Oh My Gosh... It's a Bat

 

I grew up in a musical family.  I never played sports, because my families sport was music.  My Paw Moon was a farmer, musician, and master instrument maker.  He started teaching me to play the fiddle when I was just 5 years old.  My older cousin could already play, and one day Paw caught me behind his shop's door playing "air fiddle".  He knew at that time I was ready to start learning.  It was a little easier for me to learn and progress, because I had Mama and Daddy there to help me practice. Mama played guitar and sang, while Daddy played the bass fiddle.  After I had learned a new song, I would go home and they would help me, by keeping the rhythm while I played.  It pushed me to keep up with the music, because I had to learn to pick up where I made a mistake, because they didn't stop to wait on me.  Mama and Daddy had a bluegrass band and they were pretty successful around the area.  When I would go to one of their shows, I would get on stage with them and play a song.  I did this for several years, and one day I had gotten good enough where I could join the band and play fiddle along with their main fiddler.  One night at a show, that fiddler told me I had a person coming to see me.  He told me it was one of his cousins and he wanted to meet me.  Of course, I was shocked and couldn't imagine who would want to meet me.  The band was on stage playing when I looked over at the door and this really nice looking guy walked in.  I KNEW this was the cousin he was talking about, and I felt a few butterflies in my stomach.  I have NEVER had trouble meeting people, but this was different.  I was so nervous when we were introduced, but I didn't let it show.  He was way more nervous than me and of course I did most of the talking.  We hit it off right away and started dating.  A few months later we were engaged.  A few months after that we were married.  A year and a half later we had our son.  Now after almost 27 years together, I would do it all over again and again!  A while after we met, he took me to his church where I met the people who would change my life forever.  At that time, I wasn't playing with a band, and the church had people who could sing like I had never heard.  Two of the men and me eventually formed a trio.  We started having people ask us to come sing at their revivals and other special services.  One day we got the call to sing at a local venue here around home.  It was a pretty big deal, and I actually played the very first note to open the very first show!  We knew we needed help since it was just the three of us, so we asked two men that I had known most of my life.  We met for a practice and never looked back.  The show went off without a hitch.  We spent many days and nights going from place to place playing our music and sharing God's word through song.  Since one of our members had a southern gospel background, we were invited to sing at a big gospel concert in Tennessee.  We played that festival for several years, but one year stands out more to me than most.  That one particular year, I had been sick with the flu.  I had gotten over it enough to where I was able to play the festival, with the help of antibiotics.  This festival was in July, and as most know, July in the south is nothing less than hell on earth!  My husband has ALWAYS been by my side no matter where we would go play.  He has always been my #1 supporter and has never wavered.  Instead of riding with the rest of the members to the festival, John and I decided to drive our own vehicle.  Keep in mind, we didn't have any money and most of the time we had to borrow money just to put gas in the car.  Those are the times I remember the most, and will cherish them as lessons we had to learn so we could be better in our future.  I mentioned the show was in July, and me being the person who doesn't think past her newest thought, I thought I would wear a BLACK DRESS!!!  Again, this festival was OUTSIDE and in JULY!!  We had played our set, when I looked down at my feet.  It looked like I had some sort of horrible condition where my skin had turned loose from my body.  I had rolls and rolls of panty hose around my ankles.  Not only had I wore a black dress, but I had also bought pantyhose for a 6ft tall 300-pound woman!  On my best day I am 5'3 and nowhere near that weight.  I had sweated so much my pantyhose had stretched out and had nowhere to go but south!  I could go into detail about the amount I sweated, but I will just say I was soaked.  The friction I created while trying to walk with those soggy unmentionables, left a rash on my legs that made me look like I was walking like a professional cowboy after a rough night at the rodeo.  To help the situation, the only thing I could do was start pulling from my ankles and roll the excess polyester and tuck it under the legs of my undies.  The more I walked the more friction, the more they would roll, and the more I would walk like a cowboy.  John was getting concerned, so he asked me what was wrong.  I told him we needed to go home and go home NOW!  On our way home the pain was so bad, I couldn't take it anymore.  Of course, the air in our car didn't work, and we had to ride with the windows down.  Just as we started up the mountain toward home, I said "I can't take it anymore!".  I pulled those pantyhose off as fast as I could and flung them out of John's window (because naturally mine didn't roll down).  The wind caught those hose and blew them back in the window and wrapped them around John's head.  He panicked and yelled, "Oh my gosh a bat flew in and is around my head"!  Not only did he think a bat was around his head, but he was also SURE the bat had wet itself before making that trip into our car.  He was swinging his arms around like Mike Tyson in a boxing match, all while to drive us up the mountain at a breakneck speed.  After the dust settled and the "bat" had been thrown out of the window, he realized the bat was just my sweaty pantyhose.  We laughed and laughed, but he said "What if we had wrecked.  Our rescuers would think I was some kind of pervert with me having your pantyhose wrapped around my head and you with your legs propped up on the dash"!  After that, we decided it was best for the bat population and our own safety if we just rode with other members of our band.  To this day when I see a bat, it makes my legs hurt and I go into cowboy mode!