For as long as I can remember, every summer we would observe an annual event, in fact we still do to this day. This event was the annual painting of our metal barn roof. Some Gypsies would show up in a pickup truck loaded with silver paint and a big spray gun with a big air compressor, seemingly miles of black hose, and some ladders. Everything, including the men, was covered with silver paint. I was never sure if an appointment had to be made or if they just showed up every summer. More than likely, they just showed up every summer ready to paint. No doubt after a short time of dickering over the price, they would get to work. It always seemed to be a windy day when they would show up and paint. Since they used spray guns, a lot of the paint would drift and splatter nearby objects. When we watched, of course we always stood upwind. Since in those days no one ever used a filtered facemask, I imagine all their lungs were lined with silver paint. When I watched them, even at a young age, I never envied them or wanted their job since I always was afraid of heights. In fact, the only heights I’m not afraid of is Berlin “Heights”! I was always convinced that they used “watered down” thin paint because after a few months large dark spots would start to appear where the paint had started to thin out. I guess this guaranteed them job security every summer.

 

One summer when they came around it must have been a different crew of Gypsies. They started to paint the barn roof after the preliminaries and appeared to be quite busy as we observed them at work spray-painting the roof. After a while, Tim and I decided we had more important things to do and so did Uncle Ned. After sometime they finished and came to collect for the job. In those days services of this kind were paid for immediately after they were completed and we saw some cash changing hands then. I suppose either Uncle Ned or my father, when he was still living, made a trip to the bank to get the right amount of cash. Immediately after they were paid they made a hasty exit in their silver spattered old pickup truck. It wasn’t more than a day or so later that we discovered that they never painted the east side of the roof! They only painted the front side that faced toward us to the west! We were indeed “Gypped” that year. Since they didn’t leave a phone number or a business card, this wasn’t the nature of their cash only business, which I can see why; we had to wait until next summer! Whenever we were on our way home from the east, we would notice the unpainted east side and snickered about it all year. When a different crew showed up the following summer, you can bet our Uncle Ned kept a close eye on them to make sure they did the whole roof on the east side!

 

A crew still shows up and they did this summer. I watched them for a while from the west side only. You can bet that Tim checked the east side before he paid them! I guess that one summer many years ago when they only painted half the roof, they did so to keep their “overhead” at a minimum! J

 

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