He traded his wife for a car
Out here in evergreen and farm country, near Spencerville, Ontario, long before Hwy 416 turned a local fixer upper into a cash cow listed with Re/Max, life moved a little slower —like a tractor pulling a manure spreader, and about as glamorous.
This story goes back almost 50 years and I am telling you back then you couldn’t keep a secret if it was glued to your inside pocket. This is about the guy who traded his wife for a car. Local reeve Dave Dobbie confirmed it.
Earl was a local farmer with a sunburned neck and a practical streak wider than his soybean fields. But Earl had a problem: His wife, Darlene, was fooling around with some slick-haired yahoo from town who went by the name Cotton-eye Joe. Cotton-eye had a mustache that said “I sell used furniture” and he couldn’t help but swagger when he walked to his boat-sized 1973 dark green Chevy Impala.
Earl, being a man of action and not much for poetry, mustered up a plan. He marched into town, and found Cotton-eye smoking a Marlboro and sweet-talking Darlene behind the feed store, and said, “Tell you what, Joe. You keep her. I’ll take the car.”
A straight-forward proposal. All cards on the table.
Cotton-eye was not exactly a Rhodes Scholar. He blinked twice, scratched his moustache, gave a quick side-eye to Darlene, hummed and hawed, and said, “Deal.”
Darlene’s emotions ping-ponged between joy and fury. In the end she settled for a shrug like she’d just been traded from the Maple Leafs to the Vancouver Canucks (back when they were basement dwellers) — mildly annoyed but not shocked. And just like that, Earl was driving home in the Chevy, windows down, radio blasting April Wine’s “You Could Have Been a Lady.”
Within the hour, Darlene was unpacking her curlers at Cotton-eye Joe’s fixer upper. True story. Happened years ago. Probably as good a trade as when the Leafs swapped a bag of pucks for Motor City Smitty.
Now, Earl was no dummy. He knew the Chevy’s advantages over Darlene. For one, the car didn’t talk back. Darlene had a mouth that could strip paint off a barn — always yammering about the neighbour’s dog, the price of gas, or how Earl’s tractor sounds “judgy.” The Chevy? Silent as a monk, unless you counted the sweet rumble of that 350-cubic-inch engine. Maintenance was easier too. The Impala needed oil every 3,000 miles; Darlene needed compliments every 30 minutes or she’d be sulking in the kitchen, banging pots like she was Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones. As for mileage: The Chevy got 12 miles per gallon, which beats Darlene’s record of stomping 12 feet to the porch before yelling, “You never listen to me!”
That’s when the arguments would start.
“I listen to you.”
“No, you never listen to me.”
“I listened to you the other day.”
“The other day? What did I say the other day?”
“I don’t know, it was the other day.”
But — plot twist — Darlene had perks. Earl started to notice come fall, when the corn and soybeans were begging to be harvested. Darlene was always a fiend for driving the combine. She’d climb into that beast like Clint Eastwood mounting a horse, grinning ear-to-ear, chomping on a stogie and tearing through the fields with such precision that I now wonder if she had the world’s first GPS.
Earl? He’s more of a “hope the corn falls into the hopper” kind of guy.
Plus, she’s a crack shot with a rifle. Deer season rolls around, and Darlene’s out there popping bucks like she’s auditioning for a western. That’s free venison in the freezer — way better than the Chevy’s contribution of burning premium gas.
Still, Earl missed her most when he was elbow-deep in a carburetor and she was not there to fix it — or when he was eating store-bought jerky instead of her smoked deer haunch. But then he would crank the Impala, feel that V8 growl, and remember peace and quiet beats motor mouth any day. Well, most days.
Then lo and behold, I actually ran into the infamous Earl at the Spencercity Bar & Grill about a year ago and he confessed that years earlier Cotton-eye almost offered him a snowmobile to take Darlene back.
“What changed his mind?” I asked.
“We were talkin’ on the phone and Darlene walked into their TV room with a plate of home-made beef jerky.”
“That was it?”
Yup, I sure miss ’er?”
“Darlene?”
