Everywhere I went in Murdo the week I was there was a backward glance into my past, a lovely flood of memories and joy. It didn’t matter that I was a Murdo High School graduate imposter. It was all good.

I had a marvelous childhood divided between growing up in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, PA and summers every other year in Murdo where I loved being with my cousins and getting to know Grandma and Grandpa Sanderson. Then there were the Aunts and Uncles who were hardworking and had great houses where I could visit. Aunt Helen, my Mother’s sister, and Uncle Bob would usually meet up in Murdo from their home in Michigan with their four kids to get us all together for a reunion. It was a happy time. Most Sanderson’s lived in Murdo though.

Then after my Dad lost his job at a machine shop outside Pittsburgh, we moved back to Murdo, having lived there when I was born. Dad went back to work at Sanderson’s Store. I was in heaven being able to walk all over town and play with most of my cousins and their friends or their cousins not on the Sanderson’s side, like the Bork’s, but this all came crashing down when we had to leave again because Sanderson’s Store was closing in the early 1960’s. It was a sad time for me because I was all primed to start my high school career with the junior high class I had come to know. Shock hit me like a California earthquake.

So when I go to these school reunions, I’m the imposter since I didn’t graduate from high school there but I do have a history in Murdo and loads of good memories. I was fortunate to be able to crash the festivities during this time with cousins Billy and Mary and Uncle Gus Gustafson later. I went to one reunion by myself but met up with Billy. Then we hung out late one night at the Buffalo Bar with Suzanne Brost, and Joe and Ralph Thomas. We told jokes while we drank. Fun doesn’t do it justice. I told my cousin Billy that I drank wine now that I was retired. He thought that was a lame yet funny excuse to drink.

This 2026 Murdo Reunion was the best. I am getting pretty adept at being the imposter graduate. What class was I in? Class of 1967 of course, Anaheim, California. Ralph Thomas in all his wisdom, kindness and honesty sent this form to the committee that plans these things:

I like to dance. The band can help a lot. There was a dance in hometown Murdo on July 18 after the parade, after the meetups for different graduation groups from MHS, after the silent auction and the big luncheon at the Auditorium. Now for a young person this is all fine because they have energy to keep going like the energizer bunny. However, for we 70ish people, the dance was a country too far. I didn’t admit that to friends, Ralph and Judy, so I went dragging my sorry impostor’s body to the street in front of the auditorium and to the people crowding under the tent thingys across the street. So that night after attending all those activities, in hot prairie weather, we old friends went to check it out. I will stress “old.” We were all “over the hill” and couldn’t be found even over many hills.

It was around midnight, which I’ll call past bedtime. I was pushing myself to keep moving forward, backward, to the side, anywhere.

There were barely four people out on the floor and I use the term floor loosely. The dance floor was the paved street.

Two young teenagers were out there doing their western style dancing. They were fun to watch especially when the youthful cowboy flipped the girl over. It was like gymnastics. Also a bunch of youngsters were dancing with parents, being goofy and so my friend from Mexico and former famous Murdo High alum, Judy Dykstra-Brown, and I went out there to show these whipper snappers. I told her, “I’m gonna dance like it’s the 1960’s – let’s show ‘em!” We did.

As we rocked out dancing doing the hippie hippie shake, the jerk, the mashed potatoes, the electric slide and once I tried to spin around in a jerky old lady way, we pretty much stopped everything. The band took a break, we cleared the “floor” and when we ended our dance routine, nobody was left out there except us. The other dancers must have been embarrassed by us or else they thought we were so good that they couldn’t be seen dancing with us and they couldn’t keep up with the old experienced dancers . Hmmm. Naw, not a chance on that last guess. But we had fun! Judy got into her dancing and seemed to throw caution to the wind.

It was fun and that’s all that mattered. We went inside the auditorium to use the restroom plus there were cookies sitting out so we took a couple of those to sustain us. Ralph had fled to talk with people he knew but we caught up with him across the street where he introduced us to some guy he knew and we had to pose for pictures. The fine young man was kind and put up with us. It all had something to do with this kid’s family babysitting the Thomas kids I think.

By this time I was parched something awful so I asked at the big food truck set up in the Circle E Drive- in parking lot. But they didn’t sell water bottles.

