TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

When Everything New Is Old Again

ADVERTISEMENT

By SANDRA WEBBER

The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 21, 2008

The first days of spring in rural north Alabama brought the usual chattering from cardinals, blue jays and robin's nests, the revving of lawn mower engines tuning up for the season, even higher pitched conversing from the neighborhood kids. The sound that announced the season for me, though, was the rattling of the metal ball being thrown back and forth in a can of spray paint.

It was my father shaking the can. When I heard him, I would rush out to wherever he was and watch and wait for so long that my child brain would grow incredibly impatient until I could see the droplets rain down onto whatever surface he'd chosen to make new again.

Cans of paint lined two wooden shelves in the clapboard shed Daddy and my older brother built one summer. Lots of glossy black, shades of green, a variety of reds and oranges, engine primer and even chrome paint that I 'd later use to cover the rusting rims of my 1977 Honda Civic.

The metal glider in the backyard always got a fresh coat. With an unused square of sandpaper, he'd rub off the winter's rust until the surface was smooth and would, he told me, "hold the paint." I quickly picked the daffodils that sprouted along the legs of the glider before he started the spraying.

Our mailbox, no matter the need, also would be improved on, and again would stand out against the ordinary silver and white boxes, gleaning compliments from the postman. And the lunchbox Daddy carried to the coal furnaces on his graveyard shift, sitting on top of a stack of newspapers on the kitchen linoleum with Mama nearby commanding him uselessly to "Stop that painting inside!", would glisten black like a shiny pair of patent leather Sunday shoes. The kitchen scene played out often through the years, regardless of the season.

Along with the sound of rattling from a can of paint came the season's first steady purring from my father's roto tiller. I'd sit on the back steps early mornings and watch as the tiller led him along the patch in the corner of the yard, turning the still-damp black dirt over and over again between the blades until, by the heat of noontime, the soil was as fine as biscuit flour. When it was time, he'd let me drop the okra and squash seeds, showing me exactly where, exactly how many.

Through the years I've looked for surfaces to make new again. I hand-painted my car's fading roof once with hundreds of coats of something like fire engine red, and made pretty again rusted metal tables I'd picked up from roadside piles of discarded junk. In every season, I've stretched out on a sugary white beach and sifted sand through my fingers until the sun disappeared. I've sat in folding chairs on small patios and dug my hands into pots filled with dirt from plastic bags boldly printed with needless instructions, ingredients and warnings, until the blackness seeped under every nail.

These days, when my spring morning's slumber is broken by the chattering of unnamed birds, I drift back to the sound of the mixing ball in a can of spray paint and to those fleeting images of my father and me.

The noise from a neighbor's lawn mower that I imagine to be a roto tiller stirs the same memories. And I am back again under the cover of clear blue skies and skinny pine trees looking for a piece of plywood to spray or a spot of ground to drop a few seeds.

Sandra Webber is a freelance writer living in Clearwater.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT