In case you haven’t heard, we got bumped down to the old grade school building. We call it The Whiteboard House. We have loads of do it yourself self help classes you can attend for a very reasonable fee. How does $0.00 sound to you? We won’t be able to offer these high quality classes for nothing for very long, so do your helpless self a favor and sign up before the cost becomes prohibitive.

The following do it yourself self help classes are currently available at the Whiteboard House

Lav is teaching: Life beyond the red convertible…This is a mental health issue many like Lav struggle with. Just when you think you’ve got it under control, a red convertible passes you, and you run after it like a dog. It can literally take seven years off your life. This class is for those without money who need help. If you’ve got money, then just buy yourself a red convertible. How’s that for a DIY solution. If you’re not flush enough, then take the class. You simply cannot avoid red convertibles the rest of your life. In the meantime, DO NOT VISIT THE PIONEER AUTO MUSEUM.

Sherri, the photographic drawer is teaching: DIY mug shots…You can draw your own mug or someone else’s. Sherri is a real what you call…rule follower. She makes even the most dangerous criminals sign a waiver before she draws their photographic mug. Anyway, you might learn something..I don’t really know. Bring a number 2 pencil and a box of freezer wrap. You’ll need that to mark the feet and inches of the perps you draw…and masking tape..you’ll need that to tape your chart up.

Queen E is teaching: Those who can’t do teach...It’s all about saving money. I know there is no charge for our DIY classes, but time is money right? She goes on and on and on about how to save your money…Just never have any with you …it’s as simple as that. A picture is worth a thousand DIY classes.

We have so much more to offer, but I have just been informed that The Murdo Coyote Newspaper has cut us off for this week. I guess they don’t know that ads for our zero cost DIY help yourself classes are PSA’s. Oh well, we at the Whiteboard House pick our battles. When we start charging, we will offer buy one and get another for a penny. Watch for our advertisements.

Our clinically proven motto is: If you point a finger at someself, there are 3 or 4 more pointing back at your DIY.

The local HyVee…I don’t think it matters what day it is.

I wonder what these guys are doing. Let’s listen in.

Chris: Hey Mick..what time is it?

Mick: It’s five minutes later than the last time you asked me Chris.

Gordon: Hey Mick..Why wouldn’t you tell Chris what time it is?

Mick: Because, he needs to learn how to tell time.

Roy: Jeez Gordon, are you trying to start something?

Gordon: What?

Frank: Didn’t we just have this same conversation yesterday?

Tom: No, I think it was the day before.

Roy: Hmm..I must not have been here.

Gordon: Yes you were Roy. I remember that shirt.

Roy: Oh yeah, that’s right. I like this shirt.

Chris: Hey Mick..What time is it?

Mick: Chris, why do you need to know what time it is all the time?

Gordon: Can I tell him?

Mick: Tell him what?

Frank: It sure is.

Roy: It sure is what Frank?

Frank: It sure is the same conversation we had day before yesterday. Roy had the same shirt on, and Chris kept asking what time it was.

Tom: Then what happened Frank?

Frank: I think the waitress came over and asked us how long our wives said we had to be gone.

Chris: She sure did. She said it was 10:00 o’clock.

Mick: Oh good, we can go home now.

Guy from Philip: See ya all tomorrow?

Roy, Frank, Tom, Chris, and Gordon: Yup…God willing and the creek don’t rise. Don’t forget your coffee cup.

Mick: Tomorrow we’ll talk about Billy Francis. Remember him?

Frank: Nah, we had that conversation yesterday

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Some of these guys went to school with my brother. The class of 62 had 23 graduates. There were 18 boys and 5 girls. All but one learned how to tell time.

Just one pretty flower

by Mary Francis McNinch

Put a flower on my grave. That’s all she asked of me.

Just one pretty flower that I’ll be sure to see.

She never had a chance they said. She won’t make it through the night.

She might have won some battles, but she’ll lose this final fight.

I tried to say I love you as I stood beside her bed.

She smiled her biggest smile, and this is what she said.