By this time I was a zombie and just walked mindlessly around asking at a private bbq back across the street by the school if they had water. They ignored me. Who could blame them? I looked like a vampire with no soul nor heart with my dry throat kinda raspy, looking like a lizard.

I don’t think the people barbecuing heard me. I think I was melting at that point kinda like the witch in Wizard of Oz, except they threw water on her and I was beyond hoping water was coming. All I could think about was wishing I could get in that comfy big bed in my room at Range Country with all the soft pillows and warm quilt covering my sad melting lifeless danced out body with a big glass of Murdo water.

Ralph drove Judy and me back to Range Country finally as they talked about how the auditorium had been built and I chimed in that Uncle Jerry and his brother and crew had built it and Uncle Wayne had graded the site for it, however, they said the community played a huge part in getting it built as well. Students even pitched in helping with cement footings or something like that. It made me stop and think how lucky we were to have spent a large part of the day centered around this beautiful old auditorium and how it had brought us much joy and friendship over the decades.

Thanks, Uncle Jerry and Uncle Wayne and everyone who helped long ago build a landmark in Murdo for people to gather.

Long ago, in a world far far from today’s, people would gather around a large table to have their noon meal in Murdo which was called “dinner”. When I first heard that, having moved to Murdo at about age 12, I thought we would be eating at days end around 6:00 or 7:00 pm which to me is dinner time, not lunch which was noonish. Nope. In Murdo, dinner was your big hot meal, served when lunch usually is served other places.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, I was fortunate on my recent trip to Murdo, South Dakota to be invited down to the Thomas Farm on Sunday July 19th for dinner.

I was both surprised and honored by the opportunity to witness and indulge in dinner, farm style. Gadzooks, it was a pleasure and an opportunity. Shucks, the food variety and amount was unbelievable. Geeze, it was food galore. Yikes, I felt part of their family seated around the oval table with 10 of us and a few kids on laps and a sweet baby being passed around during dinner. It felt incredibly special.

Have you ever felt like an outsider yet somehow a group of people included you in a tradition of their family, and they wrapped their loving arms around you, you being a stranger, but this stranger- you- they knew had family ties with their family from the past? So they were fine with you being at the Sunday dinner table with the father figure cooking the main thing- ribs and burgers.

I was that stranger who Paul Thomas invited on a lovely Sunday of about 102 degrees to their farm. He was barbecuing and brought in a great pan full of ribs then hamburgers. The other relatives he invited some who lived on the farm and some who lived nearby brought food, mouth watering perfect food. Sister Susan steamed cauliflower and broccoli. Others picked veggies from the garden and made pickled beets, delicious cucumbers, mushrooms that I cannot even describe as to how good they were, a zucchini cheese casserole that was as unique as it was fresh and salad and rolls. It was so much deliciousness.

But the most delicious, delightful, divine part was the feeling of love and family. Plus my Sanderson Family roots were dug in deeply from the early 1900’s with the Thomas Family and I heard stories from my mother about her family often having fun dinners and going to school with the Thomas’s. That made the day better by a lot. I was able to stop and breathe it all in as we passed one bountiful dish of food to the next person and I got to take plates and serve the casserole since it was too hot to pass around. I hadn’t brought anything to share. So I’m sharing this story hoping it brings a smile or an “ahha” moment to you as you maybe recall a time you got to sit down for a family meal or share food and conversation with others. It’s a blessing of true joy.

I got the feeling that this Thomas Family down on the farm Sunday dinner was no big deal for them. To me it was being home again.

Imagine this beautiful new pickup truck with all the bells and whistles and a big back seat with leg room to spare, cold water bottles in the cooler in back, AC and a knowledgeable guide to take you all over farm country for a few hours outside your hometown in central South Dakota. I was invited to do that drive with four others who were related to one another, plus the driver, Mike McKernan. He’s the guy, THE GUY.

We left early before it got hot. We met at Mike’s house in Murdo about 9:00 am. We loaded up the cooler and were told where we were going north of town, and that it would be a few hours on dirt and gravel roads outside town. The tour was leaving, so buckle up. Unfortunately two of us in the backseat had to buckle up together so we had the married couple do that. They got to jostling around to get comfy buckled together and then were giggling. It was like a couple teenagers in the backseat of a 1958 Chevy back in the day. Ralph and I were good friends in the backseat behaving nicely. Paul was riding shotgun.

