22 CityLight.org
march 2012
I saw Joe following Peaches and me about
10 feet behind us, his wavy brown hair
flopping up and down on his forehead into
his dreamy green eyes as he slowly plod-
ded along with that grin on his face. Joe
found his way into our yard almost every-
day after that. Following Peaches and me
as I skipped down the path, Joe lingered
about 10 feet behind. This became a fa-
miliar sight on Oak and Japonica Road.
So familiar that Mr. Grimaud teased, "Joe,
why are you spend-
ing so much time
across the road? Is
it because of that
pretty little brown
haired girl with the
pony tail who wears
the red shorts?" That
was the beginning of
the relationship with
the love of my life.
Because Mother
knew about my
little trysts with
God in the trees,
she prompted Joe
to invite me to go
to church with his family. We didn't
call it a date, because I was only twelve
years old, but I loved going to church
with the Grimaud family, and because
of that, they fell in love with me. A
year or so later, Joe decided to join the
United States Air Force. After com-
pletion of his nine-week basic train-
ing in San Antonio, Texas, he came
home for a brief visit all decked out in
a blue uniform with shiny buttons. He
looked quite different from the farm
boy on the tractor I had been used to
seeing...much more mature and hand-
some. Eventually, Joe's start in the Air
Force landed him at Russian Lan-
guage School in Monterey, California.
Nonetheless, our romance blossomed.
He was a long way from home and
the only way we had to communicate
was via mail (we wrote everyday) and
once a month on the phone for three
minutes (that's all the time Joe could
afford). By this time, Dad's job at the
Savannah River Bomb Plant had run
out and his new job had taken us to
Houston, Texas. After six months in
Monterey, Joe graduated from Russian
Language School with an assignment
to Turkey to monitor Russian radio for
intelligence purposes. This was dur-
ing the cold war
era when the space
race had just be-
gun. Russia had
actually beaten us
into space with
the first satellite,
the sputnik. When
he bought his
bus ticket home,
conveniently, the
Greyhound Bus
ran right through
Houston on the
way from Califor-
nia to Georgia. Joe
got off the bus in
Houston to visit
me. It was Christmas, and on Christ-
mas Eve, Joe put an engagement ring
on my finger at Aunt Faye and Uncle
Charlie's house, where all the family
had gathered to exchange Christmas
gifts. Dad cocked his head and squint-
ed his eyes at Joe, gruffly murmuring,
"Where did you get that thing? Out
of a Cracker Jack box?'
I was fourteen and Joe was eighteen,
but we decided that we were not too
young to get married. It's a wonder
that Dad did not run Joe off on that
Christmas Eve. Uncle Charlie became
the catalyst for our elopement later,
How I Met Joe
by Gladys Grimaud
Continued from pg 6