A Snake in the Dining Room

Bob and I built the house at Leggett on about 25 acres on a county road. It was rough country acreage and we did a lot of clearing by hand. Most of the snakes we found were harmless, but there were coral snakes that the cats would play with, and also moccasins there. I had been in the habit of killing snakes by chopping their heads off with a hatchet outside. 

One night when I was there by myself with the kids, a snake decided to get inside the house in the dining room. We had just put new wallpaper in the dining room after spending a long time deciding it was right for that big room. Rae Janette and I had put the wallpaper up. According to Bob's calculations, we had no wastage. I was afraid to kill the snake in there for fear of getting blood on that new wallpaper. In the end, I killed it in the entryway with the hatchet.

Trumpets in the Bathtub

We opened the store, Mr. Bandman, in 1996. My second husband, Paul, was a band director and repaired instruments, as well. Any trumpet player knows to give the trumpet a bath periodically. That's why there were trumpets in the bathtub. Later, when we had the store at our house, there were trombones in the bedroom due to the fact that Lauren at one of the rental companies insisted we had to have a certain number of trombones.

When Paul was still working as a band director, I ran the store. One day a lady who came into the store bounced in and said she needed reeds for her step-daughter's flute. I was just far enough ahead of her to know she didn't need reeds for a flute. I could talk about the instruments well enough that a lot of people didn't know that I couldn't play.

One of Paul's frequent sayings was "Practice your horn at home--not in public!" For some time we had instructors who came to our store and gave piano and guitar lessons. Paul directed homeschool bands on two different occasions, once in Livingston and once in Silsbee. He was band director in the schools at Devers and at Hull-Daisetta, as well as giving lessons at the store. One of his students at Daisetta received a scholarship in band based on her ability to play her instrument. 

Paul was also extremely interested in plants and flowers. He could see flowers around a house and identify them as well as Bob could see car parts. He had a white Texas Star that somebody gave him seed for. He had a pot garden and grew tomatoes and peppers on the front porch.