The Yellow Rose of Crawford would love to see another VIP in its store — but remember, Canadian money not accepted.

And all of Crawford is prepared to give a hearty Texas hello to the Canadian leader when he gets here on Wednesday.

Whatever his name is.

"You know, the prime minister of Australia autographed a baseball for my 10-year-old when he was here," says Red Bull manager Jamie Burgess.

"So, if your president comes in, I'll get him to autograph a baseball for my son."

This is the Western White House, home to 705 proud Republicans — although the locals swear the town has topped the 800 mark now — and hallowed ground for Bush pilgrims who come from all over the country.

It's a town that has no grocery store but an endless selection of Bush kitsch, ranging from First Twins bookmarks and George and Laura Christmas ornaments to life-size cutouts of the First Neighbour.

It's the town the 43rd president of the United States put on the map. Except, of course, it is so tiny it is still not on the map.

And if you miss the turn off Highway 6 east of town, you'll never find it.

Yet, it is here that Martin enters the inner Bush circle this week, lunching at the Crawford ranch with the U.S. president and Mexican President Vicente Fox, accepting an invitation never offered to Jean Chrιtien and an invitation formerly seen in Ottawa as being so toxic that it was believed to be a badge of honour that it never arrived.

Until now. Martin has his own Sagebrush Summit.

The Prime Minister will spend exactly two hours and 10 minutes here, choppering in from nearby Waco after the three men meet at Baylor University.

Bush, not a man to linger over lunch, has budgeted 60 minutes for eating and the rest of the time for "touring."

Martin joins a club that has opened its doors to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, whose motorcade sped through Crawford's only flashing traffic signal.

Last American Thanksgiving, royalty came calling with the visit of King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia of Spain.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a.k.a. "Japan's Texan," sat by the pool with Bush late one night singing Elvis Presley songs to America's commander-in-chief.

Martin got here before French President Jacques Chirac, showing Bush's fence-mending would only go so far.

When Bush was asked at last month's NATO summit in Brussels whether Chirac would come to Crawford, the president replied, "I'm looking for a good cowboy."

But so far, no invitation.

After being told the name of the Canadian prime minister and dutifully scrawling it on the back of a reporter's business card, Yellow Rose manager Lisa McCall said she'd love to see Martin drop by the store. But the most important thing to her is that Bush is coming home for Easter.

"President Bush is one of us," she said. "He's a one-of-a-kind president.

"He's a cowboy. We know who we are. We're rednecks. Everybody here is a cowboy.

"When he comes home, he works his ranch. Do you ever see city slickers doing that?"

If Martin wanted to break in his Stetson and stay a while, she said, he could chop some wood or do some other honest work. Then, he could drive to Waco for some dancing on Saturday night, maybe a little two-step or three-step.

"You ask Shania Twain," McCall said. "She'll explain it to you."

This is a town proud of its values and its Crawford Pirates, the state high school football champs in Class 2A Division II.

"Everybody here, from babies on up, wears black and gold for the Pirates," says Fran Shelton at the Coffee Station, where Bush and the First Lady drop in for lunch from time to time.

Mason Welty, who monitors the gas pumps out front, has also cooked for Bush and knows well his preference for "mustard all the way" — Texas talk for "the works."

"The first time, I was a little nervous about it," Welty confesses. "I was thinking, `Holy crap, I'm cooking for the president, I sure hope I don't screw up.'"

He didn't and now he's flipped Bush's burger three or four times.

Dorothy Spanos, who runs the restaurant with husband Nick — and was one of only two Crawford residents to correctly name Martin — says the town has been exposed to all walks of life in the 21 years she has been here, but it hasn't changed.

"We're just happy to have people come in here, whether they're famous or not," she says.

"There's nothing here but friendly people."

Everyone here knows Canada didn't join Bush's war in Iraq, even if they don't know Martin's name.

But they are remarkably gracious about it, reacting with shrugs and bows to the beauty of free speech and the liberty to make independent decisions.

But their friendliness is sometimes sorely tested.

They accuse Barbara Walters of once trashing Crawford. They don't watch her any longer.

"We watch Fox," says Jo Staton of the Red Bull.

"I think some of the papers, they found the person here with the fewest teeth and just kept running the same picture."

When The Lone Star Iconoclast endorsed John Kerry for president last autumn, the merchants of Crawford dropped their advertising and refused to sell the local paper.

"We hit 'em where it hurt, all five of us," Shelton says with a laugh.

"Paper's not even from here," sniffs Spanos.

Kay Lucas, who runs the Crawford Peace House just down the road from the Bush ranch, says she is basically "shunned" in the community.

The down payment for the facility — which exists as a prominent anti-Bush, anti-war statement in town — was raised by peace activists in Dallas.

"The people on Main St. are invested in Bush because he is money in their pockets," says Lucas. "Bush has used Crawford as a stage setting for his blatant lies.

"Our government has contributed to much of the unrest in this world and we want the rest of the world to know that not everyone backs this agenda."

Lucas says the people of Crawford aren't interested in democracy, but they sure are fascinated by all things Bush.

Meanwhile, Nelda Johnson of Oregon, Ill., has just arrived on a pilgrimage that has included stops at the Ronald Reagan library in California and Austin, the Texas capital where Bush served as governor.

"We're on our Republican trip," says Johnson. By the time she arrived at Joe Cuff's Main Street Place, she'd already dropped a couple of hundred dollars on Bush T-shirts and coffee mugs.

Jeff Winters of Williamsport, Pa., is heading to Elvis Presley's shrine in Memphis after his Crawford stop.

"You can say Crawford ranks right up there with Graceland," he says.

Bush's adopted home is a community of cotton and grain farmers and cattle ranchers, but Staton talks of her town in different terms.

"We're all neighbours and we believe in what's right," she says. "We're church people. We're Lutherans and Baptists and Methodists and the churches are right across the street from each other.

"On Sunday, everyone is in church except the shut-ins, and the preachers go to their homes."

Even if Crawford's shops don't sell a single Canadian souvenir, there are strong economic ties between Canada and Texas, which has the youngest — and probably the most brash — population of any state in the union.

According to Canadian government statistics, trade between the two countries supports the jobs of 369,000 Texans, second only to California.

Trade between Texas and Canada totalled $15.6 billion in 2003, averaging about $43 million per day, double the volume since NAFTA was signed.

Bush will give Martin what White House spokesperson Scott McClellan calls a "windshield rancher's" tour, a Texas term that means the PM won't have to worry about mud on his shoes.

Still, Paul Martin should beware of the old cattle guard joke.

Bush told it again last week at the exclusive Gridiron Club dinner roast in Washington.

He loves to tell the yarn about the stranger who asks for directions and is told to "go through the cattle guard, and you turn left and go through another cattle guard.

"And the fellow comes back and says. `Hey, what colour uniforms do those cattle guards have on?'"

When he told it, Bush received only polite laughter, probably because most members of his audience didn't realize a cattle guard is a set of steel rails that prevent cows from wandering on the road.

Get it?

Bush apparently did when he first heard it, when it was told by Kent Hance, the Democrat who beat him for a state congressional seat in 1978.

When his Democrat opponent told the joke, it seems the stranger was driving a Mercedes with Connecticut plates. Bush was, of course, born in Connecticut.

So, when he's out clearing brush next Wednesday, Martin's antenna should go up if Bush starts a story with, "There was this guy from Canada looking for directions ...."