Old Paint

My first full-time, paid job was as a housepainter, in Neptune, NJ, in 1963. I worked for a guy named Bob Ervin for a summer when I was 14-years-old, and in truth I didn't paint a lot. I mostly scraped and sanded and set up and cleaned up, but .occasionally I would get to paint the inside of a closet or something unimportant. I learned how to set up scaffolding and move ladders and climb, and I did wear white coveralls and a painter's hat, and they were paint-spattered by the end of that summer, which was a badge of honor.

Years later, when I graduated from college in 1971, I could not find a real job of any kind, so again I took a job as a painter. The owner was Eli Pampalis, and the company was called the Icarus Maintenance Company. I thought this was a very funny name for a painting company, because I had just a few weeks before completed a course in Greek mythology and knew the fate of Icarus: He had in his pride fashioned wax wings and flown too high and too close to the sun. His wings melted and he was thrown to his death, back on the earth where mortals belong. I once asked Eli if he saw the irony of running a company that had men climbing 40- and 60-foot ladders and calling it Icarus, but he said he had picked the name because it was a Greek name and he was from Greece and, no, he didn't really see any irony in that. All of the other painters were Greek, too, and I became friendly with several of them, but especially Nick, who taught me a lot about painting and loved to talk about growing up in Greece. We became regular painting partners, and sometimes we would go out to a bar after work and drink Rolling Rocks, and one time he invited me back to his house to meet his family. They served me very strong coffee, in demitasse, and small glazed oranges and chocolates.

One of Eli's big contracts was with Lehigh University. He did all their painting, so I became (as far as I know) the first Lehigh graduate to return to his alma mater and put a coat of paint on it. I worked for Eli for almost a year, and one summer we painted the entire Taylor Hall, which was one of the four freshman dormitories. It was one of the first buildings to be made from cast concrete, a technique innovated by Frank Lloyd Wright, but I only learned this later. I painted 20 double-hung windows a day, which was pretty good, but no where close to Nick, who painted more than 30 windows a day. They were old, tough windows, requiring a lot of putty and glazing and a lot of scraping old paint. We painted Taylor Hall grey. Then we painted the ceiling of Grace Hall, also known as the Snake Pit, because it was where the wrestlers had their meets,
and we painted some of the old classroom buildings. Occasionally I would run into one of my former professors or a dean, and they all knew me, and I would delight in saying, 'BA from Lehigh University! Fine institution! Got me this job!'

I was fearless on the ladders and scaffolding back then. I would run, not walk, along those planks, and I was always singing. I was known for that among my Greek friends, who also loved to sing, though in Greek. One time we were painting the exterior of one of the Jewish fraternity houses up at the top of South Mountain, and Nick did not show up for work. Then he did not show up the next day either, and when I asked Eli if he was sick, he looked away and wouldn't answer. I later learned from the other painters that Nick had been living in the country illegally and had been busted and deported.
He had come from a village called Petraius, and I sometimes picture him back there.

Not long after the time when Nick was deported, I flew too close to the sun and crashed to the earth and broke a lot of bones.I have never gone more than 20 feet up a ladder since. But I can still cut in window panes and do just about any painting job, because Nick taught me.