You know I’ll never leave you right? It’s really not that far.

Look through all the darkness. Give my name to one bright star.

“It never did make sense they’ll say. She had little ones to rear.”

“Nothing much that she could do.” I know that’s what you’ll hear.

 I said, what you did mattered, and she held my trembling hand.

She saw her Country struggle and she had to take a stand.

There are those who disagree. It’s their right to think that way.

They might not survive tomorrow, but they’ll live free today.

Tell the kids I love them. Show them my picture now and then.

Tell them where I’m going, but don’t tell them where I’ve been.

I hope the evil can be stopped and we keep our flag unfurled

I gave you all my love she said. My life I gave the world.

The last time she closed her eyes, I knew what she would see

Whatever love looks like ..to those who fought to keep us free.

Put a flower on my grave, that’s all she asked of me.

Just one pretty flower that I’ll be sure to see.

It seems to me that the negatives in our world are out to get the positives. I am not a scholar of such things, but you don’t (usually) have to hit me on the head with a board before I get it. How can anyone be right if no one is wrong? Sometimes it seems that everyone on this great earth wakes up frustrated and goes to bed angry. In the end, we all hang on to life as long as we can, because life is sweet, especially to those who know the end is much closer than the long ago beginning.

If you are still trying to figure out whose fault it was that you were traumatized when you were twelve, how can you enjoy life when you are 40 or 50 or 60? I see inspirational quotes, I hear beautiful music, and I feel alive. I turn on the news, look at the date of birth on my driver’s license, feel a new ache or pain, and I am fearful.

I’m not afraid of death. I’m afraid I won’t live long enough. There is a difference. There is a phrase that captures the essence of life. Without hope, there is nothing. I will add that without love, there is no hope. Love of nature, family, animals, flowers, God, other people, art, poetry, the seasons, reading, work, movies, history, and a million other things foster hope to those who look at it that way. No matter how oppressed we are, given the chance, inclination, and the support of another, I believe we can find hope and maybe even joy. Have you noticed I haven’t mentioned money at all.

It’s not easy to fight through pain and fear. I have succumbed to both more than once. I have used too much energy fighting the wrong battles, winning the wrong wars, and pointing my finger at the wrong people… but guess what?

I’m just like everybody else I know. We all have our crosses to bear. There will always be someone better off than I am, and there will always be those that suffer far more than I do.

I choose to have fun!!

I love this water tower. It was submitted by Nancy Authier. She embellished it, but it is a real photo of a real WT. I have chosen it to be the  Beastertown water tower. Beastertown is another children’s book I am writing about the Beasterhop, who as most of you know, is a rabbit that rides on a bicycle. I am not going to blog the story this time, and I haven’t written it all yet, but I am having a ton of fun taking the photos for it. You know most of this already don’t you?

I am also editing Connie’s story for a book, and writing Dakota’s story, The Whiteboard House, showcasing my Water Tower Collection, and other things on the blog. In between all of these things, I sometimes throw in a load of laundry or say hi to Kip. I have some wonderful friends who pretend to understand me. Pat is especially good at that. I work a couple of days a week, but I can’t really count that because the lady I help out has become a good friend too. (I think you also know all of that.) Oh, and once in a while I go to Goodwill.

We get to go on RV trips, and really enjoy the friendship of some fun fellow RVer’s. When the stars are all aligned, we get to see a few of our 8 grand kids and 3 great grand kids, who are sometimes attached to our four kids and their husbands and wives. We also have 3 doggies and a cat who love us. The dogs mostly like Kip, but the cat likes me the best. Be careful what you wish for.

I can look at the photos I have accumulated in the last 2 years and feel blessed beyond my wildest dreams. I love people and animals that I have never met. Old friends have become new again, and I have come to really appreciate Murdo, the place where I grew up. I have been touched by so many, and my life has become so rich and fulfilled.

Yet…I still get sad, depressed, disappointed, unreasonable, irritated, tired, stubborn, and all those other stupid things.

How much do I know, and when did I know it? Don’t ask me, I’m too busy to answer a dumb question like that.

