Baba Wawa is back with another interview. She thinks she’s a star. Wait until you see her getup. She doesn’t even know she’s past her prime time. If she mentions Rose Bush again I’m going to sigh because it makes me sad.

BTW this isn’t Yram…

Eddie J must have been in the produce section buying corny. BTW, Baba looks like a cross between a biker babe and old time under cover reporter, Nellie Bly.

This still isn’t Yram…

W.W.W.Wouser!! We thought Baba couldn’t talk above a whisper, but she’s got a set of lungs on her. Better luck next time, Baba. I heard Eddie J was spotted at the car w.w.w.wash.

I SAID, this isn’t Yram…

By Valerie Leckey Halla, daughter of Ella Sanderson Leckey and husband, Al Leckey

We all love our small hometown…my Mom’s family were all brought up in Murdo, SD. I was partly raised in Pennsylvania but visited our small hometown most summers and loved moving back for 7-8 th grades. Then, boom, my parents moved us to California and I was devastated as a 13 year old to leave, thinking I could never go home to the place I loved and all my aunts, uncles and cousins again. But you can go home again…

I was chatting with my cousin Mark one time on the phone. We were looking back at good times, good people and good stories we had known and experienced. We talked about how my dear Mom was pretty frugal. When I was about 9 years old, she bought a new throw rug for the house. She kept it hidden away in the coat closet and didn’t use it except when some special South Dakota friends were visiting. It was considered an extravagance.

My Mom, Mark’s Aunt Ella and his Dad, my Uncle Jeff, had grown up with six kids in their family in a small log cabin. It was in a beautiful place about 8 miles east of Murdo called Horse Creek. It was a tough life growing up in the early 1900’s and 1920’s on the prairie and money was only used for necessities.

Mark and I kept telling stories. Fast Forward to the 1950’s- my Mom would put this throw rug out only on special occasions. It was not a necessity but it made us look like we could afford to buy a small fluffy foo foo rug. After the visit with old friends was over and dishes were cleared, we stood at the entry saying goodbye to our old friends. Standing there and as a kid I got bored, so I reached down and pulled up the new throw rug and put it back in the coat closet. The friends looked shocked. I had literally pulled the rug out from under them. Like my Mom, I knew the rug was just for special occasions. When company left, the rug was whisked away. My folks told that story for years after and Mark and I chuckled at that old story once again. He even knew where it fit in our wonderful family past. It clicked with him.

“Yeah, your Mom was really frugal and did some strange things. And our Aunt Elna fit in with our family of characters also. She would go into Mack’s Cafe whistling a tune and just barely step inside looking around. If no one of interest was there, she turned around and left!”

We both chuckled together on the phone still discussing our crazy yet lovable aunts and uncles. I offered another story a friend had told me recently since I lived in California and missed out on a lot of Murdo stories.
I got excited and yelled out, “Oh – and Mark, Cynthia told me about how during tourist season Aunt Elna drove Aunt Loretta uptown to check out the motel situation! It’s so funny. Aunt Loretta filled up her Chalet Motel then parked at Aunt Elna’s house so people didn’t recognize her car and then Loretta rode in Aunt Elna’s car with her. She would see which motels still showed vacancy signs!” I told him the route Cynthia said they took down the highway, up the hill, down Main Street, and they would do the route circling around a few times all this at about 5-10 mph, seeing all the Murdo motels in town and on the two highways several times. He knew all this anyway. “ So Aunt Loretta smoked her cigarettes and they went back and forth at about a snail’s pace, really stretching the ride out, lording it over on the businesses that weren’t filled with tourists chatting away until Aunt Elna drove Aunt Loretta back to the house to pick up her own car!” He laughed. (Ironically, years after this story occurred, Aunt Elna’s son – our cousin – now owns a big impressive motel in town and Mark has a lovely country inn also.)

Our conversation continued. Mark told another good one about his Dad promising to give him his treasured jeep when he, Mark, turned 24, but no, he didn’t. Uncle Jeff didn’t give it to him. There are many jeep stories, but suffice it to say many years later, friends took the old jeep out by the cemetery when Uncle Jeff passed away and the jeep watched as Jeff was buried there. The jeep now lives in the Murdo Auto Museum. If that old vehicle could talk…what a lot of stories it holds.

Mark and I ended our hours long conversation by joking and bragging that we certainly weren’t as silly and weird like our parents and aunts and uncles! No, we were different, more educated, more modern, and young! We both paused and thinking it over, knew we had also done some weird things, but we felt the joy going back in time, recalling how we laughed at the good times, good people and funny stories. How lucky that we were able to go back home even if just in our memories.

There are more stories about Uncle Wayne and Aunt Helen and our grandparents and cousins, but that’s for another day when we’re back home. Thank Heaven, we can go back again. Back home.

(Yram: I apologize that the pictures aren’t in the correct order. I am working from my Executive trailer.)

