This is a recent video of Lav making some much needed friends…

During my trip to Greece last week, I experienced ancient ruins, statues and stories of gods and goddesses who loomed over the country like ghosts on guard protecting and influencing their past history forever. This country I visited was a blueprint for the more modern history of our democratic country and its people. That was apparent in the presentations given by our knowledgeable tour guides.

As I walked the paths and stairways up from the tour bus parking lot, I saw the Acropolis and Parthenon rise up to the top of the hill like it was the zenith, the end of the hike calling to me to keep climbing, striving, going. It was mind bending.

Greek history set an example to the fathers of the USA who had fought the Revolutionary War to be free from England. They copied Ancient Greece in that the people decided what government would do, not one monarch or ruler. Laws should apply equally to all citizens. Participation in Ancient Greek assemblies through voting was carried forth in our country in the Constitution, with no women voting, non landowners, noncitizens at first which changed later in our country but stayed in Greek government.

I went on guided tours to Athens, Crete and Santorini. The Tour Director took us to many different places. We visited ancient sites like the Acropolis and Parthenon and Knossos. We ate Greek food: moussaka, spanakopita, dolmades, baklava and Greek Salad, feta cheese, eggplant. I attended a Greek cooking class with a young chef who had us make many dishes including tzatziki, stuffed eggplant, spanakopita and orange infused cake. I was trying to say Greek phrases. I was ready to become Greek but the language

is difficult and some of their letters look like a geometric shape.

Greece was captivating in a good way. It was Greek and to me it was fabulous.

A few weeks ago, I got a nice surprise in the mail. My sister-in-law, Liz Francis, sent me the Jones County Centennial cookbook (1905-2006). My hometown of Murdo is in Jones County, South Dakota. I read the book from cover to cover.

The neat thing about community cookbooks is the added color you get. This book had several comments from local people along with the many favorite recipes. Two of the remembrance of times gone by were from men who had worked for my dad. Paul Anderson and Gary Jorgensen. One was from my cousins, Andrea Miller Sheehan and Stephanie Miller Davis. The book was put together by Jody Lebeda and Dixie Warner.

Many of the names of contributors were of people I knew from Draper and Murdo. I couldn’t believe it since I moved from SD 50 years ago. It brought me back to my roots in Murdo.

I decided to try one of the recipes. I decided on the one called carmel-filled chocolate cookies. (I purposely left out the carmel part as I just wanted chocolate cookies.)

They turned out to be delicious. I did add peanut butter chips.

I’m sure I’ll use this recipe again as well as trying new ones from this well put-together cookbook. There is even a recipe for puppy chow!

I’ll add another post when I try one of the other favorites. What’s for dinner?

She’s turning 77 today. She’s past her jubilee. 77 is just a number and she wears it beautifully.

3 quarters of a century (+2) might seem old to some, but she looks like 45, and she acts like 21.

Her hair is long and flowing. No thinning going on. Her skin has yet to sag and her chin is still just one.

Her brain hasn’t lost a step. She’s still as sharp as ever. Just read her blogs and you will see she is still very clever.

Does she sound like she’s perfection? A little too good to be true? I swear by all I’ve said. She’s all this and much more too.

I love my aging cousin more than anyone could know. 77 is just a number dear so just go with the flow.

I hope your birthday is all you want and more. You’re such a special friend and Cuz. I wish you happiness galore.

My birthday’s coming up so remember all the good times. An ode to MG? Just make sure it rhymes.

I see another trip to Murdo in 4 or 5 good years. A parade is in our future. I can’t wait to hear the jeers…I mean cheers.

Happiest of birthdays dear Lav.