This is a rerun, but the message hasn’t changed. Gus is still living in California. He sees Billy almost every Saturday, and spends the holidays with my family or Billy’s. He even played Santa Claus for our Grandkids last Christmas.

We have been able to get out to California more often since Kip retired, and we travel more now in the RV. We are all very thankful you came into our lives Gus. Happy Birthday on 5/30.

I decided to do something a little different for today’s Murdo Girl, because my thoughts are on a very special person in my life, and he’s turning 85 in a couple of days.

Many of you Murdoites know Gus Gustafson. He and Mom had been married 38 years when she passed away on December 30, 2008. He had never been married before Mom, but he certainly knew how to be a great husband, second-Dad, and Grandpa.

Gus was such a great Santa Claus last Christmas Eve at our Daughter Heidi’s home. The little kids were very excited. After he changed clothes later, he walked through the kitchen and our Granddaughter Skyler said, “Are you Gus?” He said… uh..yes.” He thought, “oh no, she knows.” She said, “Santa has got some presents for you. When he called your name, he told us to put them in a pile.”

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Mom was definitely one of a kind. I’ll copy her phrase here. Truer words were never spoken, but life with her was never dull. Billy and I will be eternally grateful for the love and caring spirit Gus unfailingly demonstrated in all the years he shared his life with Loretta. If patience is a virtue, then he is the most virtuous person I know. Please understand, he would never say this about himself.

Mom and Gus did some traveling during the months the motel was closed for the winter. On one of their trips a shaggy dog found them. Some local kids said they knew his name was Trouble, but his owners were no longer around. Trouble didn’t have tags and seemed to be in need of humans, so Mom and Gus invited him to be their permanent companion.

It was a two-day trip back to Murdo, so they stayed in a motel that first night. When they got up the next morning, Mom opened the door of the motel room and let Trouble out. Gus expressed some concern. Maybe their new friend wouldn’t find his way back. Mom said, “Any dog that doesn’t know how to get back to its owners is good for nothing anyway.” Trouble knew a good deal when he saw it, and was back in time, ready to occupy his new place in the front seat of the car with Gus. Mom liked to sit in the back anyway, so she could lay down and rest when she wanted to.

Trouble enjoyed life at the motel. He learned to recognize Aunt Elna’s car, because he loved the leftovers she brought him. In fact, when he saw her car coming, he would run and get his pan to greet her. In his excitement, he would jump up on the driver’s side with the pan in his mouth and bang it on her window. Fearful he would scratch her car door, she started driving by and throwing the food out the window. That was just fine with Trouble. He had it in a flash.

I looked everywhere for the picture of my son Mason, who was about 3, and Trouble. Mom loved the picture, because of the story behind it. Mason is playing with Trouble and holding a toy sheep. The sheep was part of a set of farm animals that belonged to David Edwards, who lived across the street. David’s parents owned the Graham Motor Lodge. Mom occasionally  took Mason over to play with David, and it appeared that Mason had purloined the sheep. Mom said she didn’t realize what had happened until one day David’s Mom Cynthia, mentioned that David knew all the animal sounds…except the sheep.

It was almost as much fun to holler, “Here Trouble,” as it was to call for Berferd, plus we could always say, “Here comes Trouble!” In later years, if Mom wasn’t feeling well, Trouble would instinctively know, and didn’t leave her side until he could see she felt better.

By the time I moved to Gillette, Wyoming, Mom and Gus had sold the motel and purchased a travel trailer. They moved to the Crazy Woman campground in Gillette where Gus worked construction, and Mom had a job she loved at the Rock Pile Museum across the street. They soon befriended Charlie and Becky, who were from back East and also lived in the Crazy Woman Campground. One day Becky was out hosing down their parking area and a fellow camper sped by in his pickup. The dust and dirt flew. Becky was irritated, so she turned her hose on him. He had his driver’s side window open so he got doused pretty good.

