Hi Chris,
Thank you so much for your response.
I think that did work for me, before I installed the “advanced tinymce” plugin. I know at one time using the html version worked as you said. I don’t remember now for sure. I just deleted that plugin and still does not work in html mode. I am wondering if there was something left behind.
I also found this link https://www.leighton.com/blog/stop-tinymce-in-wordpress-3-x-messing-up-your-html-code and tried adding it to my functions file but that didn’t work either.
Anyhow that is where I am at this point and will post here again if I figure it out.