I have a little friend we call Newfie – she has a room here in the Roadhouse, well more like a space on the old Chickenpox Sofa.

I’m going to have to digress, aren’t I? Can’t just leave Chickenpox Sofa hanging in the air . . . The CS is an early 1950’s vintage blue nubbed couch that I lay on when I had the chickenpox in 1953 – at Christmastime. I remember the doctor gave me huge cubic pills that were gray – you had to chew them. One morning, I couldn’t stand the thought of it and put it under the saucer. I don’t know what I was thinking and my mother found it, but I didn’t have to take it. I took the rest, however, because I think I surmised that this maneuver would work only once without consequences.

Anyway, the family never got rid of this sofa. And maybe twelve years ago when we came back here to be close to my parents – I’m an only child – my mother said I could take it if no one saw it. Fine with me. I have it upstairs with a comfy comforter over it.

So that’s where Newfie has her bunk when she’s here.

Newfie is a Raggedy Ann type of d__l. Technically, she is from the Noo branch of the family, the Woos being from China, the Foos sweet and a little funloving, the Spoofs are beach girls who use Val Speak, the Spiffies have good heads on their shoulders and are quiet and demure. The list could go on.

Noo has always been a pleasant little thing, but sometimes it seems she is a little quirky, like a clock that keeps its own time. Sort of like the Newfoundland Time Zone that is 30 minutes “off” – that is, right smack in the middle of Atlantic Time and Eastern Time.

That is how we realized that we had misunderstood: she was not a Noofie, but a Newfie. Actually, I have a friend who lived a great deal of her life in Canada and she used to smile and say the folks in Quebec and Ontario referred the the Newfoundland folks as “Newfies” and her smile turned rather impish.

But to get to this morning’s occurrence, driving back form taking my daughter-in-law to work, I spied a cute little copperish-orange mini SUV (or would that be suv) in front of me and the license plate said “NEWFIE 6”. As we came to an intersection, the NEWFIE vehicle number 6 went on through the yellow light and left me sitting at the red. I guess she was on to me.

So, maybe Newfie is not what she seems; maybe she travels in a big fancy RV licensed “NEWFIE 1” and the little cars run around doing her errands – like getting early morning doughnuts. And just because I saw “6” doesn’t mean there are only that many in the fleet . . . She could have an empire.

Gosh, maybe Newfie is from Manitoba . . . Nah, not our little Newf.