After being Head Nurse for the Nashville, Tennessee VA Hospital for 10 years, Don decided he wanted to go into the upper management program. The VA chose 12 people per year and Don was assigned to train to be an Associate VP of Nursing in Bloomington, Minn.

During the winter of 1988, it was extremely cold in Minnesota. I remember that our car would not start when it was 27 degrees below zero! It finally started, several days later, when it, “warmed up,” to five-degrees below zero.

Don and I were used to this weather, however, since both of us grew up in Wisconsin. I remember the only reason we would not have school was when there was an actual blizzard! Six feet of snow would practically cover our mailboxes! However, we would just plug in our cars to oil heaters and go on about our business.

One winter evening, I was sitting on the couch doing needlepoint and watching TV at the same time, when my eyes were suddenly drawn to the floor and I observed a green garden snake slithering across my apartment rug! Don heard my shriek and came running. He was amazed to see the snake in our living room, since we had never experienced anything like that growing up.

He grabbed the waste basket and covered the snake with it. I then asked Don, “What are you going to do with it now?” He stated that he would take it outside. I told him, “No!”, because I knew the snake would freeze (I really have a kind heart for any kind of creature). Don then asked me, “What should I do with it, make it a pet?” I had to acquiesce to the fact that we had to put the snake outside since no pets were allowed in our apartment.

The next day, as I left for work, I saw our poor snake, stiff as a board, frozen solid in the snow. I felt so badly that we could not give this critter a home.

That morning, I called the apartment managers and they were shocked that a snake found its way into our apartment. It was less than an hour later when they had several people over, insulating our outside wall to keep out future critters. Luckily, we did not have that problem again, the entire nine months we lived in the apartment.

So now, whenever I see a snake, I give it a silent salute to try and pay back for the critter we could not help. Both Don and I are so happy to never see a winter visitor like that again!