You gotta see this…I laughed so hard, my dogs left the room…quote by Yram Sicnarf who does a brief rebuttal …

https://maryfrancismcninch.com/2021/08/01/murdo-girl-we-need-a-new-beginning/

Try not to judge…

I tried to capture every nuance and every minute on display.

The Queen’s God given body was laid to rest, today.

Funerals are for the living. We need time to say goodbye.

Her soul’s at peace in heaven. It is we who need to cry.

We saw the faces of her family and at times we saw their grief.

Her son, the King, filled with emotion, let a tear roll down his cheek

They moved the scepter, orb and crown as all of us watched on.

King Charles III was handed, and with grace took the baton.

I felt a tear run down my cheek though all emotion had been spent.

There is value in things she said and even more in what she meant.

Don’t match evil for evil, nor curse when you are cursed.

Show kindness and you’ll be blessed. It’s promised in a Bible verse.

1 Peter 3:9

God Bless Queen Elizabeth. There’s no need for us to weep.

She knew our Lord and Savior and the promises He will keep…

MG’s answer to the question:

The question is supposed to be…Looking back as a child, how is my life different than I thought it would be? How is it the same? I didn’t have room for all of that in the title.

Thinking back, I don’t know if I was different or the same as most kids. I remember imagining myself married to a man who always wore a suit. My husband also wore a hat. He didn’t look like my dad, although Dad often wore a hat. It was one of those brown felt Fedora type hats. The man didn’t look like Dad although I don’t know for sure because I never saw his face. I remember he was taller and leaner than  my dad.

I thought I would be a flight attendant or stewardess as they called them back then. It’s funny I thought that’s what I would grow up to be because the first time I flew, I was eleven and I was sure the airplane would crash and I was going to die. I flew alone because Mom decided to stay in California longer and I had to go back to school. I remember that I paid no attention to the stewardess as she explained how to use the oxygen and the floatation cushion. The thing I feared more than the airplane crashing was to be floating around in the ocean on a seat cushion that doubled as floatie, oxygen or no oxygen.

I don’t think I imagined that I would have children because, (this will sound gross), I was afraid they would get sick and throw up. I knew I wouldn’t be able to handle that. When I was in the 2nd grade, one of the kids threw up on her desk and I took one look at that and threw up, too. The teacher called Mom and I had to go home, even though after the other girl left with her mother, I felt okay.

Now, as to how my life is the same as I thought it would be…

I have sat here for five minutes and tried to think of something and I can’t recall one thing that I thought back then actually played out the way I imagined it would. I thought if I couldn’t be a stewardess, I would be a gymnast or a singer or dancer. God knows that didn’t happen. Goals have to be achievable. I sure didn’t think I would ever leave Murdo, and I certainly didn’t think I would live in that faraway land known as Texas. I didn’t plan to be a mortgage loan underwriter, and there was no such thing as a blog or even a computer. I could type words pretty fast, but I never could type numbers without looking. I still can’t. It’s a good thing I fell into something else I could do to make a living because I would have starved to death if I had been a secretary.

It’s kind of a scary thought that my life hasn’t turned out one bit like I thought it would. I’m sure my cousin’s answer will be much more to the point. I bet she can type numbers, too.

I just remembered. There is one thing that is the same as I imagined it would be. I always knew I would have a dog. I’ve had seventeen.

Lav’s response to MG’s story:

This is very good and funny and prophetic! The faraway land called Texas!?! No kids because they vomit!? You’re Too much!!!

You thought you’d be a flight attendant which you very well could’ve! But a gymnast or dancer or singer? Well, maybe in your next life.

So glad you did fulfill that dog owner dream. We need more people like you. 

Lav’s answer to the question…

My current life is much different from what I imagined it would be like as a child. I thought I’d live on a ranch just like Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. I used to watch their TV show and thought they were the best people ever. They were living the fun free life, yessiree! We would ride around in a jeep – “Whoa Nellybelle!” -and ride horses so we could chase after the bad guys and catch some varmints once in a while. Pat Brady would help us. And naturally Trigger the horse  and our dog, Bullet, were always saving us. We would herd cattle – not DAIRY CATTLE – and take care of the chickens, pigs, and horses to our hearts content.  We would be rich in many ways not just with money but fun times and happiness abounding, out in the fresh air.  Out in the country.  Ahh, what a good life. 

Instead, I went to college in California after the popular surfer time was just peaking in high school then the Beatles and it kept rockin on. I got pretty good grades. Then I graduated from college, did student teaching, and got married and taught high school then taught elementary school in a remote area on the coast near Big Sur.  There’s no time to give my life story here. That would take up another few paragraphs and that’s another story. 

This might seem like a “cop out”, however, I do not think my current life is anything the same as what I as a kid had imagined. Why can’t life just be like a Saturday morning western TV show?  It just didn’t turn out like I had imagined.  

(Please don’t tell Roy Rogers this. It’s our little secret.)

MG’s response to Lav’s story:

Through wind and rain and weather, we 70ish girls stay together. Just keep those milk cows moovin. RAWHIDE!!!