I was coming home from the bank the other week when I spotted him.
Parked outside the paint-store-other-than-the-one-we-work-for, I watched him get out of his beat-up station wagon and walk around to the back. He was naturally dressed in painter's whites, wore a well-used cap, and had a full, white beard.
An Old Painter.
Old Painters are easy to spot. For one thing, they're working on a Saturday or even a Sunday, because they "have to finish that job up before they'll cut the check." They're usually by themselves, or they have their current, equally haggard girlfriend with them. See, Old Painters rarely have wives. They've usually left long ago. They operate out of one truck (or old station wagon) because really, they don't need anything else.
If you get close enough, you may be able to smell the stale beer on his breath or exuding from his pores. If he's a really Old Painter, you'll smell coffee and cigarette smoke from the morning AA meeting.
As I sat in traffic, I watched him continue to the back of his car and lift up the hatch. Continuing to hold the hatch with one hand, I saw him reach into the back.
"Don't do it," I thought.
After fishing around, his hand came out with a roller pole.
"Oh no!" I grinned.
Sure enough, he propped up the back of the wagon with the roller pole.
Old Painters can't be bothered with fixing hydraulic hinges. Young painters can't be bothered with it, either. The back of my mini van was broken for years because Himself had "fixed" it by finding the perfect-sized pole for me to prop it up.
As I watched the Old Painter stuff a rag into his back pocket and head into the paint store, I was suddenly filled with a surge of affection for him. See, we have our own Old Painter still working out of his truck in the desert, and we haven't seen him for a while. How we love him!
God Bless the Old Painters.
God Love 'Em!
3 comments:
There's no desert here, but we have the Old Painters, too. They come in to the grocery late at night to replenish the beer/chip/cigarette supply. Overalls and old t-shirts, coveralls and hats, elbows, fingers, and dollar bills artistically splashed with contractor's white or what have you. Two kinds of Old Painters in Ohio--the dead-eyed, down-on-their-luck, no-please-and-thankyou kind; and the wink-and-a-smile, thank-you-darlin, I've-got-a-story-for-you kind.
Bless them, and you, too!
Fragments of a song or poem are floating around in my head - hard to catch - but something like:
Weak and weary, sore and needy sinners... makes me think we're all the same underneath. I don't know any Old Painters but I've seen plenty of oldies of all sorts (and youngies too) that fit your description. Always gives me an ache I can't quite describe. And Yes, yes, yes, may the Lord bless them and draw them to Himself!
Not only painters use a pole! Engineers do too! I've been a member of the 'pole club'!!!
Hey, I love the World Sunlit Map!
Great addition!
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