Guest blogger: Nan Macomb, character from Murder on Music Row
Hi everyone,
I had to let Loralee go ahead of me in our blogging rotation, because sometimes it’s just easier to let her have her way than to fight her. I learned a long time ago to pick my battles with her.
Before I tell you about my family, I’m supposed to announce Kat, Lor, and I are naming our blog posts. We didn’t ask if we could do this; we often operate under the premise that it’s easier to ask forgiveness than seek permission. Anyway the name of mine posts will be Nan’s Notes. Lor’s will be Loralee’s Lyrics. She made me promise to tell you since she didn’t have room last week. We’re still in discussion on what Kat will call hers, but she says it will be resolved by next week when it’s her turn to blog.
So on to the topic of my family. I’m an only child unless you count Lor, who’d rather claim my family than her own. My parents have been married for almost forty years and, since my father’s retirement, I’ve never seen them happier.
Mom’s a homemaker, with a degree in home economics and a minor in drama. If you ask me it should’ve been the other way around. She is—how can I say this nicely—a drama queen. It has to be her way or she pouts like a three-year-old, and my dad almost always gives in to her. She also has the strangest hobby (for an adult). She’s a Nancy Drew fanatic. She has her original collection and we still catch her reading them from time to time. That’s all I remember her reading to me growing up.
Daddy was an executive with one of the health care providers established and headquartered just south of Nashville. Did you know health care and publishing are both bigger industries in Nashville than music? Most people are surprised to learn this. Daddy’s also very socially conscious. When he found out Mom’s early Nancy Drew editions had racial slurs, he bought a new set and demanded she get rid of hers. It was the biggest argument I ever saw them have. They finally compromised—she could keep hers as a private collection, but I’d only read the revised editions.
My parents met in college and married shortly afterwards. Mom wanted to go to NYC and be a Rockette, but love intervened. It’s a romantic story. Daddy proposed at the Parthenon, a local landmark in Centennial Park. While I was growing up we went there for picnics almost every weekend when the weather was nice. We always visited the exact spot where he went down on one knee and asked Mom to be his wife. Sometimes they reenacted it. They’re so goofy in love it’s hard to imagine he was the CFO of a multi-billion dollar company.
They’re very energetic for their age. They’ve won the club championship in both golf and tennis multiple times. When Dancing with the Stars debuted on TV they started taking ballroom dance lessons and have even competed a time or two. They aren’t half bad. I’m lucky, I guess, to have parents to love each other and who I get along with–at least most of the time. Sometimes I envy Lor because her parents are never in her business. Even though they sometimes get on my last nerve, I guess I prefer mine.
Till next time…
~Nan
