Duck! Duck! Duck!

One time we went to South Central Texas to see the Badings near Seguin at Geronimo. Edwin Bading was a friend who Bob knew from his days in the Army. He and Carolyn became good family friends. We came home from that particular visit with a group of baby ducks. They grew up to be big, white quackless ducks. They said "Ah! Ah! Ah!" With their heads going back and forth like they were quacking but they didn't make any noise. They went swimming down where the creek crossed the road and at the pond at the back of our property. Varmints got one of them every now and then. 

Paul used to feed them corn and he would stand or stick his head out of the shed and call, "Duck! Duck! Duck!" and they would come running. One day Bob killed all the ducks because they wouldn't listen when he wanted them to go down to the pond, and we made pillows out of the feathers. Paul still has those pillows, though they were always puny on stuffing.

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.

Refrigerators, Ice Boxes, and Washing Machines

During World War 2, from 1942 to 1946, metal was scarce, and you couldn't even get a new car. You had so many bronze and silver looking pennies because they didn't make copper ones during the war. I remember sorting somebody's pennies and putting all the gray ones in one stack and all the copper ones in another stack.

So it was after the war that everyone started getting new appliances. Aunt Oakie got a Frigidaire refrigerator, which was still being used by Mama in 1993 when she died. Shortly after Aunt Oakie got that refrigerator, my family got a Kenmore two-door refrigerator. These both had to be defrosted, but before we had a refrigerator we had an ice box. The ice man came every other day and you put a sign in the window that pointed to how much ice you wanted that day. Occasionally we stopped at the ice house to get ice on the way home from Grandma's, and put it on the Model A running board. Most people my age still call a refrigerator an ice box. One of Daddy's most favorite things was having ice cream in the refrigerator to have any night you wanted it.

Shortly after the war, we got a used washing machine that was the ringer type. Then we got a new Kenmore. Both of these required rinsing and running the clothes through the ringer at least twice. We had one tub that had wheels on it and another that you sat on a wooden stool that Daddy built. We drained the soapy water out of the washing machine with a hose that watered the grass outside of the fence. Every week you could tell where the water had drained because of the green grass. We mostly did washing on Monday and then ironed on Tuesday and cleaned house on Friday. Wednesday and Thursday we didn't have a certain chore.

I don't remember how we washed clothes before we had a washing machine. Grandma used to put her clothes in the water on the stove. Aunt Oakie sent her work dresses to the cleaners. All our clothes were hung on the line to dry. We used starch where necessary, and the work pants were put on pant stretchers, which caused them to have a crease as well as taking out a lot of the wrinkles. During the '50s when all the skirts were full, my petticoats were starched and hung on the line so they would stand out. The starch was a compound that you bought dry and used hot water to mix up. You dipped the clothes in that mixture after they were rinsed and you put them back through the ringer. After they dried on the line you had to sprinkle them with water before they were ironed.

One summer Bobby and I helped Mama hang out the wash and then she would to take us swimming at "Terrible Smells." Its name was actually Terrell Wells and it was a sulphur pool. It was a private pool that was open to the public, but they could refuse service to anyone they wanted to. Most of the city parks had public pools at that time.

A Roadster in the Entryway

After growing up and completing college courses through San Antonio College and then a bachelor's degree at Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, I embarked on marriage. Our wedding occurred on June 27th, 1964, at Redeemer Lutheran Church in San Antonio. We had met and then lived afterward in Corpus Christi, Texas. Laura Katherine was born on June 19, 1965, and Paul Robert was born July 1, 1967. Rae Janette was born September 30, 1968, and Sharon Lynne was born July 6, 1970. Elizabeth Ann was born April 17, 1976.

My husband, Robert (Bob) Goodman, was a mechanical engineer. His hobby was old cars, and first we had a five-window coupe. It was tan. We took it to a car show in Corpus Christi when we lived there.

Bob had a passion for 1932 Ford roadsters. One that he built from a '33 truck chassis and motor, and from body parts that he already had ended up in our new house in the entryway. It was with the supplies of boards and sheetrock. Rae Janette had to help him move it. This kept it safe before he had the shop or garage built, but it stayed there a long time even after that. As you would imagine, some people commented on it being in the house. We sold this vehicle without the seats and the insides being finished, though had a good green paint job on the body parts. We sold it to a guy from Houston.

Over the years we spent hours and days and weeks looking for old cars on ranch and farmland. We spent some time visiting Ford dealerships looking for NOS (new old stock) parts. There are no parts available today; you have to get new-made parts to build a roadster.

