"Don't you think this room could use a little more pizazz?" says my wife as we are sitting at the breakfast bar a few months ago. Sip the coffee, stare straight ahead, work on the crossword puzzle which suddenly requires my undivided attention. "You know, maybe a fresh coat of paint with more color". I've been down this road before, and I know my role well. It's to put up a little resistance, suggest alternatives, but ultimately I get the lead role, The Painter!
I don't get to pick the colors, I don't have much of a say in which rooms or which walls get painted, I only get to apply the paint....alone and unaided. The best I can hope for is that she won't be able to decide on a new color scheme, and we will be forced to leave the walls as they are. But, deep in my heart I know that won't be the case, so I reluctantly say, "Well, go pick up some color samples and we'll see about it". She was happy, and I was off the hook....for now.
I have a long history of applying paint, coat after coat after coat of paint. All colors of paint, white ceilings, white walls, beige walls, green walls, and every other interior color you might imagine. Not that we've experienced all of those colors in our houses, but when I was younger I could always pick up extra money by painting houses, and I have painted literally hundreds of interior and exterior walls.
My dad was a contractor and I was a laborer, a child laborer, but that's a subject for a different story. The real story here is that my dad hated to paint. He could build a house from the bare lot to the finished product, but he hated to paint. I, on the other hand, always enjoyed painting and a partnership was born. Any job he had that required painting was a job for me if I was available. It worked out well for both of us, he didn't have to paint and I made some extra money while acquiring quite a talent for putting the paint where it was supposed to go.
One summer, I had a job painting a nice little white house on 4th Street. Before I was finished, the little old lady next door wanted me to paint hers, then another, and another. That's the way those things go sometimes, and I ended up painting almost every house on the block, including a huge Victorian that had me hanging from a rope in order to reach some of the ornate trim around the attic windows. But, the job of all jobs was the motel on the edge of town.
Everyone remembers those motels built in the late fifties or early sixties. The were usually built in an L-shape, two stories in height, with back to back rooms, some poolside and the others facing the parking lot. The other truly unique feature of those motels was the bright colors they used on the exteriors. Turquoise was a popular color, as was burnt orange, and sometimes a combination of the two. Dad was friends with the owners of the motel who thought it was time to add a little pizazz. Like a turquoise motel needed any more pizazz, but my dad sold them on the idea of painting all of the doors, and I was the man for the job.
I used to be able to tell you exactly how many doors were on the Townsman Motel, and I used to be able to tell you the exact color we used to "brighten" things up a bit, but I seem to have developed a mental block when it comes to recalling the details of that job. All I remember is staring at door after door, and applying some of the brightest colored paint imaginable. Mind numbing and monotonous work, painting doors as I worked my way around that motel to the "Oh my gosh!" the poolside rooms....."Thank you God!" Fourteen years old, and the best job in town.
Now, however, I've been relegated to painting dining rooms, kitchens and bathrooms. Yesterday I completed the task of adding some "pizazz" to those rooms in our house. When I paint, I start thinking, and often the thoughts end up at poolside of the Townsman Motel. Was it the best of times? I think maybe it was, but then, what do I know?
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