By Karen Brode

I come to the garden alone
While the dew is still on the roses
And the voice I hear falling on my ear
The Son of God discloses.
And He walks with me and He talks with me,
And He tells me I am His own
And the joy we share as we tarry there,
None other has ever known.

No singing was as sweet as the melodies that drifted from the church house that morning. Winnie had wanted to be baptized for a long time, but her Mother had insisted that she wait until warmer weather. Winnie couldn’t help worrying that then it might be too late.

The thought came to Winnie that she might wait just one Sunday too long and Jesus would come with His band of angels, and He would look at her with sadness and then turn His back and head on up to heaven with all the people she loved, but not her.

O do not let the Word depart
And close thine eyes against the light
Poor sinner, harden not thy heart
Be saved O tonight.
Tomorrow’s sun may never rise
To meet thy long deluded eyes
Poor sinner harden not thy heart
Be saved O, tonight.

The preacher had talked about how sad it would be to miss heaven. How incredibly miserable the people in hell would be, being closed off from God forever. And if the world came to an end that night, or even if a tornado came and swept away their house with her family in it, they would probably all go to heaven except her. Her mother and father were saved, and Albert was only 7 years old so he could probably be forgiven for his childish ways. Even the baby her mother was carrying would be saved. Momma had not gone to church that evening because she was having a lot of trouble with her pregnancy.

It was Winnie who risked missing heaven! The preacher talked about the age of accountability and Winnie had felt responsible and put on this earth for a high purpose as long as she could remember. She had turned 11 years old last November, and she knew it was time she assumed her duties as a Christian.

Her chest swelled as she stepped out into the aisle during the last chorus. These matters weren’t earthly matters. She could not worry about catching a cold or getting pneumonia. If she did, she did. At least she would go to heaven.

The preacher took her hand in his and led her to the front seat of the small country church. She glanced back at her family, and her father’s face shone with pride. Albert had a look of merriment on his face. He had invited Rubin to sit with the family and he and Rubin were laughing. Winnie frowned and then felt the rubber band hit the back of her head. She pulled the rubber band out of her hair and tried to concentrate on the matter at hand.

“One more song, Ladies and Gentlemen,” the preacher announced trying to get one more sinner to walk down the aisle.

Almost persuaded now to believe,
Almost persuaded Christ to receive,
Seems now some soul to say,
Go Spirit, go thy way,
Some more convenient day, 
On Thee, I’ll call.
Almost persuaded come, come today, 
Almost persuaded turn not away,
Jesus invites you here, Angels
Are lingering near, Prayers rise
From hearts so dear, O wanderer come
Almost persuaded harvest is past,
Almost persuaded, doom comes at last,
Almost cannot avail, almost is but to fail, 
Sad, sad that bitter wail
Almost but lost.

Winnie was so glad she was sitting on the front row already and had taken this huge step. She wanted to hurry up and be baptized so that she could feel safe. Another rubber band hit the back of her head and she wanted to beat Albert, but she brushed the rubber band out of her hair and tried to concentrate on the song.

Then the preacher asked the congregation to stand. He pulled her to him and put his arm around her. “Winnie, this is the most important day of your life.”

She felt embarrassed being the center of so much attention. She looked down at her shoes as the preacher went on.

“Winnie, do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that He died on the cross to save you from your sins?”

“Yes,” she answered a little too loudly.

“We’ll meet out by the pond in about ten minutes, and I invite everyone to come and witness the birth of a new Christian,” the preacher said.

—–

Winnie watched as the preacher parted the cat tails and waded into the pond. He had on rubber wading pants. She only had her dress which would certainly float up to the surface. Winnie tried to hold her dress down as she waded into the pond. The mucky bottom squished up between her toes and the water was so cold her teeth began to chatter at once. She didn’t want to look as if anything bothered her, and she kept walking out even though with each step the water became more excruciatingly frigid.

It was April but still cool. Her mother was due to have the baby next month. Winnie wanted everything to be perfect for the new baby. She had even crocheted a bib. She had learned to crochet during the winter and was very proud that she had something to give the new baby.

When she was almost as far out as the preacher, there was a disturbance on the surface of the pond nearby. Maybe a fish, maybe a snake. She tried not to think of a snake. She would start screaming and run all the way home. She focused on the preacher, and he told her how to hold her hands over her mouth and nose. Then, he pushed her back into the pond, pulled her up again, and presented her to the congregation as a new creature.

