Mom went food shopping and we wanted to visit the snake pit (which was across Dixie road from the parking lot,down the hill to the boat). Mom took Charlie with her to the store and she would pick us up after food shopping. As we went into the snake pit we knew this was out of our league. We saw snakes and Spiders behind glass and it was gross. The woman asked if we wanted to see a turtle instead and we both said yes. Out the back door we went and almost tripped over this huge Grey rock right in the middle of the path. This is our one hundred yr old turtle and out popped its head and legs. We asked what he ate and other questions about the turtle. After asking these questions we went into the gift shop where we saw a black metal spider with a pin on the back.

Chris said “get that”!

“Chris they will kill us if I buy that”, I responded. I was in charge of the spending money.

Needless to say I bought the silver and black metal spider with a straight pin on the back. It looked so real, where should we put it so they will notice it? I put the bag with spider into my purse and Mom was waiting for us in the car. After loading the boat up with bags of food, rowing back to our home away from home, unpacking the boat, and tying up the boat we finally went into the house.

There was only one door at the house and that was the front door, everything else was privacy curtains. These were curtains that you pulled for privacy for each bedroom and for the living quarters. That’s were we put the spider, right on the entrance curtain just to the left of the over stuffed chair and sofa.

Then Chris, charlie and I yell all together “SPIDER”. The first person out was Dad and he ran past it without seeing it.

We all pointed to the curtain so Dad grab a fly swatter and started hitting that spider. Dad hit it so hard it fell off the curtain onto the floor, us kids jumped on the sofa and yell “kill it Dad, kill it”. This time Dad was steping on it and saying “Loretta this spider doesn’t flatten like the others”. Mom came out and we sat up and didn’t say a word just like little angels sitting nice and quiet. Mom bent over and picked up the spider and looked at all 3 of her angels than said “this is a metal spider”.

Well, Dad said it sure looked like the ones I’ve been killing all week. Mom couldn’t help but laugh right out loud and say “Well Chuck you were right the kids gave us a show we will never forget. They created the entertainment for tonight”. Dad even laugh too, it was a good joke. Grandma Graf came out and joined in. You know I think that spider brought the family closer than any radio or TV set could. We talked about it at dinner and the next day. Dad invited Uncle Harry and Uncle Joe to the island and told them about the spider story.

My name is Peggy I’m 58 yrs young at the time of writing this. I bought the spider. Even to this day when I get sad or blue I think about Dad hitting that poor metal spider with the fly swatter, then with his foot. I laugh just like I did when I was a kid. I will remember that day for the rest of my life.