Over the Christmas break, I was able to take a rare opportunity to do some cleaning in my garage. While doing so, I was both surprised and delighted to find this rusty old can. My first reaction was wondering why such a relic would have not been discarded long ago; but when I saw the faded blue paint spilled on the side, I immediately knew the source and significance of this old can. You see, back in 1966, my grandparents were traveling from their home in Kennesaw to visit relatives in east Georgia. While heading towards Athens, their car was rear-ended by a truck in one of the small towns along Hwy 29 near Dacula or Auburn. My grandparents were not hurt, but their Chevrolet Biscayne was demolished both in the front and rear. To finish their trip, they purchased a new metallic blue Chevelle at Lindsey Chevrolet in Washington, GA. The new models had just been delivered and our car even came with a free yardstick (which I still have) promoting the 1967 line of Chevrolets. But back to the old paint can. By 1973, Grandaddy had already encountered a tree or two along the way and having allowed my ten year old cousin to drive one day resulted in some major damage repair. It was time to get the car repainted and the best deal in town could be had for $29.99 at Earl Scheib’s in Marietta. My grandparents felt this was a reasonable price to pay, so in the car went for ‘that factory finish’. Only trouble was, when we got the car back, the medium blue metallic had been replaced with a pastel baby blue. Nonetheless, we hesitantly agreed that it was better than before, so the only issue was that the door jambs and dashboard (still the original metallic blue) did not match the new color. When my grandparents complained to the painter, Mr. Scheib basically said “what do you expect for $29.99” and handed them a small can of that ugly blue paint so they could fix the dash up any way they wanted. I still remember the Saturday morning that my grandmother climbed into the front seat of that old Chevelle; paint brush in hand. She started on the dash and even at my young age, I was quickly horrified to see brush marks and paint on the radio, ignition switch, heater controls, and so forth. Grandmama knew it wasn’t going well, but she stuck with it until the dash and steering wheel were finished; only then calling it a day and never going back to finish the job by painting the jambs. No one dared criticize her work, and the paint can was set aside in the garage, where it would eventually rust and the remaining paint would simply dry up. We kept the Chevelle until 1985 when Junior Cook found us a very nice used Nova that was a perfect replacement. The Chevelle was parked in the yard for a year or so until someone doing some plumbing work offered to buy it for $200. Away at school, I wasn’t around to witness the purchase, but I’ve always wondered what the buyer thought about that custom, hand-painted dashboard. So now I’ve got a rusty old paint can to remind me of this: there ain’t no free lunch; and if a $29.99 paint job sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Posted on: Sat, 17 Jan 2015 00:21:25 +0000
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