Just Keep Paintin’ 03-February-2011
Just keep Paintin’ 03-February-2011
For various reasons I decided to post a short nonsense story this evening…
I learned many things from my good childhood friend Shawn Worrell… most of them illegal, but now and then I’ll be darned if he didn’t have something valuable to teach me about life. May he rest in peace.
I don’t remember what year this blazer was, but it was a hideous cream yellow color. It had more rust than remaining metal. It burned oil. And it had absolutely no roof. Ohhhh the good times we had in that truck!
But, this story is about the day we painted it purple. Shawn stopped by the house excited that he found this can of purple house paint on sale the hardware store… we scrounged up some brushes and got busy! Sean pulled in my driveway after entering from the North, which meant the back dirt road behind the house and therefore lots of mud! I said, “Shouldn’t we at least hose off the mud before we start painting?” Shawn replied, many times, eventually quite impatiently, “Just keep Paintin’!!!”
I painted over rust. I painted over mud. I painted over chrome. I painted over the glass here and there. I painted over things I could not identify. But, alas, I did indeed keep painting, and very quickly this rusty old blazer became the amazing masterpiece you see in this photo.
I thought about Shawn today when I was working on the Camaro engine and had to force myself to overlook the many things I can’t afford to replace. The many things I wish I could upgrade. The many things that would simply look awesome if they were new and shiny! Yet, I have great confidence that when I turn the key in a week or two, it will fire right up and purr quite nicely.
I was also able to locate this amazing picture of Shawn driving his Jeep very slowly and carefully to bible study early one Sunday morning… The kid knew how to have fun!
So I suppose, in a manner of speaking, I just kept painting…
Cheers to My Old Friend Shawn
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