Mike told us stories of an old town in Jones County called Van Metre which no longer exists and also Capa. Ralph Thomas and his family used to visit a family that lived there a long time ago. Mike drove us by fields planted in oats, millet, corn and other crops some of which were being harvested and some just not ready. These fields were lovely shades of gold, and tawny and also deep green corn with the crops growing on into the horizon, unable to see where they ended. We all craned our necks looking out the pickup truck windows, getting pictures on our phones. Paul Thomas added his knowledge of farming and what he knew of the area. Mike said South Dakota farmers used to grow the same things over and over but then branched out into a variety of crops: soybeans, sunflowers and others.

Every now and then Mike would point to this special buffalo fence which was taller and stronger than regular fencing. Buffalo could break through regular fencing easily. He said about 100,000 acres out there was owned by Ted Turners Corporation and it was fenced with the stronger fence.

Mike was clearly in charge, like the high school teacher he had been. He was not overly talkative nor taking over the entire conversation. He was just being a gracious intelligent story teller and narrator offering us an objective view of what farm country holds, what it offers, what impact it plays in our community and country.

We were hooked, all of us experiencing a grand, free feeling, free wheeling high and a “peaceful easy feeling” when whoops…Mike said we were stopping for a break. He pulled his beautiful Maserati…heh heh…Ford truck up to a driveway skirting a rangy looking old cemetery on a small hill with a cute little white church across from it with an outhouse to boot. Some of us checked out the Lutheran Church but it was locked up tightly.

We jumped out and I went in through the cemetery gate to our left, spotting a bird flying past us with a broken wing. Except it wasn’t a bird with a broken wing because someone in our group spotted the two darling baby birds on the ground in the cemetery with half eaten cactus all around the babies. That one flying past had been the mama bird trying to distract us.

Susan – another Thomas relative – said that deer probably nibbled on the small cactus since each one was clipped short. We all checked out the two gray baby birds and they just looked frozen, not moving an inch and facing uphill seeming as dead as the residents of this old cemetery. But they were alive.

We studied each gravestone noting that some were people born pre- Civil War days: 1850, 1860 and some after the Civil War 1872, 1875. The names were given and some couples were titled Father or Mother. A few had the same birth and death years, babes that hadn’t made it on earth for long.

We were back on the road after hydrating and back on the road along with Mike telling stories about hunting around the area. He said that there are a lot of Road Hunters who park off the road on the shoulder during hunting season and must close and lock their vehicle door, shooting game between road and private property. We discussed how many pheasant it takes after it’s dressed and cooked to feed a person. That wasn’t resolved but the pheasant meat sounded delicious. I remember it when I was 12 or 13 and also eating grouse. It was gamey but good.

We saw a few pheasants and a deer or two, one doe with two fawns. The black angus herds looked hearty.

The next stop was surprising. Mike drove off the road and entered a wooden entrance through a ranch gate. We were surprised when Mike drove us to a big red barn that ended up being a hunting lodge. We didn’t see anyone so we went in by a side door and walked down a long hall opening onto lovely bedrooms neatly made ready for lodgers, nothing fancy just clean, simple beds and each room had a window and an air conditioner. We walked through another part with a big dining hall, heavy duty kitchen at the rear and then to a bar well stocked with booze, big stools and fancy chandelier overhead. We used the restroom and walked up stairs to a balcony and display of stuffed grouse.

Mike had found the manager and a hired hand outside and we all stood in a circle listening to him talk and joke around with Mike who seemed like an old friend to the lodge manager. He explained that they had six hunting dogs and were expecting some 12 Veterans that weekend to stay a few days and hunt Prairie Dogs. They told us about hunters, their chef and who had to clean the place. It was something we all weren’t expecting way out on the prairie plains. It was a bonus surprise to see the beautiful lodge and Mike seemed to know this location well. He talked like old friends to the man who ran it.

Imagine being out for an adventurous road trip with an incredibly comfy ride and with a well educated driver who can tell you about hunting the land, crops that grow well there, the people who live and had lived out on this road and your driver made it interesting. He took you to historic places and made it fun. I felt like I was on South Dakota safari.

We saw feed lots on our way back which were spacious, and canyons carved out of the earth giving the flat plains topography a contrasting view.

It was an experience I hold dear and proudly admit it was a pleasure riding with Mike, the driver. Like my Grandpa Sanderson used to say as he drove us little kids around South Dakota, “This country’s looking good.”