How Seniors Can Avoid Scams: Protecting Your Money, Your Identity, and Your Peace of Mind
Getting older comes with plenty of good things—more time for family, more freedom to enjoy life, and hopefully a little less rushing around. Unfortunately, it can also mean becoming a target for people who want to take advantage of your trust.
Scammers have become incredibly creative. They may call, text, email, or even show up at your door. Some sound professional and convincing. Others create a sense of panic so you don’t have time to think.
The good news? A few simple habits can make a big difference.
Remember: You Don’t Have to Decide Right Away
One of the biggest tools scammers use is urgency.
“Your account will be closed today.”
“Your computer has a virus.”
“Your grandson is in trouble and needs money.”
“Your payment is overdue.”
Stop.
Take a breath. You don’t have to make a decision just because someone tells you that you do.
A legitimate bank, government agency, or business will generally give you a way to verify what is happening. Hang up and contact the organization yourself using a phone number from an official statement, card, or website—not a number the caller gives you.
Be Careful With Unexpected Phone Calls
If someone calls asking for your Social Security number, bank information, passwords, or credit card number, be suspicious.
Even if the caller knows your name or some personal information, that doesn’t mean they’re legitimate.
When in doubt, hang up.
You can always call the company back using a trusted phone number.
Don’t Click Just Because You Recognize the Name
Scammers can make emails and text messages look as though they came from your bank, a delivery company, a government agency, or someone you know.
Before clicking a link, ask yourself:
Was I expecting this message?
Is it asking for money or personal information?
Is it creating fear or urgency?
Does the email address or phone number look unusual?
When you’re unsure, don’t click. Go directly to the company’s official website or call them using a number you already trust.
Your Passwords Are Valuable
Think of your passwords like keys to your house.
Don’t use the same password for everything. Use strong, unique passwords whenever possible, and consider using a password manager to keep track of them.
Turn on two-factor authentication for your email, banking, and other important accounts. It adds another layer of protection if someone gets your password.
And never give your password or verification code to someone who calls you unexpectedly.
Watch Out for the “Family Emergency” Scam
One particularly emotional scam involves someone pretending to be a child, grandchild, or other family member.
They may say they’re in jail, have been in an accident, or urgently need money.
Before sending anything, call the family member directly or contact another relative who can verify the story.
Don’t let fear make the decision for you.
Never Be Embarrassed to Ask for Help
Scammers count on people being embarrassed to admit they may have been fooled.
There is nothing embarrassing about being targeted by a professional scammer. These people do this for a living, and they know exactly how to create pressure and confusion.
If something doesn’t feel right, ask a trusted family member or friend to take a look.
Two sets of eyes are often better than one.
A Simple Rule to Remember
Here’s a rule worth keeping next to your phone:
STOP. DON’T RUSH. VERIFY.
If someone wants your money, personal information, gift cards, cryptocurrency, or access to your computer, stop before doing anything.
If they tell you to keep the situation secret, that’s another major warning sign.
Protect Your Peace of Mind
Avoiding scams isn’t about becoming suspicious of everyone. It’s about becoming comfortable with saying:
“Let me think about it.”
You don’t owe anyone an immediate answer.
Your money is yours. Your personal information is yours. And your peace of mind is worth protecting.
The next time an unexpected call, email, or text makes you feel worried or rushed, remember: a few minutes of caution can save you a lot of money—and a lot of heartache.
And if you’re ever unsure, ask someone you trust before you act.

So, apparently, I’m 70-ish.
I say ish because somehow that makes it sound a little less official.
There’s something funny about turning 70. You still feel like yourself on the inside, but every now and then you catch your reflection and think, Who is that older woman? Then you remember… oh yeah. Me.
Being 70-ish is an interesting place to be.

You’ve lived long enough to know that life rarely goes exactly as planned. You’ve experienced the highs, survived the lows, made mistakes, learned lessons, lost people you loved, and collected memories you wouldn’t trade for anything.
And hopefully, somewhere along the way, you’ve learned that you don’t have to have everything figured out.
At this age, I care a lot less about what people think of me.
I’m not interested in impressing anyone. I’d rather be comfortable than fashionable, happy than right, and surrounded by people who make me laugh than people who make me feel like I have something to prove.
I’ve also discovered that “going out” has changed meaning.
Once upon a time, going out meant dinner, drinks, dancing and staying up way too late.
Now, going out can mean dinner at 5:00, home before dark, pajamas by 8:00 and being absolutely thrilled about it.
And honestly? That sounds pretty good to me.
There are things about getting older that nobody warns you about. Your body develops opinions of its own. You can hurt yourself sleeping. You forget why you walked into a room. And you can spend ten minutes looking for your glasses only to discover they’re on your head.
But there are also wonderful things about being 70-ish.
You know who you are.
You know what matters.
You know which battles aren’t worth fighting.
You appreciate a good laugh, a beautiful sunset, a phone call from someone you love and a day when nothing hurts.
You stop taking ordinary moments for granted.
And maybe that’s the greatest gift of getting older: realizing that ordinary is actually pretty extraordinary.
At 70-ish, I still have dreams.
I still have things I want to see, places I want to go, people I want to love, stories I want to tell and memories I haven’t made yet.
I’m not interested in acting my age.
I’m interested in living my age.
There may be a few more wrinkles, a few more aches and a whole lot more life experience, but I’m still here.
Still laughing.
Still learning.
Still loving.
Still becoming.
And if 70-ish has taught me anything, it’s this:
Getting older isn’t about counting the years you’ve lost. It’s about making the years you have left count.
So here’s to being 70-ish.
We’re not old.
We’re experienced.
And we’re just getting started.

