Chapter One

Dear Friends,

"As good as God has been to me I can't afford not to give Him praise."  Today on the blog I am going to share a short story that I wrote some time ago. I am releasing it today because today is a day of new beginnings.  The name of the story is Chapter One.  With God there is always room for new beginnings. Although the story is fiction. It is biographical fiction. It makes my soul look back in wonder how I got over. I know the answer: It was by the grace of God!

                                  Chapter One – The Other House

                                   - by Stephanie D. K. Tyus @2016

My grandmother had a way of keeping up with time at her house. You always knew what to expect depending on whether it was the first, second, third or fourth Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday of the month.  Saturdays and Sundays were regular.  You got ready for church on Saturday regardless of which one it was. On Sunday you went to church.  Period.

Back to the other days. Let’s look at Tuesdays. My grandmother did hair.  She got her license in Alabama.  But she only did hair on the first Tuesday of the month and the fourth Thursday.  You have to have an appointment. Your hair had to be washed before you got there and you had to pay before she set the hot combs to your hair. She started at 7:30 and took her last appointment at 11:30 so she could get lunch ready for my great and great-great grandmother and tend to other things around the house. 

On the second Tuesday of the month Bopreacher came to the house.  I was terrified of this man. He was short and bald. His skin was ashy. I always thought someone should tell him to put Vaseline on his face.   Bopreacher carried a black satchel. I don’t know everything he carried. However, he always seemed to have a lunch, a Bible and a jar of preserves.  He always had oil with him too. 

Bopreacher visited houses where there was a member of the household that did not attend church. The family had to request him to come in and have special prayer and give him an offering.  My grandmother requested the visits for her Cousin Sugar. This went on for several years. Bopreacher tried though. He preached the Bible, he hollered prayers he sprinkled oil but Cousin Sugar told him that you are saved by your own beliefs.

Third Tuesday was shopping day. Grama went to the market and did her shopping for the month. Sometimes she would need a few things in between like milk and bread. But for the most part what she bought on the third Tuesday lasted until next third Tuesday.

 Grama knew how to make things stretch and last.  If something happened and she got in a tight family would help out because everyone knew Third Tuesday was shopping day that was just the way it was, It was marked on the calendar.  No need to wonder about it.

Fourth Tuesday the insurance man came to pick up the premium and the doctor came to the house to check vitals for my great-great grandmother.  Mainly he was checking her blood pressure.  He would check my grandmother and great grandmother’s too.  Like clockwork on the fourth Tuesday.  The insurance man always came after ten and before Noon. The doctor came at 1:00.

I thank God for Chapter One.

God bless!

in Christ,

Sis. Stephanie