{"id":584,"date":"2013-05-19T19:32:23","date_gmt":"2013-05-19T23:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/inkprov.com\/blog\/?p=584"},"modified":"2013-05-19T19:32:23","modified_gmt":"2013-05-19T23:32:23","slug":"who-is-flossie-joseph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/inkprov.com\/blog\/who-is-flossie-joseph\/","title":{"rendered":"“Who is Flossie Joseph?”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CoverX300_TwentyYearsInTheCaribbean_CaribbeanIslandStories\"<\/a>Margie had gone up to the States on business and to visit relatives and taken all but one of our children; Daniel.<\/p>\n

Daniel was eight and I remembered when I was about that age being left with my Father while Mother went up to Sebring (Florida)to visit relatives. Dad made sure that I had a good time and I was determined, as he must have been, that having to stay behind was not to be thought of as a slight.<\/p>\n

I took Daniel with me wherever I went. The hotel was empty as it sometimes was in off-season, and we spent considerable time at the Dominica Club.<\/p>\n

Bill Bunting was Gus Smith’s brother-in-law and had settled in Dominica long after Gus, but long before we came. Some thought he had a bit of a bad-boy or D.O.M. reputation but I considered that unjustified. He did seem to know all of the back alleys in the small capital and almost every Dominican who owned a vehicle because Bill ran one of the local gas stations.<\/p>\n

Bill and I were at the Club swapping obligations to buy rounds with the hard core drinking members and Daniel was out in the yard playing with some other children.<\/p>\n

“Why don’t you come with me to have some dinner at Flossie Joseph’s?” Bill asked when we both were getting up to go. The Club usually closed a little after eight. “Marjorie is up in the States for a fortnight, isn’t she?”<\/p>\n

“Yeah, Bill. I was going to suggest going over to Ft. Young Hotel for dinner. Who the hell is Flossie Joseph?”<\/p>\n

“Hell’s Bell’s, Pete, loosen up. I can’t believe you haven’t met Flossie.”<\/p>\n

Daniel and I followed Bill’s Landrover in our Mini Moke. He went a few blocks into the center of town and then turned into an alley behind the Carib Cinema and parked in a spot half way down the dark lane. The wall of the Cinema smelled from the movie patrons’ propensity to make sure, before the show’s start.<\/p>\n

“This it?” I asked, a little disappointed.<\/p>\n

“In here,” he replied as he pushed open a door from which a flood of light immediately showed.<\/p>\n

Inside was a brightly-lit series of medium sized rooms filled with dining tables. More than half of the tables were occupied by patrons. It was quite pleasant though obviously not a place that tourists would discover.<\/p>\n

We found an empty table and Flossie immediately came over to us from another room.<\/p>\n

“Hi, Bill,” she greeted, “and, Mr. Brand. Nice to have you visit my place. Is this your son?”<\/p>\n

We exchanged pleasantries with this nice woman, who, it turned out, was one of the towns leading merchants in addition to being a restaurateur. We had a good meal of local favorites at an unbelievably low price and went home before nine.<\/p>\n

Daniel and I went there for dinner several times in the next two weeks and when Margie came back and asked him if he had a good time staying with Daddy, he gave a glowing affirmative report.<\/p>\n

“And, Mommie, we went all the time to Flossie Joseph’s at night. She is a nice lady. Mr. Bunting brought us there.”<\/p>\n

Margie looked askance at me. “Who is Flossie Joseph?”<\/p>\n

It suddenly dawned on me that Bill Bunting’s bad-boy reputation was combining with Flossie’s mysterious risqu\u00e9 sounding name to cause Margie’s eyebrows to rise. I suspected that something like Rhett Butler\u2019s friend, Belle Watling, in \u2018Gone With The Wind\u2019 was being thought of in conjunction with the name Flossie Joseph.<\/p>\n

I tried looking histrionically guilty but she knew me too well. The next day, however, we all went to dinner at Flossie’s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Margie had gone up to the States on business and to visit relatives and taken all but one of our children; Daniel. Daniel was eight and I remembered when I was about that age being left with my Father while … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/inkprov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/inkprov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/inkprov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inkprov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inkprov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/inkprov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":656,"href":"http:\/\/inkprov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584\/revisions\/656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/inkprov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inkprov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/inkprov.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}