6
CityLight.org
march 2012
W
hen I was a little girl, climb-
ing trees was one of my favorite
things to do, because it made me feel
closer to God. Perched on a limb at
the top of a tree, I would talk to God
and listen to see if He would talk back
to me. One day while I was perched
on a tree limb, I heard a male voice
calling, "Gladys, where are you?" "Is
that God?" I thought. It wasn't, of
How I Met Joe
Gladys Grimaud
Continued on page 22
"When I was a little girl, climbing trees was one of my favorite
things to do, because it made me feel closer to God. "
farmhouse sitting high up on pillars.
The levee on the Savannah River was
not far away, but the house was built
before the levee existed so the pillars
protected the house from flooding.
I had already noticed Joe's winsome
grin. He came meandering into our
yard one day with my cousin Freddy,
who wanted to see Dad's Harley mo-
torcycle. After a short visit, Freddy
decided to go back home and took
the shortcut on the path that went
through Mr. L. T. Anderson's land. Joe
later told me that his dad had a nick-
name for Mr. Anderson, as he did for
most everyone, and referred to him as
L.T."Little Tight" Anderson. It was a
good nickname for him, because Mr.
Anderson, our landlord, was very tight
with his money.
When I started down the path to
catch up with Freddy, I momentarily
turned my head to call my reddish-
brown Cocker Spaniel with the fa-
miliar phrase she responded to, "Bye,
Peaches" stretching out ...Bye e e...
to encourage her to hurry. That's when
course, and realized that it was the
good-looking son of a Christian fam-
ily who lived right across the road. Ex-
cited, I answered, "Up here, Joe. Look.
Me Tarzan." Quick witted, he grinned
and said, "Me sure not Jane."
I met Joe when Dad, a construction
worker, moved us from Chattanooga,
Tennessee, to live in Augusta, Georgia,
where he had taken a job as a welder
at the Savannah River Bomb Plant.
My Uncle Tip and Aunt Ruby, who
had moved there earlier for the same
reason, lived on Japonica Road, around
the corner from where we lived on Oak
Road, right off Sand Bar Ferry Road.
The Grimaud family lived right across
the dirt road from us in a two-story