The Blue Boys Incident

It was Saturday morning. Chuck and Carol needed a little time to sleep in. Matthew got up at 5:00 AM, on Saturdays, he would always get himself a bowl of cereal, and watch Saturday morning Cartoons. Scooby-Doo was his favorite, but early mornings on Saturdays only provided the old Rankin Bass 1960’s version of Pinocchio and The Wizard of Oz, and then a rousing “Rocket Robin Hood”. Not Emmy winning TV, but it kept him entertained, until the real cartoons came on. Aaron, still slept in his crib, until the bunk bed was put together and painted, usually slept until 8:00 AM.

It was about 7:30 AM when Chuck woke up. He heard the birds chirping the back fields. Carol was face first into her pillow, and not looking like she’d be up anytime soon. Chuck wanted to get showered and shaved, before his parents came over. He knew that getting the engine in the Cortina would take some work, as some of the pipes needed to be welded, and he didn’t know if he had the right torches for it. Most of the retro fit needed c-clamps to attach rubber hoses, but if there were principal repairs to be made, he’d only have a week to get it done, and he was running out of money and tools.

Chuck got undressed and headed for the bathroom. As he was calculating the number of jobs to fixing the car, Bucky, their Brittany Spaniel came darting out of Matthew’s room, and shot down the stairs. Chuck only glanced a little at Bucky. Bucky always darted out of Matthew’s room. He knew he wasn’t supposed to sleep in Matthew’s room, but it was warm and Matthew never seemed to mind. But something seemed different. Chuck could have sworn he had seen blue on him. Chuck shook his head, and proceeded to the bathroom. It was odd, he didn’t hear the TV on downstairs.

As he walked into the bathroom, he noticed blue in the sink and toilet. Chuck had assumed that Matthew may have flushed a crayon or something down the toilet, which wasn’t out of the norm for Matthew. Matthew had flushed Chuck’s car keys and numerous dinky cars and toys. Once Matthew had even threw one of Chuck’s police whistles, out of a moving car. Still in daze Chuck started the shower, and got in. Suddenly, after a few minutes of water pouring over him, he could hear the front door bell ring.

“Carol, can you get that? I’m in the shower!” He could hear Carol mumbling and shuffling around from the bedroom.

“Yeah, I had to find my jeans…I’ll get it” Carol had risen to sound of repeated door bell, as she managed to find something to thrown on, then she thought, “Who, the Hell, is at the door at 8:00 AM on a Saturday?”

Carol opened the door to the hallway from the bedroom. As she began to head down the stairs, there is was in the corner by Matthew’s bedroom door. It looked like a blue hand print. But before she could look at it, the doorbell rang again.

“Carol, will you get that please!” Chuck yelled from the bathroom again.

“I am! Cool your jets!” She went down the stairs, as she said this. Then, she noticed a long blue streak on the wall at the bottom of the stairs. It was about two feet high and extended into the main hallway by the front door. As she approached the front door, there were more hand prints. A tall older gentleman stood outside on the front step, as Carol opened the door.

“Good morning ma’am, Larry Cavendish” as he introduced himself, he appeared to be in quite a jovial mood, like he’d just finished laughing for a time, “Do you per chance have two young boys, 3 and 2? Both blonde and blue eyed? One named Matt and the other Aaron?”

“Are you a cop? Has something happened to my boys?!?” Carol was getting frightened and she began noticing blue paint on the front step and on the Maple Tree.

“Oh no…No ma’am…Sorry for the confusion…I am your neighbor down the way, and well…we’ve all been out on our front porches watching this whole situation transpire. Before we could do anything, it had already happened…So I was designated to come over and let you know…”

“What happened?!? Tell me!” A million scenarios were running through Carol’s head, anything could have happened, and she didn’t know where Matthew or Aaron were. Then, Larry pointed over to the Cortina. Over by the Cortina, A couple of older ladies were talking to Aaron and Matthew who were sitting on the roof of the Cortina, with no clothes on, covered in dark blue paint. Carol did not know whether to laugh or cry. One of the ladies came over.

