The Traveling Corpse (34 page)

“I've got to face BradLee sometime. Today
feels like a good day.”

He looked at the clock and answered, “I'll
call the B's and tell them we're coming—ask them to save us two
seats. I think we can get there by nine o'clock. Come on, let's
hurry and dress. This time I'll carry our coffee mugs.”

 

* * *

 

Nelly was standing on the stage behind the
podium ready to ask the BradLee members to stand for the morning
prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance when she saw Art and Annie open
the double doors of Old Main. She immediately changed her plans and
called out, “Ladies and gentlemen, before the blessing for our
food, we have another blessing. Please turn to the entrance. We
need to greet Art and Annie Andersen.” She motioned to them,
“Please come to the stage. We all want to tell you how thankful we
are that you are safe, Annie. And we want to thank you for solving
a mystery that most of us didn't even know was happening. What do
you call it? The Mystery of The Traveling Corpse?

The audience stood and clapped and clapped as
the Andersens made their way to the stage. With her good arm, Annie
reached for the microphone and took it from the Activities
Chairperson. “Thank you, Nelly, but Art and I certainly did
not
solve that mystery by ourselves. There were four couples
of us that all contributed pieces of the puzzle. Will the
Bradkowski's, Davis's, and Vigeaux's all join Art and me?”

The clapping and whistling continued until
the eight seniors were lined up on the stage. Nelly asked them to
remain there through the blessing and the Pledge of Allegiance.

When they finally filed off the stage, Barb
whispered to Annie, “We saved you seats.” She began walking to the
back of the room.

Annie stopped, “Oh, no! Are you sitting at
the table by the closet—the table that's right in front of the
Bingo closet? Where I …”

“I'm afraid so. That's where we always sit,
isn't it?'

Annie hung back until her friend said, “Don't
worry; you don't have to look at it. Look,” she pointed to Brad,
who was pulling out a chair. “You can sit with your back to the
closet. Then you can just look out and see all the warm and
wonderful friends you have here in BradLee Park. They're all happy
for you because you are safe, and they are all so glad that you got
us to help you solve ‘Our Mystery'—now officially known as: The
Traveling Corpse!”

 

 

 

Betsy Jones Hayba was first recognized as a
writer as an undergraduate at The College of Wooster in Ohio. Her
original play
The Lost Forty-Niner
was
chosen in 1949 as the winning pageant and was performed as an
out-door drama to honor the crowning of the May Queen. She
graduated that spring with Honors.

Her second time in print was a disaster. In
1985, on the 60
^th
anniversary of the famous Scopes
Evolution Trial, she interviewed a man who was one of the children
who testified in the trial. She sold it to a Memphis newspaper for
a Sunday magazine. However, somehow the editor’s notes were printed
instead of her polished article.

Her third and fourth attempts were much more
successful. She began writing her own stories and has published two
children’s bedtime stories, winning contests with Half-Priced Books
in 1995 and 1996 in their program to benefit literacy projects.

She met her husband, Frank P. Hayba, at a
Sunday School class for young adults at Lakewood Presbyterian
Church in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. He was a mechanical engineer
and she an English teacher. They have been married for 62 years and
have three grown children and nine living grandchildren—half of
them are adopted,one from as far away as Ethiopia—and all are
loved.

As an empty-nester, she earned a Master of
Arts degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and also
an A.B. in Art from Cleveland [Tennessee] State Community College.
At Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio, as an adjunct
instructor, she taught graduate level courses in Storytelling, an
art form that is very special to her. She has studied piano and
voice and is an accomplished soprano soloist. She laughs and says,
“I have to sing; I’m all Welsh!”

She and Frank founded TERRIFYING TALES &
TALES & TALES in Dayton, Ohio. They produced and directed that
annual storytelling event for nine years until her husband retired,
and they moved to Florida. Betsy became involved with Little
Theatre. She began writing and directing one-act plays for Betmar,
their retirement park in Zephyrhills, Florida.

After moving to Independent Living at Freedom
Pointe in The Villages in 2011, she attended the Florida Writer’s
Conference in Orlando, and made contact with a representative of
Double Edge Press, a Christian publishing company. Owner Rebecca
Melvin offered Betsy a contract for THE TRAVELING CORPSE, a murder
mystery romp through a retirement park with four senior citizen
couples.

Betsy says, “Advice frequently given to
writers: Write about what you know. I don’t have any first-hand
experience with murder, but I do know a lot about being old!”