Let me call you Sweet Pea

After Father died I found a very small notebook among his papers. Father had a list of travel dates from the years he was in the army (1940-61). I learned that he was in Casablanca in 1942 (I looked it up, American-British landing 11/8/42). A number of entries after 1948 contained reference to Sweet Pea. “Sweet Pea and the boys boat Germany to NY; Sweet Pea and boys driving to Manhattan (KS)” and the like. It appears Father called Mother Sweet Pea. How sweet, never heard him say that to her and did not know that until the 1990’s when Mom mentioned it.

Lessons learned;
1. Tell your stories to your children. It would have been interesting to have learned the above before Father died.
2. He changed from referring to Mother as Sweet Pea to Ma after he got back from the Korean War. What happened?
3. He was ahead of his time, almost 20 years before Tommy Roe had the hit song called Sweet Pea.

I finally got to whisper sweet words in her ear
Convinced her that we oughta get away from there
We took a little walk
I held her close to me
And underneath the stars I said to Sweet Pea

Oh, Sweet Pea I love you can’t you see
Love you, love you, love you can’t you see
Oh, Sweet Pea
Won’t you be my girl
Won’t you, won’t you, won’t you be my girl

http://youtu.be/JCKXxJRgVgc Tommy Roe 1966