A Bashful Barefoot Beau and the Girl in Calico I was your girl in calico. You were my bashful barefoot beau...
by D. Grant DeMan
I wrote on your slate, “I love you Joe.”
When we were a couple of kids.
The place: Royston, Vancouver Island; the time: evening, February 14th, 1986. At first I had no intention of eavesdropping on my folks. But while sitting reading the Victoria Times-Colonist in the next room, it was difficult not to overhear their tender memories. I grew curiouser and curiouser.
“It was at the Saint Valentine Cotillion I guess I first noticed you Joe. I mean, in that special way. Remember how we danced?”
Joe & Pearl
painting by D. Grant DeMan“I reckon so, Pearl. That’d be in 1916, right?” Daddy knew Momma had more of a mind for dates of the heart. “Was I driving that new Chevy touring car?” he added.
“Some kind of flivver. Oh how envious I was of all those girls you drove through town, and also the gals you danced with too.” Pearl snuggled up to her husband a little closer now. Normally these days they slept in separate beds, but Valentine’s Day being special, they shared one together. “It’s the last thing in a man to die, you know,” she often remarked to close friends.
“All I know about is the time I was waiting for the Post Office to open when you came rushing up and knocked me down, so anxious were you to get the door unlocked on time. My brother I.W. said, ‘Who was that woman, Joe?’ and I answered him while dusting myself off, ‘Well now sir, that’s Pearl Crozier, the woman I’m going to marry.’”
“Is that true Joe? In these seventy years, you never told me that, you know. You fell in love with me right then and there?”
“You betcha, Momma. Right then and there I decided that you was gonna be mine if you’d only take a shine to me.”
“But there still were all those other girls? Hattie and Thelma and...”
“I was shy of you, I reckon. Just showin’ off. We was Catholic and your folks were heretics.”
“Protestant.”
“Whatever. You know how it looked. But I loved you, so we broke all the rules, didn’t we? Anyways you never lacked for company. Remember Graham and Ledman, and those other wranglers?”
“Just friends, Joe. You know that now.”
“Sure thing, but then thing’s was mighty different. I got so jealous that I tossed and turned all night, and finally asked you out to a picnic, and I even bid more for your basket than I could afford so’s I could have you all to myself.”
“I was pleased as punch, the envy of everyone, Joe. I’ve loved you ever since.”
“We eloped to Calgary and I got an episood of apendix-itus and...”
“They said you were hot stuff with a fever of a hundred and five. Your brother Frank was obliged to hold you upright for the ‘I do’s’ and then rushed you to the hospital in the nick of time. I spent our honeymoon in the Palacer Hotel room, visiting you every day.”
“Yep. We had to postpone that trip, didn’t we? And we stuck together through all the hard times, and I gotta thank you for that, Pearl; two beautiful kids and several good grandkids too. Seventy years and I love you the same.”
“I love you too, Daddy. Now let’s get some sleep.”
“I will sure enough, Pearl. Just sing me the little song one more time.”
For the millionth time Pearl serenaded her Joe as they drifted off, lovers forever. “I wrote on your slate ‘I love you Joe,’ when we were a couple of kids....”
'Vox Populi', get started! Send in your comments and critique on 