Over the weekend, I had the harebrained idea to paint porches
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By Shane Gilreath
Over the weekend, I had the harebrained idea to paint porches. They were long overdue. The house’s white columns had turned a frightening tint of gray, the floors – not unlike my face – were showing the wear and tear of the past few years, and the Charleston (haint) blue ceilings were looking a harrowing shade of speckled green. New capitals and bases had been added, for my own sanity’s sake, but painting had evaded me during those days and with good reason. Having done it – and every time since – I’ve sworn on most things holy to never, ever do it again. And, yet, height of July heat, here I am, paintbrush in hand. What it did for me was open the familiar world of yesteryear. When I could get Neil Young’s “Southern Man” out of my head, adding white to two-stories, column after seemingly endless column, I thought a lot of my late maternal grandmother, who lived on this farm for decades before me. One of her favorite books was ‘A Painted House’ by John Gresham, but all I could remember of her talking about it was that book’s protagonists, the Chandlers, lived in an unpainted house, a sign of their social status in a the post-war world of haves and wants. Like some of the book’s characters, my grandmother was a product of the Great Depression. It carved and molded her and left its crevices in aspects of her personality. She was also whip smart and full of business acumen on the little education that was allotted to the women of her generation; a generation who came of age during hardships, toiled, survived, and defined Americanism during the Second World War, married, raised children, and – my grandmother, at least – loved to read. Reading was likely an escapism. It took them places that life dared not, but I wondered what my grandmother would have done had she been left with an unpainted house, like the Chandlers. Had it been absolutely required of her, I’ve no doubt that she would have rolled up her sleeves and grabbed a brush, as, in business, she and my grandfather always told me ‘never ask someone to do something you’re not willing to do yourself.’ Painting, surely, would have been little different, but I also know my grandmother was good with a dollar. A gift the Great Depression kept on giving. My mother has said that I’m like her in that I, too, can stretch a penny. A compliment I’ll take and a trait that’s needed in this modern world. My grandmother’s business office – for businesses my grandparents ran for more than 50 years without a computer in sight – was often the family dining room table. When I was a kid, I remember the stacks of paperwork spread head to head. It might not have been perfectly organized, as her accountant could attest, but she knew what was there and what wasn’t (and there was always a receipt book). Because part of their business was in properties, she always knew a handyman that could do anything – at least anything I ever knew – in a flash. In those days, I often heard her talk of “robbing Peter to pay Paul,” as monies moved here and there to meet their required need. It was a gift she possessed. In a porch painting pinch like mine, I’m sure that Paul would have been the painter – a handyman she collected along the way – and Peter’s pockets temporarily empty to overcome the obstacle of an unpainted house.
