It’s not easy to be an unappreciated star. Natalie Wood was discovered in a drugstore/soda fountain just like Mowell’s Murdo Drugs. The little Murdo Girl just needs to find her stage. In a way, she reminds me of Lucille Ball in,” I Love Lucy.” The desire is there, but the talent?…Not so much.
The little Murdo Girl
Dad said he watched Lawrence Welk for years, but he wouldn’t recognize anyone on the show if he met them walking down the street. He said he might recognize someone on the Ed Sullivan Show, but barely. I know why he tells everybody that.
I like to perform… On Saturday nights, I used to dress up in my red gown or some other outfit, and dance in front of the television.
I sang with the Lennon Sisters. (Everyone likes Janet the best, but I like Peggy.) I sang songs with Guy and Ralna, and danced with Bobby Burgess and Barbara Boylan. I always saved my red gown, made by Kitty Reynolds, to perform with the Champagne Lady. She wears beautiful dresses. Most of her dresses have tulle skirts, sprinkled with sparkles.
I don’t perform in front of the TV anymore. Dad switched to watching Gunsmoke. It’s a little hard to dance to Gunsmoke. No one even dances in Miss Kitty’s saloon. It doesn’t matter anyway, because I’m getting too old to do that. I still like to perform though.
I play the saxophone, but I begged Mom to let me take piano lessons. All of my friends play the piano, and their Moms say they’re more apt to use piano skills in later years. I begged so much, Mom finally said, okay. We were driving over to Elsa Peck’s house for my lesson, when I figured out I was only going to get ONE lesson.
When I complained, Mom told me to stop simpering. (Simpering is a new favorite word of Mom’s, although, I think it really is a word.) I told Mom, “Just never mind.” She mumbled something about, what was I thinking anyway, we don’t even have a piano.
Mom in her younger years
I guess I didn’t think it through. Before they even began, my piano playing days were over.
I love Murdo, but it’s not exactly the place to live if you want to be a performer. I like to pretend I’m an Olympic gymnast. Suzanne and Cynthia Bork, and I have fun judging each other’s routines, but to become a good gymnast, you have to take lessons. I’d probably have to go to Pierre or Rapid City.
Suzanne, my cousin Andrea, and Cynthia…none of them are stars either.
The only thing I can think of to be when I grow up, is a stewardess, but as you know, I’m afraid to fly. I’ll go ahead and tell you something right now. I can’t really sing very well either. I think that’s why Dad quit watching Lawrence Welk. It’s a good thing I have a few years to figure it all out.
Billy graduated from Murdo High School and he’s going to college in California. He’s doing just fine. I think he wants to go into the parking lot business. There aren’t any big parking lots in Murdo, so I don’t think he plans to move back. My brother has deep roots here though, and I know he’ll always stay in touch with all those guys he went to school with. He might even come back and go fishing with them once in awhile.
Maybe I can dance on one of Billy’s parking lots. No…he would never let me. Whenever I would dance in front of the TV, he left the scene. I saw him dance once. He danced clear across the Auditorium and the girl he was dancing with just stood there and wondered where he went.
Well as Dad says. I guess I better go do something. Even if it’s wrong.
I’m finding that being 70ish is a whole new ballgame and I can’t say that I like all that is happening. A lot of things seem to be changing rather suddenly. If you call people below 70 thin-skinned, it means they can’t take a jab. Everything less than a full-fledged compliment bothers them. If you’re in your 70s your skin is so thin that if anything more substantial than a feather touches it, your thin skin turns black and blue. At least mine does.
One of my children (50ish) called at 4:30 the other day and asked if she was interrupting dinner. It pained me to admit that she was. Dinner used to be at 7:00. We can’t do that now. It would interfere with our before bedtime nap.
Actually, the older I get the less I sleep. If this continues, it could become a real problem. When I can’t sleep, I eat everything that isn’t moving. I can’t make a noise in the kitchen without our dog, Riley, jumping down from the bed and trotting down the hall to see what snack we will be sharing. He has a look that says, “If you don’t share, I’ll bark and wake the big guy up.”