She was shivering as she came out of the pond. Her daddy wrapped the wagon blanket around her and helped her in the wagon.

__________________________________

Karen Brode grew up in Denison, TX and graduated from Denison High School in 1972.  She took courses at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and worked in a church office for 25 years.  She and her husband, Gary, have been married 39 years and they have one son, Brandon.  Karen’s hobbies are writing, sewing, and gardening.

By Karen Brode

“Why do I have to come to the cemetery? I don’t like cemeteries,” I whined as I kicked gravel along the pathway to the family plot. I was ten years old and anything was better than going to the cemetery.

Winnie’s mother and father were buried at Sunnyside Cemetery in Savoy. Every time we drove under the sign, I said, “I’d like my eggs sunnyside up!”

Winnie tried not to laugh because this was no place to laugh, but it was a little funny, and Winnie could certainly picture Emma and Effie laughing about it.

She wiped the sweat off her forehead and looked up into the unrelenting Texas sun. Not a cloud in sight.

I sat in the only shady place in the cemetery.  It was a pavilion for people to sit and contemplate. I was glad to not be in the sun.

My aunt looked like a peasant hoeing the grass off her mother’s grave. She wore a long sleeved dress, a bonnet, and her comfortable shoes. She had brought her shovel, her hoe, and her rake. After she hoed all the grass off the grave, she raked the grass leavings out of the family plot. Then, she sat down near the grave and began to pick at the incorrigible roots that refused to be hoed down. Finally, she picked up the shovel and formed a mound of dirt over her mother’s grave. It looked almost brand new.

She gave the same treatment to her father’s grave, and then she picked up all of her tools and got back in the car.

The car was hot and it would not have time to get cool by the time we got to the Fairview cemetery in Ravenna where my father was buried. She turned on the air conditioner full blast. The sweat was running down her face in rivulets and it was hard to breathe in the hot car. Sweat seemed to be pouring down her sides, and her legs made a suction noise when they peeled away from the plastic coverings on the car seat. The salesman had told her that the plastic coverings would keep her car just like new. It would never lose that new car smell, and when it came time to trade it in, just take the coverings off!

I felt as if I had melted into those plastic coverings on the car seats. My bare arms and legs looked as if they had permanently been indented into the plastic.

Winnie resented a little the fact that her family couldn’t all be buried in the same cemetery.  It would make her life a lot easier! I told her that the people in graves did not care how their graves looked. I could just hear my father sigh when Winnie paraded forth each week to clean his grave.

She began to clean my father’s grave, but she was careful not to hoe any weeds from John Gamble’s grave that was right beside my dad’s. She didn’t want to honor her grandfather in any way, and for all she cared, the weeds could grow three feet high on his grave. In fact, she threw the weeds and grass leavings onto his grave when she took them off my father’s.

She thought her brother must’ve been out of his mind when he made his decision to be buried next to that scoundrel, John Gamble!  There was also the fact that it would make Effie so mad if she knew where Albert had chosen as his final resting place. Winnie thought it was Albert’s final statement to show Effie once and for all that she could not control him!

Her brother had been gone for three long years. More than once she had wondered why he had to die at only 45. Here she was four years older than him with no children of her own and still alive. It made no sense. She should be dead instead of him.

She looked up as I walked toward other plots in the cemetery.

I was drawn to one family plot I’d seen last time I was there. There was a picture of a young boy embedded into the tombstone. He was seventeen years old when he died. I had heard that the young man had a motorcycle accident. I stared at his picture, and he looked so happy, so full of promise.  But there he was with his graduation picture on a tombstone.

Winnie hoed and cleared every last shred of grass from my father’s grave. It was all she could do for him now, and it was precious little. A few tears leaked from her eyes as she surveyed the cemetery. It was peaceful there, and Albert would like that. Then she cried in earnest, but not for Albert. His children were still in this world.

Winnie wiped her eyes as she recalled the day Albert died. They had all been on the fifth floor at St. Paul’s Hospital in Dallas. She hoped she never had to see that place again. Suddenly, the nuns were scurrying about and then they came to tell them that he had died.

She had known he was dying, and really there was nothing to hope for since they had told them he would be a vegetable if he lived. Even though she knew that her brother was going to die, and it was the best outcome, it didn’t stop the hysteria when the news came.

