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…
Old time under cover reporter, Nellie Bly
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.
We finally got started on our long awaited RV trip. Our house was cleaned-out and clean, the huge garage sale we’d been preparing to have for weeks was behind us, the landscaping was complete and the RV packed and ready to go.
We left around noon on Friday and drove 165 miles to Texarkana, TX where we spent 3 nights. We found a very nice RV Park called Texarkana RV. (We like to keep things simple.) We needed a little time to learn all the nuances of our newer RV. We sold the 20 year old Alpha, which had been our home away from home for 7 years, and bought a 2017 Thor Outlaw patio RV. So far, we are loving it!
Kip and his 2 sidekicks, Rylie and NellieKip and I relaxing on the Patio
We left Texarkana Monday morning and drove to The Mississipi River State Park, near Marianna, Arkansas. Let’s just say I could have spent a month there. It was serene, beautiful, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous. The following pictures and the 12 second video were all taken there.
Nellie on the patio looking for squirrels Space #11 is on a peninsula. There is a lot of room between spacesThis morning before all of the fog lifted
We’ve really been enjoying the patio and it only takes 5 minutes to drop down the back and fold out the screens.
kay, things aren’t quite bug free, yet. We thought we were “what’s next” organized, but we’re slow learners. We thought we were moving right along this morning. The black water and gray water were dumped, dogs walked, patio up, slides in, the Jeep we tow hooked up, electricity off…and then, something occurred to me. I hadn’t showered and I was still in my flannel pjs. I said, “Uh oh, Kip, I’m going to have to wear my pajamas all day because my clothes are in the closet you can’t get into when the slides are in, and the electricity and water heater are off. I’ve been so busy checking things off the list, I didn’t think about myself. (Good time to throw that in right?)
So an hour later, we were on our way. All we had to do was figure out where we were going!
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.
The young Sanderson family, minus Elna who was not born yet. Jeff is faced with his left side facing the camera. He had a black eye from a fall I believeL: A family friend, sisters Loretta, Ella, and Helen, holding baby Elna
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.
Grandma Sanderson, Jeff Sanderson, Grandpa Sanderson, Wayne Sanderson, Ella, Helen, Loretta and Elna
“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.
Valerie and the Jeep at The Pioneer Auto Museum in MurdoElla Sanderson Leckey and Grandma Sanderson in CA during the war years. Grandma was hoping to see her son, Jeff before he shipped out. Valerie and mom, EllaValerie and Aunt Elna Sanderson Miller at The 1880s Town near MurdoHelen Sanderson Haverberg, daughters Sue Ann and Trice, Valerie Leckey and Ella Sanderson LeckeyElna Sanderson Miller and Irma Bork Sanderson visiting Horse Creek after Sister Loretta Gustafson passed awayValerie Halla holding Caitlin, Irma Sanderson with Valerie’s son, Morgan, Ken Halla, Jeff Sanderson behind Matthew Halla, Mark Sanderson
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.)
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.
I’m number 17
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!!!
I have felt a special affection for my beloved Queen E for many years, and she will always hold a special place in my heart. She was beautiful, kind, and clever. I would like to think that if she had known what a fun addition to my Murdo Girl blogs she had been all this time, it would have tickled her keen sense of humor. The amazing Queen Elizabeth approached everything in her life with immeasurable grace, which is a quality that I greatly admired.
I struggled to write something that would be an adequate tribute to this great lady, but in the end I didn’t have to struggle at all. The right words came to me through my cousin, Valerie Halla, and my friend Yolie Beavers, otherwise known, in my blogosphere, as Lav and Windy.
Tea With Her Majesty, by Valerie Halla
Imagine having tea with Queen Elizabeth II. It would be formal yet comfortable. I can’t imagine what I would wear but maybe a modest long dress with sensible shoes. I would practice proper etiquette of course. Maybe I could hire a coach knowledgeable in the Royal Requirements before meeting the Queen who has served her country 70 years. Being correct would be utmost. Maybe preparing a set of questions would get me through the tea time. Just polite questions about her love of country, getting through WW II, her family, her work with charities, on and on. How do I like my tea? With one lump of sugar and a splash of cream, thank you. A biscuit? Yes, please.
