The other day, I asked myself the question when did I actually begin to take this collecting thing seriously? I remembered that Betty Lynn had already gathered a few frame drumming figurines, but I had paid little attention to the whole business.
My beginning as a serious collector started when we were driving to Lake Junaluska NC in August, 2011 for a frame drum workshop to be led by Layne Redmond and Tommy Be. We had stopped for the night in Bristol, VA and while there decided to look around in an antique mall called "In the Attic Antiques and Uniques." While Betty Lynn was looking around the front of the store, I wandered into the back area where I found a young woman working on a cabinet stuffed full of little three and a half inch high Raggedy Ann and Andy figures playing with just about every toy and musical instrument you could imagine. Almost facetiously, I remarked: "Surely, there is one playing a tambourine." Almost immediately, the young lady pulled out a Raggedy Ann who was indeed pounding away on her frame drum!
I might mention that I knew that Raggedy Ann had a special significance for Betty Lynn who still keeps the stuffed Raggedy Ann that comforted her and reminded her of home when she was a student in France many years before. So when I went off to show Betty Lynn my find, I started off by reminding her of her beloved Raggedy Ann. Imagine her surprise and delight to learn that I had actually found a figure that united her student past with her drumming present. It also told me that I could do no wrong, if I could just keep finding frame drummers in future. That's how it all started.