When I  heard that my father would be a vegetable if he lived, I pictured a giant carrot sitting at the supper table where he had sat.

Winnie trudged slowly out of the cemetery as the sun sank lower in the sky. She should have waited until dusk to go to the cemetery. The heat was just about bearable at that time. I followed behind her thinking of all the people lying out there in their graves who had lived and loved and had plans just like me.

_____________________________________

Karen Brode grew up in Denison, TX and graduated from Denison High School in 1972.  She took courses at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and worked in a church office for 25 years.  She and her husband, Gary, have been married 39 years and they have one son, Brandon.  Karen’s hobbies are writing, sewing, and gardening.

By Karen Brode

Things have never been the same for me as for Winnie and Travis. I started off on the wrong foot when I was born. A lot of it was because I reminded my mother of poor old John Gamble, her black sheep of a Father. I had his jet black hair and his coloring and, as I grew up, maybe I acted like him a little. Well, he wasn’t all that bad! He was my granddaddy, and I loved him.

Sometimes I think he was the only one in the world who truly loved me. He took me with him when he went to the pool hall. The men would clap me on the back and tell him how much I looked like him. He would turn and look at me, and I saw nothing but love in his eyes.

Maybe he hadn’t been a good father, but as far as I was concerned, he was my favorite. I would stop by the pool hall on my way home from school because I preferred his company to being with my family. I would sit at an empty table and spread my books out to do my homework. Before long, he would call me over to help him play his hand. I would sit next to him and watch him skunk the other men. He played for money, and when he won a game, he would stand up and cheer and jump around and say to me, “Now, that’s the way you do it, Sonny boy.”

In the family pictures, I have noticed that the rest of them are all alike. Four peas in a pod. I’m what is different in those pictures. I stand off by myself away from the rest of them as if I was never really part of that family. They wouldn’t want my pity, but I feel sorry for every one of them. They are all saps. If it wasn’t for me, they would’ve probably all died of boredom a long time ago.

Most of all I feel sorry for my older sister, Winnie. She didn’t have the gumption to stand up to Momma. There were plenty of times I stood up for her, and I got in trouble for it, but someone needed to stand up for that girl. I wanted her to have a life away from Momma and Daddy. They didn’t need to clutch onto her and use her up. Well, Dad didn’t cling onto Winnie the way Momma did.

Ever since my little brother Travis was born Momma expected Winnie to take care of the housework, cook, and do the laundry. I saw her being chipped away little by little, and I tried to save her.

She wouldn’t let me save her, of course. She was far too good to let somebody like me save her. But she would still come to me at times and ask my advice. By golly, if she didn’t want my help she shouldn’t have come to talk to me.

I think Granddaddy Gamble took to me so much because his only son, Uncle Jess, was a milquetoast guy who looked and acted like his mother, Alice. Jess must’ve been a bitter disappointment to John Gamble. How John’s soul must’ve ached for a son who was like him, a son with some spirit. The closest he came to getting a child like him was Aunt Emma. She had spirit when she was young, and she made people laugh. I always liked Emma. She was my pick of the litter.

Winnie went off to Commerce to get her teaching degree the year I entered high school. She was 18 and I was 14. I don’t know why she didn’t get married like all the other girls her age. She could still teach if she wanted to. But a man to take care of her and a family of her own would be so much better for her in my opinion.

Momma and I grew farther apart after Winnie left home. By that time, Momma mostly focused on Travis who was seven. She worried constantly about that boy. I know she didn’t worry like that about Winnie or me. If Travis was five minutes late getting home from school, she pulled the curtain back and peered out the window to see if he was coming. One day, she sent me out to look for him, and I found him still at school talking to his teacher. He had volunteered to clean the erasers for Mr. Harwick. Travis and Mr. Harwick were standing out on the side of the school hitting the erasers against the side of the building. When I had walked up, I heard Travis saying, “I think I might want to be a teacher when I grow up.” Mr. Harwick had smiled benevolently on the earnest young man helping him.

I wasn’t surprised that Travis wanted to be a teacher. Winnie was going to be a teacher. Winnie held such complete sway over him. On the way home, I asked Travis if he had ever thought of being a sheriff or a lawman?

Travis looked at me and said, “Heck no, Momma wouldn’t let me carry a gun!”