She would look regal, in her informal blouse, sweater, long wool skirt, old lady leather shoes and showing a worldly air and smile. No crown would be necessary. How happy I would feel and honored in her presence. Serene. Peaceful. How divine. It would be heavenly because it would be in Heaven. I loved your speeches during the difficult times especially during the worst of the pandemic. Thank you for all you have done with your gentle manner, soft spoken advice, strong model in life’s tough times and for your guidance. Oh, and thank you for the tea.
MG and Lav have both written an example of their bravery…They have been brave so many times in their lives that it was hard to narrow it down to one example each, but they did their best.
MG
I suppose there is a fine line that separates bravery from stupidity. I know a few friends of mine sometimes wonder which side of the line my activities fall on. I try not to think about it. I just forge ahead.
Kip and I were driving somewhere a few short months ago and we saw a big RV driving in the lane beside us. We could see the driver and his wife. They looked totally relaxed and were smiling ear to ear. They were on their way to see some friends they hadn’t seen in years. The driver was the best man at his friend’s wedding twenty years before. The couple planned to go to one of the state parks and maybe Yellowstone on the way. They could go wherever the winds blew them.
How do I know all this, you ask? I don’t, but I know how we feel when we’re rolling down the highway. When Kip saw the big RV, he made the comment that he wished we were on a trip. I said if I had my way, we would sell our house and be full time RVers. Kip waited a New York second before saying, “Let’s do it!”
We listed our house and began to go through all of our “stuff.” Where in the world did all the “stuff” come from? Our garage became packed full of “stuff,” and we’re talking about a garage that holds 2 cars and a 39 ft motor home, not to mention one of every tool made for man plus one riding lawn mower and 2 walk behinds. Of course I did have a few small collectibles in my cottage.
Anyway, it’s all been pretty overwhelming. I’m expecting a lengthy note of gratitude from our kids thanking us for taking care of the “stuff” and remembering that you can’t take “stuff” with you.
To make a long story longer, I’ll just finish this by saying these two BRAVE souls are hitting the road next week. We’ll wave to all of those less brave folks we pass on the highway. We’ll probably see them again one day at Yellowstone National Park.
Before the garage sale…
After the sale…YAAAAY
Lav
There definitely is a fine line or maybe a fat line that separates bravery from stupidity. One thing means a brave deed or action has been done and the other means a dumb deed or action has happened. People react to both these differently. And as I thought about this assignment my cousin had given us, I came up with brave things other people and even a dog had accomplished.
My husband was brave beyond words in 1975 when we lived in a remote area south of Big Sur, California. We were at a deserted beach swimming after teaching that day. Incorrectly assuming this beach was like beautiful serene Southern California beaches were, we swam out in the Pacific and immediately realized we were caught in undertow – the current was dragging us farther and farther out. I tried to swim to shore, which you’re never supposed to do , and soon was exhausted and ready to go under, swallowing more and more salt water. Ken swam parallel to shore and got in where he was safe and at the edge of the water. He looked at me flailing now about 12 feet away and swam back out grabbing me and soon with barely a toehold in the sand, pushed himself off, he pulled me along swimming strongly without thinking of himself. Simply put, I owed him my life. That was love.
Another act of bravery I experienced was also near Big Sur. A loverly Yellow Labrador we were watching for a friend for six months was out in the yard at our cabin we rented. This cabin was 30 minutes up a dirt road and had no electricity nor phone.
We heard the eeriest sound of a growling kind of catlike screaming and looked out our window to see Nyra, the Lab, chasing a huge mountain lion out of our yard. She had no fear and even though much smaller, she bravely bared her teeth and ran after the big cat. That was love.
I have done many stupid things but maybe I have been brave, too. Just living in a remote area in the mountains of California might count. No, on second thought, I don’t think I crossed the thin or fat line … yet.
I will add a picture of the remote cabin where we lived…
The Cottage
Another picture of the cottage
Inside the cottage…(Ken and Valerie brought the table you see from our Sanderson grandparent’s cabin near Nemo, South Dakota.)
Those 70ish Girls 