“Well Mrs. Hill” She was chuckling, “it appears that according to your son Matthew, you had left the lid on the paint incorrectly…He noticed this when you opened it to test it on the bunk bed last night, you place the lid on upside down. So, somehow Matthew realized in the middle of the night that the paint may dry up and cost you money, he wanted to help you…”

“Oh my God!” Carol was starting to take the situation in.

“Apparently someone at the store, last night, told him that this much paint would cover a car…So he figured painting the Cortina, would save the paint….he figured you wouldn’t waste it then…But he and Aaron had to test it on themselves, to make sure it would stick first, so they took off all their clothes…”

“As not to ruin their clothes…HAHAHA” Larry interrupted.

“Then they painted themselves and came out to paint the car…Oh and I am Agnes by the way…I am your neighbor across the way” Tears were rolling down her face laughing, as she relayed the story.

“Usually, Agnes comes over to our place for coffee and smoke on the weekend mornings, and we just enjoy the neighborhood, as the sun rises. When we all sat down with our coffees, Agnes looked up and says to me…Are there two little painted naked boys on top of that car?” Larry was turning red from laughing so hard, “I have lived in Oshawa my whole life, and seen some pretty funny things. But this one tops them all!”

At this point Agnes husband Peter had brought over some coffee for Carol, “Thought you could use a cup to start your morning. I just hope that’s not lead based paint…Even if it is, I have some Varsol”

Chuck had barely been out of the shower, when he could hear Carol’s voice ordering him to get his clothes on and come outside from the front door. She was using her, “The boys are in trouble” voice, and it did not sound good.

As he came down the stairs, he saw everything that Carol had seen, and noticed the crowd of people from the neighborhood laughing and talking to Carol. By this point, Matthew and Aaron were on the front walkway with towels covering them. Agnes had brought them muffins to eat. Larry went over to Chuck to recap the whole story, and then offered him a cigarette and coffee. Chuck was still in disbelief, as to the amount of paint all over the place. He took the coffee and the cigarette gratefully and then approached Aaron and Matthew.

“Hi Daddy!” Matthew ran over and hugged Chuck’s leg, still dripping of blue paint on his head “We saved your paint! And now your Cortina is a better blue!”

“I see that,” Chuck had already planned to repaint the car, but now it was inevitable.

“Hello Chuck, is it?” Peter had disappeared for a while and returned with two gallons of Varsol, “I think you’ll need this…And those boys are not going to like this one bit.”

Now at this point, Chuck and Carol were both in the same mind frame. This was a lot of paint all over the place, but the boys hadn’t meant any harm. And it occurred to Chuck that a bath in Varsol would be punishment enough for the boys to realize that they needed to leave paints alone. So, as it happened from that point on Chuck and Carol spent the rest of the morning cleaning up the paint with Varsol. Peter and Larry helped Chuck clean up the front yard. Larry had old tin buckets and scrub brushes, and it seemed to come up quite quickly.

On the inside of the house, there was less of a mess, but it was a bit harder for Carol to clean off the walls. Carol knew about cleaning walls. Their youngest son Aaron had discovered in their last apartment, on the first floor, that he could get his pampers off, and smear his poop on the walls. As he was the more adventurous son, he had already figure out how to climb out of his crib, and get up onto the windows sill. Once when Carol had come home from work to their old apartment, she caught a glimpse of Aaron in the window sill, up from his nap with poop all over himself. She remembered racing into the apartment to find Chuck asleep on the couch, and the refrigerator had been unplugged. In one hour, Matthew had figured out how to unplug it. A whole week’s worth of groceries had been ruined. And that cost them close to $100 to replace. And Carol and Chuck had an argument over watching the boys because of that incident. But this one was a bit less arguable, and more frustrating.

It was fortunate that Agnes had a can of interior paint, and Carol and Agnes were able to paint over the walls in the house, where they couldn’t get the blue paint off. Agnes used a toothbrush to scrub the walls by the front door, which seemed to remove the paint, and Carol scrubs with a scrubbing pad. And they had the mess cleaned up before noon, all except the paint on the boys and the dog.

In the basement of the house was a large wash basin, beside the washing machine and dryer. It was the safest place to use the Varsol to get the paint out of their hair, and off their skin. Chuck had to be very diplomatic about this with the boys, because if they even remotely understood about what was about to happen, they’d have bolted for the nearest exits.