I needed to do something about the way Travis was growing up. Why didn’t our father do something about Mother? Travis had never been squirrel hunting or fishing and playing at the river with other boys. Momma and Winnie kept him shut up in the house all the time.

—–

Effie saw her two sons coming down the road toward home, and she was so relieved. When she couldn’t find Travis, it seemed almost as if her life stopped. She felt intense panic. She and Travis were joined in a way that she and her other children were not. She didn’t understand it, but it was what it was. She was never at ease when he was out of her sight.

She went out on the front porch to greet him.

“Travis, did you have a good day at school?” The little boy began chattering away about reading and doing math problems and helping Mr. Harwick with the erasers. Albert stood a ways off, but Effie didn’t notice him as she took Travis by the shoulders and led him into the house. “I think I have some cake for such a good boy.”

—–

I stood in the yard alone.

“I think I have some cake for such a good boy!” I whispered under my breath in a falsetto tone. Sometimes I hated her. I couldn’t wait to get out of that house and get away from her and be my own person.

_____________________________________

Karen Brode grew up in Denison, TX and graduated from Denison High School in 1972.  She took courses at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and worked in a church office for 25 years.  She and her husband, Gary, have been married 39 years and they have one son, Brandon.  Karen’s hobbies are writing, sewing, and gardening.

By Karen Brode

Winnie envied the lunch basket Clara had. Her mother had bought it in Bonham, and it was probably expensive. The other children made fun of the preacher’s daughter and her uppity ways, and the bright new lunch basket didn’t help her popularity. Winnie had set her bucket under the table as always. The bucket she used for her lunch was ugly and stained.

The other children had carried things in their pockets to eat for lunch. Winnie’s own brother, Albert, had stuffed a biscuit and sausage into his pocket and was eating it across the room with the rowdy boys. His table of boys never took long to eat, but used most of their lunch time to play baseball.

Winnie went back to her book. Clara had gotten up and Winnie was alone at her table. It bothered her a little that she was sitting by herself reading, but then she decided it wasn’t so bad. She couldn’t think of any of the girls her own age she wanted for a friend. She hadn’t been invited to any sleepovers or birthday parties. It was just as well because her mother needed her at home. She had been so sick when she was carrying the baby, the doctor told her not to have any more children. Winnie had worried so much that her mother would die in childbirth.

Then, the sweet little baby had come, and Winnie had taken over caring for him while Mother recuperated. At times, Winnie felt that the baby was hers. She would often sit by the window and talk to the baby and watch his eyes follow hers. She couldn’t help smiling when she looked at him. His hair wasn’t as curly as Albert’s or her hair. But she kept her hair in long braids almost down to her waist. Albert’s hair was impossible. If she didn’t chase him down and try to brush it, he would look like a wild boy from Borneo. Winnie just knew that this baby wouldn’t be like Albert. He seemed quieter, more thoughtful–more like her.

——–

School was over. Winnie liked this time of day. She stood by her desk and watched Margie Linfield and SaraBeth Morrison walk arm and arm out of the school.

“Where was Albert?” she wondered. She went outside and saw Albert and Reuben over by the fence throwing rocks at Mr. Bedloe! His daughter had set him out in the sun in his wooden wheelchair, and the old man was so addled that he didn’t even register that the boys were aiming at him. The rocks hit all around him.

Winnie caught Albert and jerked him away. “What do you think you are doing?” she asked.

“Oh, we’re just having a good time. We didn’t even hit him! Look at him! He’s funny. Don’t you think he’s funny?”

“No! He’s handicapped! That’s not funny, Albert! You just wait until your Daddy hears about this!”

“Oh Winnie, you’re always such a killjoy!”

His words tore straight through her. It did seem as if she wasn’t really a child, but some sort of miniature adult parading in a child’s body. It would have never occurred to her to throw rocks at Mr. Bedloe.

Just as they got to the edge of their yard, Albert ran back to the bush where he had hung his asafetadae necklace and put it around his neck. Winnie stared at him walking so proudly into the house wearing it. She had to smile. There was no one else like her brother, Albert. He could make her laugh sometimes even when she didn’t want to laugh.

She put a pone of cornbread into the oven, and wondered what else they could eat for supper.  Mother had been sickly for so long that it had become Winnie’s job to do the cooking for the family.

“Winnie!” Mother called from her bedroom. “Can you try to find your father? I think I need to go to the doctor!”