“The beef jerky.”
Theodore “Tad” Peckish is an Ontario farmer writing under a pseudonym in order to “to avoid getting myself and anyone else into trouble.”
TAD PECKISH: He traded his wife for a car
He traded his wife for a car
Out here in evergreen and farm country, near Spencerville, Ontario, long before Hwy 416 turned a local fixer upper into a cash cow listed with Re/Max, life moved a little slower —like a tractor pulling a manure spreader, and about as glamorous.
This story goes back almost 50 years and I am telling you back then you couldn’t keep a secret if it was glued to your inside pocket. This is about the guy who traded his wife for a car. Local reeve Dave Dobbie confirmed it.
Earl, being a man of action and not much for poetry, mustered up a plan. He marched into town, and found Cotton-eye smoking a Marlboro and sweet-talking Darlene behind the feed store, and said, “Tell you what, Joe. You keep her. I’ll take the car.”
A straight-forward proposal. All cards on the table.
Cotton-eye was not exactly a Rhodes Scholar. He blinked twice, scratched his moustache, gave a quick side-eye to Darlene, hummed and hawed, and said, “Deal.”
Darlene’s emotions ping-ponged between joy and fury. In the end she settled for a shrug like she’d just been traded from the Maple Leafs to the Vancouver Canucks (back when they were basement dwellers) — mildly annoyed but not shocked. And just like that, Earl was driving home in the Chevy, windows down, radio blasting April Wine’s “You Could Have Been a Lady.”
Within the hour, Darlene was unpacking her curlers at Cotton-eye Joe’s fixer upper. True story. Happened years ago. Probably as good a trade as when the Leafs swapped a bag of pucks for Motor City Smitty.
Now, Earl was no dummy. He knew the Chevy’s advantages over Darlene. For one, the car didn’t talk back. Darlene had a mouth that could strip paint off a barn — always yammering about the neighbour’s dog, the price of gas, or how Earl’s tractor sounds “judgy.” The Chevy? Silent as a monk, unless you counted the sweet rumble of that 350-cubic-inch engine. Maintenance was easier too. The Impala needed oil every 3,000 miles; Darlene needed compliments every 30 minutes or she’d be sulking in the kitchen, banging pots like she was Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones. As for mileage: The Chevy got 12 miles per gallon, which beats Darlene’s record of stomping 12 feet to the porch before yelling, “You never listen to me!”
That’s when the arguments would start.
“I listen to you.”
“No, you never listen to me.”
“I listened to you the other day.”
“The other day? What did I say the other day?”
“I don’t know, it was the other day.”
But — plot twist — Darlene had perks. Earl started to notice come fall, when the corn and soybeans were begging to be harvested. Darlene was always a fiend for driving the combine. She’d climb into that beast like Clint Eastwood mounting a horse, grinning ear-to-ear, chomping on a stogie and tearing through the fields with such precision that I now wonder if she had the world’s first GPS.
Earl? He’s more of a “hope the corn falls into the hopper” kind of guy.
Plus, she’s a crack shot with a rifle. Deer season rolls around, and Darlene’s out there popping bucks like she’s auditioning for a western. That’s free venison in the freezer — way better than the Chevy’s contribution of burning premium gas.
Still, Earl missed her most when he was elbow-deep in a carburetor and she was not there to fix it — or when he was eating store-bought jerky instead of her smoked deer haunch. But then he would crank the Impala, feel that V8 growl, and remember peace and quiet beats motor mouth any day. Well, most days.
Then lo and behold, I actually ran into the infamous Earl at the Spencercity Bar & Grill about a year ago and he confessed that years earlier Cotton-eye almost offered him a snowmobile to take Darlene back.
“What changed his mind?” I asked.
“We were talkin’ on the phone and Darlene walked into their TV room with a plate of home-made beef jerky.”
“That was it?”
Yup, I sure miss ’er?”
“Darlene?”
“The beef jerky.”
Theodore “Tad” Peckish is an Ontario farmer writing under a pseudonym in order to “to avoid getting myself and anyone else into trouble.”