https://maryfrancismcninch.com/2020/10/23/murdo-girl-seeya-in-the-city-2/

Part 1, The Star Cafe, by Valerie Halla

Lots of memories, feelings, happy thoughts and good stories come to me and my SANDERSON family when anyone mentions the Star Cafe on old Highway 16 in Murdo. I recently got to go there with a guy named Ralph after the School Reunion had wound down and we were all losing the ebb and flow of a high tide of emotions after people left the reunion festivities to go back to their homes around the country. The Star brought back the past.

In the 1960’s I went with my Mom, Aunt Loretta and Aunt Elna who were all taking their adorable petite Mom – my Grandma Sanderson – out for pie and coffee at Cafe 16. It was like being asked to attend the Battle of the Chefs 2026 in Malaysia with an afterparty for all the great food experts, except this was just pie and coffee at the most expensive and popular restaurant in all of Murdo, South Dakota. We all thought it was a special place to eat even though Mack’s was numero uno with delicious downhome food like ham and beans or hot beef sandwiches. Their gigantic homemade cinnamon rolls were to die for.

I felt included as a young 13 year old going out with my adult aunts, Grandmother and my Mom. I was special, worthy and old enough to be asked for that big people outing. But the best most loving part was seeing how Grandma Sanderson laughed as three of her four daughters joked around with her and made her giggle like a young girl. My aunts and Mom also gossiped freely, which was what you did in a small town back then. Grandma ate it up – the gossip – along with enjoying her cherry pie and coffee, which for a change she didn’t have to bake. You see, Grandma always loved lording it over on Grandpa that she knew new gossip before he did. What a day. I’ll never forget it.

Then fast forward to another trip to Murdo when we had moved to California and Mom and I visited there. Mom always had new dresses and shoes on these trips and looked all stylish that day.

Uncle Jeff took us to Cafe 16 for lunch because we were special. We walked through all the tables crowded with tourists and sat in an AC cooled back table. A young waitress served water which she promptly spilled down the back of my Mom’s lovely new summer frock. After apologizing and cleanup, we went on with our food orders, chatting and enjoying another great meet up with family.

So that’s why when Ralph set up a meeting at the Star Cafe with four seniors from Murdo on a bittersweet day in July of this year, the same day I was flying home, I jumped at the chance to attend. We talked about, what else, the good old days and funny stories they recalled. Ralph wrote it down old school style because he wanted to hear Sammy Seymour and his wife Marilyn tell about Ralph’s brother Paul and about some homeless guy and many other characters he had known. It was entertaining and brought to mind what this cafe had meant to me and my family and my past.

Part 2, Cafe 16, by Mary Francis McNinch

When I was growing up in Murdo, SD, Cafe 16 was the place to go if you were looking for the best atmosphere. It mostly catered to the thousands of tourists who traveled through Murdo each summer. Murdo was a good place to spend the night if you were traveling to the badlands and the Black Hills.

At that time, Highway 16 went right by Cafe 16. This was before Interstate 90 was built. Most of the motels sat along Highway 16, too.

Many Murdo girls put themselves through college by working at the Cafe summers during their high school and college years. Those waitressing jobs were coveted because the tips were fantastic! It was a hard job, but more than worth putting in the work.

I never applied for a job there because my parents had a motel along Highway 16 and I always worked there.

Cafe 16 became the Star Cafe sometime after the Interstate was built which went around Murdo. The tourist trade was still good because there were two exits into and out of Murdo.

Yes Cafe 16/The Star Cafe was an iconic place in Murdo. It still operates there today.

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.