Winnie went into red alert mode. It was something she was very familiar with. Her mother often had to go to the doctor on little notice. Winnie counted her blessings. At least it wasn’t like last month when she had to go in the middle of the night and it was pouring rain and the bridge was washed out.

Winnie leaned out the back door and hollered for Albert. He came running from across the road. “Is supper ready?”

“No!” Winnie answered. “Momma’s sick! You have to find Daddy now!”

“Oh, she’s always sick! What’s wrong with her now?”

“Go on, Albert. And hurry!”

—–

Albert was so tired of his momma being sick and lying in her bed. Ever since she started expecting that baby, she had taken to her bed and expected to be waited on. His friends’ mothers didn’t act like this after they had babies. They got up and took care of their babies!

Albert saw his Father on the road coming home. “Daddy! Daddy! Momma’s sick! We’ve got to take her to the doctor!”

—–

John Hawk’s face might not have changed in that instant, but his heart sank. Not another night of doctors! Effie was only 34! When he married her, she had a 22 inch waist, and he could almost put his broad hands around it, and now…. Now she weighed 200 pounds and something was wrong with her all the time. What had happened to that carefree girl he married just 14 years before?

John pulled the buggy into the yard and jumped out of it. By then, Effie was creeping down the back steps. She was wrapped in a bedspread. Winnie was holding little Travis in her arms. Travis would be in good hands with Winnie. It was Albert that John worried about in their absence. He had a way of finding trouble. And poor Winnie could not be expected to take care of Travis and keep Albert out of trouble.

“Albert, you come on and help me with your Momma!” he hollered as he helped Effie into the buggy.

—–

Winnie went to collect the laundry that had accumulated over the past few days.  She pumped water into  a metal pan and then she poured lye soap into it. She put the washboard in and began to scrub the clothes.  She thought how proud her mother would be when she came home and found the laundry done. She had scrubbed clothes on a washboard before but never for this long. Her arms began to ache, and Travis was getting fussy.

She bent down and told him she would take care of him. But she could see that he didn’t really believe her. What would Momma do?

Winnie held Travis’s little hands in hers and tried to teach him Peas Porridge Hot, Peas Porridge Cold, Peas Porridge in the pot nine days old. She could tell he didn’t like the game. He kept looking about wondering where his mother was.

“Let’s sing,” Winnie said in desperation. “Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the way! Oh what fun it is to ride in a one horse open sleigh!”  Travis’s frown turned into an outright wail.

She took her baby brother out of the buggy and sat down with him in the rocking chair. He continued to snuffle and Winnie tried to hum softly to him. His little wet eyes closed and he began to nod off.

About dark, the buggy pulled up and John wearily helped Effie into the house.

“I hope you’ve got something cooked, Winnie Fay,” her father said. “We’re all starving!”

Winnie who had just then hung the clothes out on the line remembered supper and started crying. She couldn’t be counted on for anything! She hadn’t cooked anything but the corn pone! Tears ran down her face as she thought of how useless she was.

“Oh, honey, it’s okay,” John said in a soothing voice.”Everybody’s been through a lot today. I’ll go get some ham out of the smokehouse and we’ll have a grand supper!”

Winnie dried her tears and took her schoolbooks into the dining room. It was the only room with light after dark, and she did her homework after she ate.

______________________________

Karen Brode grew up in Denison, TX and graduated from Denison High School in 1972.  She took courses at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and worked in a church office for 25 years.  She and her husband, Gary, have been married 39 years and they have one son, Brandon.  Karen’s hobbies are writing, sewing, and gardening.

By Karen Brode

I watched as Winnie stood at her kitchen cabinet with a butcher knife in her hand. Beads of sweat were breaking out on her face and it was before noon. She had put the carton of ice milk on the cabinet. She felt very much like a martyr in giving up ice cream for ice milk, but it was the price she paid for being a heavy woman. She had to make efforts to reduce. She couldnt just eat what she wanted, at least not in front of people.

She had seen in a magazine article how pretty the neapolitan ice cream slices were when they were cut with a knife while still in the carton. She liked beautiful presentations of her food as well as the taste of it. She had bought some Neapolitan ice milk and wanted to slice it in two-inch blocks. In the magazine, the ice cream was arranged neatly on the plate. Everyone in the picture who sat around the table seemed to anticipate cutting into the striped ice cream. The woman serving the ice cream was smiling happily that she had been able to slice her ice cream perfectly.

