My parents sharecropped for many years and owned a corner grocery store where my father bootlegged alcohol for a living. As a child, my brothers would plow many acres of land. They would start at sunup and work until sundown. Most of the time, after plowing the land, they would have to plant the crops. Back then, the crops consisted mostly of cotton. Us girls had to help chop and pick cotton and strawberries. Every year we were kept out of school to work in the fields until all the crops were gathered, and then we would go off to school wearing hand-me-downs. Momma had that look of helplessness again every year when we would hear the owner say to my father either, "You are in the red," or "We just broke even." One thing was for sure: we always had a really good Christmas dinner. We would have a big, fat homegrown roasting hen with cornbread stuffing, homegrown collard greens, okra, and homemade pies. One of Momma's favorites was the lemon pie. We really didn't know we were poor because we never went hungry. In my teens, I was attacked by a young man and feared for my life. After that attack, I started looking for love and acceptance in all the wrong places. These experiences left me Bent but Not Broken. God kept me. 2

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