Rude Power

This is LeRoy and his truck (the dog in the back is ours).

Although LeRoy lives and works in San Diego, he spends certain times of the year in this area to maintain his family’s home place and do farming. He actually kept a trailer on our property which he lived in part time for many years. It was rustic, but as we improved our property, added a well and electricity, and eventually built a house, we hooked him up to all our services, and charged a one dollar rent (for legal purposes). LeRoy is now retired, and built his own house in the area, which continues to be part time.

I talked LeRoy into letting me paint his truck, being that it was old and rusty, and this was the end result. I bought a bunch of Rustoleum paint in various bright colors, to blend with the original orange color of the truck. I sanded the rust with an electric sander and then I put a crew of neighborhood kids together to do the painting. We had a boy from Northern Ireland staying with us that summer, the same age as my son, so this was the perfect way for him to get to know us.

I am sure you are curious about the mix of symbols and graphics, and how we came up with the theme. Well, there were a couple of middle school girls who participated, hence the flower power kind of seventies overall graphics style. It was popular that summer and I used to love the stuff myself when I was their age. And you know how teenage girls are, they have tremendous power to influence, love decorating, and give major attention to small details. Some younger siblings, preschoolers actually, did the hand prints. Their moms were a bit stressed out by all the oil based paint. One of the boys is a farmer’s son and all the branding commonly associated with a certain green tractor is his contribution. Not sure if you can tell, but there is a map of Ireland on one side, green of course, and LeRoy’s phone number is on the back of the truck. Le Roi is single and the kids were trying to help. They were pretty sure this truck would be a chick magnet. Think so?

The next summer LeRoy registered the truck as an entry in the Covered Bridge Festival Parade and the kids and I put on roller blades and skated around the truck and threw candy to the crowd as we went by. I don’t think anybody called him. They probably couldn’t read the phone number.