My husband. Kip, tells everyone that he gets up at 5:30 every morning. What he doesn’t say is that he eats breakfast and then takes a 45 minute nap. He goes to bed at 9:00. I go to bed at midnight or after, and get up at 4:30. I wait a while to eat breakfast because it has only been a few hours since Riley and I had our last snack.
My mother once said that she lied about her age so much, her kids finally got older than she was. Thank goodness my kids are aging well. My youngest is turning 45 this year. How did that happen? He’s old enough to be my doctor. Doctors are supposed to be older than their patients. Last time I went to the dentist, he said I needed a crown. I told him I had several, but I thought it might be inappropriate to wear one to the dentist office. Of course he didn’t get my humor. He said that if I were his grandmother, he would file the tooth off, put some filling in it, and call it good. His grandmother probably wears dentures. I still have all of my teeth. I got the $1043 crown which now that I think about it, was probably the reaction he was hoping for. My mind is no longer as sharp as a tack. It’s as dull as a butter knife.
There are plusses to aging. The obvious one is if you wake up and look down at your toes and there is no toe tag, it means you get to enjoy another day. You laugh even when the joke is on you…especially when the joke is on you. You don’t have to prove yourself unless you want to. You have plenty of time to do things like, deciding to buy a motor home, sell the old one and while you’re at it, sell your house and everything in it… and the oversized garage and the cute little cottage that housed your most precious mementoes given to you by precious friends and relatives. I’m not selling them. I am taking them with me. I will store them in one of the storage compartments. Kip won’t need them all, right? I’ll get them out occasionally and play with the Beasterhops while drinking tea from my beautiful teacups.
“Nellie…how did you get so big?” Asked Riley.They are getting ready to occupy smaller quartersQueen E. You are my heroine…This is the crown I wore to get my tooth crownedMy clever project for the kid’s program at the libraryI used sugar sprinkles for my example because I didn’t have glitter. I had to take it down because it drew ants.
It will be good. It isn’t right now. I spent the morning shoveling little rocks from a huge bag while my neighbor ladies and their husbands played a fun game of pickle. (I think that’s what you call it.) I am still helping out with the kid’s program at the library. Next week I’m teaching the art class. I can hear you laughing. We are making a beach scene out of a paper plate, colored pencils, glue, sparkles, little seashells, and other decorations. We will attach twine to it and it will be ready to hang up at home. I have 3 hanging on my walls in the newer motor home.
Life is good and it’s about to get better. I’ll let you know when we have the garage sale. It promises to be quite an event.
A lot to think about, huh? And I’m only seventy and a half.
Recent Father’s Day FunGranddaughter, Nikki and husband, JustinGrandson, Seamus and his dad, ScottGrandson, Hudson and JoeGreat Grandpa, Kip with Ryan Constance
We are in the process of a humongous life change. This should explain why I haven’t been vlogging very much. We are cleaning out our house, the cottage, and the garage. Everything goes on the market tomorrow. The garage is packed full of the things we have accumulated since our move four short years ago when we decided to downsize and minimize. I have moved stuff into and out of the newer motor home at least a hundred times. We have to travel light, but we won’t need lawnmowers, shovels, all but a few tools, or most everything else the garage stores. I hate to give up my cottage, but I can’t take it with me.
We might be showing up at an RV park near you. We’ll be spending time here, there, and everywhere. We have taken some great trips in the old RV. There are places we want to go back to and new places to explore.
So here’s to good health and fun times…We’re busy right now to say the least, but we’re also pretty excited.
I was thinking about Mom’s cooking. I loved the Lemon chiffon an Cream o cheese o cherry pies she made for her bridge club. In later years she lost the recipe. It was either that or she was done with cooking. She let my dad do most of the cooking after Billy and I were grown and Gus did almost all of the cooking during the 38 years they were married… Well, I’ll let the story in the Murdo Girl Memories book tell you all about it!
I plan to put more and better pictures on future Murdo blogs…no rest for the weary or the wicked right now. Have I complained enough? Okay I will quit and be grateful…
Presho? That was supposed to Murdo’s plaque…oh well? I’ll make it be in honor of at least 3 Presho readers I can think of…and I know Presho must be very friendly…do they sell men’s underwear anywhere???