Later that evening, Charlie was sitting in his favorite chair enjoying the daily newspaper, when the door to their motor home opened and some guy threw a bucket of water all over him. Imagine Charlie’s surprise.

Mom and Becky were quite a pair. They loved to shop with coupons. Mom was really excited about one of her coupons until the cashier told her it was expired. “But that’s my best one,”she said. It must have ruined their whole shopping experience.

I hope I have remembered a few of Gus’s favorite stories. He still talks about Trouble and what a good dog he was.

Eventually, Mom, Gus, and Trouble moved to Ontario, California. My brother Bill’s company managed the parking at the Ontario Airport, and they did some work counting the in and out traffic for him . One day Mom left the airport to go get some donuts and accidentally got on the freeway. She said she told God if he got her safely off that freeway, she would never drive again. I think she kept that promise.

Gus still lives in Ontario and manages the RV park where the travel trailer has been parked for many years. He facilitates Bible study classes at the local Salvation Army, and also helps them distribute food to those in need. He enjoys steak night at the American Legion and helps out with their functions.

Every Saturday that Bill is in town, he meets Gus at the Pomona Fairplex, where they have simulcast horse racing. They always say they hope to break even, because they sure could use the money.

Gus comes to Texas once a year for Christmas or Thanksgiving, and we try to go see him at least once during the year. He spends other holidays with Bill and his family who live in Los Angeles. Gus’s nephew Mark and his wife Marlene live in Rapid City, so he visits them and their kids and grandkids.

He’s always interested in hearing news of the Sanderson family and other friends in Murdo. Gus was very saddened to hear of Dwight Hurst’s passing.

Gus is a stand-up guy and we love him very much. We hope you’ll join us in wishing him a happy 85th birthday (5/30), and continued good health. He shares the day with my Sister-in-law Liz, (Happy Birthday Liz.) Bill always takes them to the restaurant of their choice to celebrate.

This was the first time I had ever ridden horseback. I knew I rode well, but after two days, I was ready to get to our destination. Mahkah and I were both travel weary, although considering he barely had time to recover from his sickness, he was doing remarkably well.

A few minutes later he said we were getting close to the cabin where we hoped to find our Mother and maybe our Father. We knew Soo’-TAH would be there too. He should have arrived early the day before. As we grew nearer, Mahkah suddenly dismounted his horse and told me to do the same.

“We will wait here,” he said. “I will give Soo’-TAH a signal that will tell him we are close by. If all is clear, he will come for us. If something is not right, and it’s not safe for us to approach the cabin, he will find a way to signal us as well.” Mahkah cupped his hands to his mouth and I heard him make a high pitched whistling sound.. like a wounded bird. He only made the sound once, then we sat down on a nearby rock to wait.

We had stopped at a creek an hour before and watered our horses. It had been almost dawn the day before when we got as far as Sylvan Lake. It was beyond beautiful, but the path to the cabin was just as remote and difficult to travel as Mahkah said it would be. The rocks had been treacherous. Twice we had to dismount and walk, leading the horses, for one to two miles.

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Vintage pictures of Cathedral Spires (Left) near Sylvan Lake, and Needles Highway where  towering rocks in a thousand shapes guard the (now) highway.

The Needles Highway is a spectacular drive through pine and spruce forests, surrounded by birch and aspen and rugged granite mountains.

The road’s name comes from the needle-like granite formations which seem to pierce the horizon along the highway.

The roadway was carefully planned by former South Dakota Governor Peter Norbeck, who marked the entire course on foot and by horseback. Construction was completed in 1922. This part of Dakota’s story takes place in 1900.

Visitors traveling the highway pass Sylvan Lake and a unique rock formation called the Needle’s Eye, named for the opening created by wind, rain, freezing and thawing.

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We sat silently for more than an hour. We had a fair amount of water in our canteens, but we had finished the last of our jerky. It was clear that Mahkah did not want us to talk. We couldn’t take the chance that the men who would most certainly do us harm, had already found the cabin, and would hear us.

