Feb 20, 2017

A Snake in the Dining Room

Pin ItBob 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

Pin ItWe 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.