27'x 12'

                                      Rose looks smashing in her wiry "do" and feathers, giant        

                                                       earrings, and simulated mike.
 

  ROSE BUD DEVINE

         Her mother named her because of her beauty.  “She’s just like a rose bud,” she said when she first saw her.  “Rosy red cheeks, smooth skin as creamy and brown as chocolate milk, coal black hair to set off the fairness.”  Rose Bud screamed from the top of her lungs and clutched her mother’s hair with a strength that belied her frail looks.  “Ooh, she’s thorny too, this kid’s got spunk,” her mother muttered as she tried to untangle the fingers that held such a tight grip.  “I’m going to have a time taming this child.”

     If she could have peered into a looking glass, it would have foretold her future.  She was just like the rhyme her mother learned as a child.  "There was a little girl that had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead.  When she was good she was very good, but when she was bad she was horrid."

     Rose Bud was a bully and a tomboy.  She constantly instigated trouble and if caught would turn on that charm, brush back that coal black curl, and with the most innocent eyes, melt her confronter and then magically walk away as if innocent.  It took several years before her mother realized what her darling girl was up to, all to no avail.

     Music and art are her salvation.   Rose Bud can now play most any instrument placed in front of her. She has perfect pitch.  “She sings jazz better than Ella Fitzgerald,” some say.   Rumor has it that as a child of three she came home from church one Sunday morning, sat down and played the piano and sang the hymns with all the vibrato and gusto of a rhythm and blues singer. A star was born. As a kindergarten student she drew a beautiful, realistic portrait of her teacher using her 64 box of crayons. Not surprisingly she graduated from high school three years ahead of her class.

      Rose Bud’s nickname is “Thorny”, a name well deserved.  She has sung for several jazz greats throughout the years, never holding a job for any length of time because of her caustic personality.  She has never married but has been engaged eight times.

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