Old Putt-Putt

Our mother was room mother for Bobby Joe or me every year. This involved making cookies and punch for parties, and being chaperone for field trips. All the kids wanted to go in our car, which was a '28 Model A roadster with a rumble seat. We didn't open the rumble seat, but I recall one time it was open and Uncle Frank, Sissy, Bobby Joe, and I rode in the rumble seat and sang "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean" along Fredericksburg Road. Uncle Frank was a veteran of World War I, and that song dates from that era. The kids at school called our car Old Putt-Putt.

Daddy had promised to buy Mama a brand new car if she married him in 1938, and in the 1960s he still hadn't. I think he forgot about telling her that, but she didn't forget. After a series of used Chevrolets and Old Putt-Putt we finally got a new car when the Japanese came out with a four-cylinder. Daddy never would drive the Model A outside of town, but the mother of the lady next door bought it from us and she took it quite often out of town to see her other daughter, so it was road-worthy.

At school, for Valentine's parties the teacher made a Valentine's box covered with paper lace and hearts. Everyone put their Valentines in the box to be handed out at the party. We brought a Valentine for everybody because Mama said it wasn't fair if somebody didn't get any. We spent hours deciding which card to give to whom. We had the little hearts that had the sayings on them.

For Halloween we wore costumes, At Christmas we each brought a gift and each of us took one home. There were days off for military parades, and every year we had a Wednesday off for the stock shows and Southwestern Days, and they had a parade. We also had off for San Jacinto Day; there were events all week and the Battle of Flowers parade Friday afternoon. They had the river parade on Monday and Fiesta Flambeau was a lighted parade on Saturday night. All these matched up to the Rose Bowl parade at that time. The only difference was ours used paper flowers where they use real flowers.

Superstitions and Sayings

Mama knew every superstition that was known to man. Whether she believed them or not, she knew them. But some people took them seriously. One night, Bobby Joe and I were going out with Uncle Tuffy and Sissy, and Uncle Tuffy turned the car around and went around the block rather than cross the path of a black cat. That's supposed to be bad luck.

One night Grandma and Aunt Oakie were trying to keep me busy and said, "If you put salt on a bird's tail, you can catch it!" It must have worked because I spent hours trying to catch a bird with a salt shaker!

Another thing Mama said was if you spill salt, you should throw it over your left shoulder "to undo the bad luck." When you throw it over your left shoulder, you're throwing the salt in the Devil's face.
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She said if you're working with silverware and you drop a knife, it means a man is coming; if you drop a fork, a woman's coming. If you drop a spoon, you'll be disappointed!

We also heard if you break a mirror you will have 7 years of bad luck. It was bad luck to walk under a ladder, I can see how that was bad luck or could be. It was also bad luck to open an umbrella indoors. Grandma (Vina Anna Wood) had an old umbrella that was tattered to strings, that she called a parasol. It was brown, and I don't know how many times she told me not to open it in the house.

Daddy had a number of sayings. One of them was when someone left in a hurry, he said "they were off like a jug handle" We weren't sure how a jug handle was off, so maybe that was from before our time. Another one was if something involved a lot of red tape or they asked a lot of questions, he would comment that they had to "smell your socks."  It occurred to me after I was well grown that he may have adapted that saying for polite company.

Daddy always said someone was a blooming idiot if they were in love. He called cannas "Raymond flowers" because my cousin's husband was named Raymond and he gave the first ones that Daddy had to him.

Daddy told me many times that I had  a "yarn by the tale" when I was engrossed in a book.

Another saying I really didn't understand was one that some of the Young cousins told about at a reunion. They said that one time they thought it was their brother coming back to get something. They told him that he could come inside if his nose was clean. But instead of the brother, it was the preacher come to visit. I don't know what it means to have your nose clean.

One superstition we would remember for a long time was, "If you see a red bird, company is coming that you are not expecting." One summer we--Daddy, Mama, Bobby Joe, and I--went fishing and we saw red birds everywhere. When we got back to town we found out that my aunt was coming from Arkansas with my two cousins and the cousins' kids. Then, Daddy's boyhood friend from Tarpley, who lived in California then, was going to be in town with his family. We still think a red bird means unexpected company.

We also heard things like "kicking the bucket," "putting your nose to the grind stone," and "helping your neighbors."

Grandma and Aunt Oakie were quick to tell you that thunder was bowling pins that God was using to make the noise! This was supposed to make young kids feel better when they heard thunder. Mama would also say it was the old man throwing potatoes in his wheelbarrow. At Grandma's they also kept nest eggs in the chickens' nests. I thought nest eggs told the chickens where to lay eggs, but they were really to keep snakes from getting the eggs. The glass eggs would break inside the snake after he ate them.