Winnie sighed as the knife sawed unevenly through the ice milk carton.  Already, ice milk was beginning to melt and run onto the plate.

Pete came in from outside and said, “How do you expect to cut anything with that knife?  When was the last time you sharpened your knives?”

Winnie stared at Pete as if she couldn’t decide whether to be mad or grateful.

“Let me have it.”  Pete said, as he turned to get the whetstone.

Winnie wrapped the half-sliced ice milk carton in paper towels and put it in the freezer.  She and Pete had bought a freezer for the back porch because the freezer that came with their refrigerator only held a few ice cube trays and didn’t have room for much else. She liked her freezer because she could buy things when they were on sale at the grocery store, and not have to go shopping so often. She had beef wrapped in white freezer paper and chicken parts and hot dogs — all of it in her freezer.  Hidden underneath the meat were ice cream bars, ice cream, and some candy bars.

Winnie suddenly remembered the rolls in her toaster oven and she hurried to take them out. She had a potholder that was made into a glove. I thought it was a neat idea to make a potholder shaped like a glove, but it kept Winnie from using the potholders I had made for her.  When I asked her why she didn’t use my potholders, she said she wanted to keep them nice because they were so pretty.

The glove potholder was scorched in several places, and when Winnie took out the rolls she ran to the cabinet and plopped them into a waiting basket.  She saw that they were burned on the bottom, and she seemed very irritated as she put each roll into the basket. There wasn’t even one that wasn’t black on the bottom.

I had been sitting at the yellow formica kitchen table watching her. My chin was propped in my hands and my feet were swinging.

I couldn’t see anything that I could do and Winnie said, “Make yourself useful as well as ornamental.”

“What do you want me to do,” I asked.

“You can put ice in those glasses.”

Winnie had set out the dark gold glasses that she used for company. I went to the freezer to get the ice trays and Winnie said, “Go wash your hands first!”

When I started to wash my hands at the kitchen sink, Winnie said, “Go in the bathroom!”

She was trying to wash her dishes in the soapy water as they accumulated.  She had read in a magazine that this was the most efficient way to do dishes.

Winnie’s bathroom was very small. It had been tacked onto the back of her house as an after-thought.  The boards that formed the outside of the original house made up one wall of her bathroom.  The window that must’ve looked out of the kitchen into the backyard now looked into the bathroom, so the glass in the window had been painted yellow to create privacy.

I hooked the eye lock at the door, and began to wash my hands.  There was something creepy about Winnie’s bathroom, and I didn’t like to go in there.  You could barely squeeze between the wall and the shower.  I didn’t like showers anyway.  I liked a bathtub like I had at home.

After I washed my hands, I went to the towel rack and dried my hands on the nice towel that Winnie had hung that morning. Then, I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to use it, and I turned it around the other way so it would look as if I hadn’t used it.

The ice trays were aluminum with a lever that was supposed to loosen the ice cubes. It took a great deal of strength to make it work, but I could sometimes do it. I ran the ice tray under the water, and then banged it against the sink.  I pulled the lever up, and after I removed the divider, the ice cubes were left in the tray.  I put two ice cubes in each glass.

“You have to put more ice that that,” said Winnie. “The tea is going to be boiling hot! It’ll melt those ice cubes right away.”

On her table was cornbread, rolls that were black on the bottom, sliced tomatoes, green beans, smothered steak, fried potatoes, green onions from the garden, and fried okra. She stared at it all in a critical way, trying to think if she had left something out.

I had been watching her cook all morning, and I was so hungry. Looking at the food made it harder to wait. Where were those people?  Winnie had invited some people from church to come and have lunch with us but they were late.

Pete had come in out of the yard, and had already taken a shower and was dressed in a clean brown jumpsuit. I knew that Pete would be tired after lunch and probably take a nap or work on his crossword puzzles. Winnie would be exhausted after she had gone to this much trouble. She would lie on the couch and snore. The food would be left out on the kitchen table and be covered with a tablecloth so the flies could not get to it.

______________________________

Karen Brode grew up in Denison, TX and graduated from Denison High School in 1972.  She took courses at Southeastern Oklahoma State University and worked in a church office for 25 years.  She and her husband, Gary, have been married 39 years and they have one son, Brandon.  Karen’s hobbies are writing, sewing, and gardening.