I still had so many questions. Why did Mahkah ask me to strap the Indian Princess doll to my leg so she would be hidden under my split skirt? I had a fair idea as to why the authorities were trying to locate our Mother and Father. They must have been seen as guilty for crimes against the United States Army. Our Father was an Officer of the US Cavalry and was married to a Lakota Sioux woman. They had become sympathizers to the Indian’s plight after discovering the white man’s true intentions. Our parents and Grandfather had used William Miles’ position as a roving Ambassador to help keep the peace while a better solution to the breaking of the treaty was found. He Sapa belonged to the tribes it had been given to.

Mahkah had told me as much while we were finding our way to the cabin. He said our Grandfather, who was a Lakota Sioux Chief, had tried to influence his people to keep peace with the US Government, but when he found that all the children who were taken from the Reservations and put in boarding schools, were forced to abandon their culture and become Americanized, he became furious.

He was outraged when he realized the children had been baptized as Episcopalians, given Christian names, dressed like soldiers, and were not learning English, but instead were made to farm and do industrial work. He was convinced the young people should learn the English language so in future communications they wouldn’t have to rely on translators, who might purposely give them wrong information.

At that point Blue Water removed the children of his tribe from the Carlisle school and instantly found the goodwill of many whites had evaporated.

Kunci was the Chief’s wife, and had lived with her daughter and Lieutenant Miles in their home, where she cared for their twin children, Mahkah and Dakota. Kunci and her daughter Makawee, had been forced to take the children and flee almost 14 years ago. They were afraid it would become known that Chief Blue Water no longer trusted the Government to keep their promises and they could no longer rely on him to help calm the tense situations the soldiers found themselves in. What would happen to the family then? It was better for Blue Water’s family to take things into their own hands.

It proved to be an accurate prediction, only at that point, Lieutenant Miles and his wife Makawee were not part of the fray. It was only Blue Water’s influence the US Government feared.

Winding Tail, a nephew of the old chief, Black Crow, threatened to shoot Blue Water, and continued trying to humiliate him with the fact that he was chief not by the will of the tribe, but by the guns of the white soldiers. Black Crow took up his gun and fulfilled his threat. Black Crow shot Blue Water in the chest, killing him.

Before Blue Water was killed, Kunci took little Dakota to one of the boarding schools that William Miles had located. He found it not to be as cruel to the children as some of the others. He had made a simple deal with Miss Harper. He would give her the agreed upon amount of cash each month, and his Mother -in- law would work as hard and long as they wished, in exchange for a safe haven for her and her granddaughter. Miss Harper had been cruel to Dakota, first physically, then mentally, but she had still received and gladly accepted the money each month. She remained silent as to the knowledge of the relationship of Lieutenant Miles with the Lakota tribe and kept from Dakota the fact that her Grandmother was there. She also treated Kunci reasonably well. When she was too old and feeble for hard physical labor, Miss Harper had allowed Kunci to tend to her flowers and live in a dug-out on a distant part of the school property. Miss Harper was not aware of the fact that before she was old enough to leave, Kunci had made contact with Dakota.

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Another hour passed and Soo’-TAH had not come to get Mahkah and me, or given us a sign that he knew we were there. It was too dangerous for us to approach the cabin without the assurance we wouldn’t be ambushed. It wouldn’t be long before the horses would become restless. I could tell Mahkah was deep in thought. It seemed like an eternity before he finally spoke.

“I’m going to get closer to the cabin. Something is wrong, and we can’t wait any longer. You go to the horses. Ride Ko’-LAH and lead my horse to the stream we took them to earlier. Come back to the same spot and tie them up again. Wait here for me my Tanke, my beautiful sister…I’m not sure if either of us will be safe. Hide the doll. If something should happen to us, she must not get into the wrong hands.”

Before he left, he handed me an envelope and told me to read it later. He had a sad look in his beautiful eyes. I don’t think I have ever been more fearful, but I did what he said, and I prayed. I asked the Great God that I believed in to let me see my Mother… in this life. I prayed for all of us, but I prayed hardest for the fierce protector. If there was a way for him to save us, Soo’-TAH would find it.