanie, for three years and he told about a time he had been worn out from a sporting event and sat in a car with his head on Stephanie’s shoulder. It was someone else’s car and all of a sudden a big guy approached the car door and looked in the window thinking it was someone he knew, I guess. The big guy scared them half to death, so Eddie drove as fast as he could outta there, protecting Steph and himself. He and my cousin Stephanie broke up after high school and went their separate ways. It sounded like they had been close as teenagers and Stephanie held a special mark in his life.
Another time he and Don Edwards were talking about how they liked the TV show The Fugitive with David Jansen and how the main character was always running away and got chased by the police over and over. That sounded like fun to them. They thought up a practical joke they could play in the night time on a cop on duty to simulate what The Fugitive actor did, except they were just teenagers. They knew this police officer always hung out in one spot at about 9:00 pm with his headlights on. They headed there together with excitement and mischief in their eyes. Now their plan took shape. They turned into fugitives. They were ready.
The two boys ran in front of the police officer’s headlights taunting him and ran away as fast as their young legs took them. They were no longer teen athletes. They were no longer pranksters. They were fugitives, just like the character on TV. The chase was on. They ran off going through the Ford Dealership lot laughing, cutting this way and that and where, coincidentally, Steve Parish, another teenager and prankster, was letting all the air out of the car tires on the lot.
I cannot recall the exact details of how this infamous chase came to a close, but the police found out and the next morning the one “fugitive” named Eddie was in big trouble with his Dad. The police believed that Eddie and Don were in on the prank with Steve Parish, even though Steve confessed that Eddie and Don had not been on the tire prank with him, they all got punished.
Eddie had to clean erasers at school and stay after school for two weeks. Ralph and I commented about how that wasn’t very tough punishment especially for the fugitive, but Eddie just laughed at us. He seemed to relive a moment in his history that couldn’t be forgotten.
I’m glad I got to hear Eddie tell Murdo stories. It made me happy. He had some good memories to share. He was somebody.
(As an aside: Eddie Jackson’s family is mentioned in the book War Pipe, Peace Pipe – Tuffy Saylor)
Those 70ish Girls 