The basement was unfinished and Chuck had hoped to build some framed walls, to create a wreck-room for the boys to play and keep all their toys. For now, he was glad that walls only had framed in 2X4’s, with fiberglass insulation and vapor barrier along the outer walls. He had two squirmy little boys and dog to clean with Varsol and then water. Once he knew the Paint and Varsol were completely off their skin and hair, Chuck could shampoo the boys without irritating their skin. In the basin, the faucet had threads on it, and a garden hose was attached to it. Chuck needed this to rinse the boys. Carol brought them down, and Matthew was placed in the basin first

“Daddy?” Matthew quietly asked.

“Yeah Kiddo,” Chuck knew what the next question would be, but listened carefully to what Matthew was about to say.

“Why did the people think the car was funny?” Chuck was not anticipating this question. Chuck was reasoning that Matthew would ask about the Varsol.

“Well, you remember when the guy at the store said you paint a whole car with this paint?”

“Uh-huh,” Matthew looked intently.

“He just meant, that it was a lot of paint, not that you should paint the car, but it was nice of you to want to paint it. I didn’t even know we had left the paint can lids on upside down,” Chuck answered.

“So, Aaron and me did a good thing?” At this point, Chuck had him squarely in the basin.

“Well, you taught mommy and me to pay more attention to what we are doing…now hold still because this Varsol is going to stink!” With that Matthew covered his eyes and chuck rubbed off all the paint. Matthew whimpered a bit, but soon the water was rinsing it all off him. And he was clean again. Aaron and Bucky both howled and fidgeted, as both dog and boy could do. Carol had to cover Aaron’s eyes, while Chuck did the same thing to him. Within minutes Aaron was clean and the big blue spot-on Bucky was gone too. Chuck and carol sighed as the last of the blue paint swirled down the drain.

Carol had brought the two cans of paint down to the basement, where little hands couldn’t get at them. Even if the paint was out in the open, Carol kept the basement door locked so Aaron and Matt couldn’t get into Chucks tools. As the basement lead out to the garage, Chuck would be building a workshop for his tools, and any renovations he would be doing.

“There! The lids are on properly, and the can opener is up on the shelf!” Carol was certain the lids could not be opened now. She took the boys upstairs to get new clothes, as Grandpa and Grandma, and Uncle Jonathan would be soon arriving, and they all wanted to look their best.

About an hour later Jack, Doris and Jonathan pulled up in visitor parking. Chuck was glad the visitor parking was so close to the house. He had been out in the garage examining the Cortina engine for any problems. As he had used a compressor to make sure a hose didn’t have a leak in it, he noticed the car pull in. Jonathan came running up first. Jonathan was nine.

“Hey chuckles! Whoah…You rebuilding that?” he stopped suddenly to see the engine dangling from the chains and winches.

“Hey Kiddo! Staying out of mom and dad’s hair?” Jonathan nodded and darted over to the transistor radio of Chuck on the shelf.

“OH WOW! You got FM! Can I turn it on?” Jonathan was all over the place. Chuck’s garage was the most fascinating thing for him. Jonathan loved anything mechanical or electrical, and chuck had everything in his garage, from small bearing for a bike wheel, to large pullies for towing cars. You name it, Chuck had it.

“Yeah, flip it on, there’s a new station on. It’s got some cool sounds,” Jonathan flipped a switch on the radio. Jim Croche was just finishing the song “Operator”, and John Denver came on with “Country Roads,” Matthew came bursting through the garage door with Aaron toddling behind.

“Uncle Jon!” They both grabbed onto Jonathan’s leg, and Jack and Doris appeared in the front of the garage.

“Charles, I have lovely vegetables from the garden for Carol, is she in the house?” Chuck nodded at Doris, and she proceeded in the front door.

“Heya Chuck! How’s everything?” Jack questioned.

“Funny story dad! Come on in the house…I think Carol’s got a pot of coffee on…I’ll tell you and mom all about it,” Chuck began to recount the whole morning as they went in through the garage so Chuck could show him and Jonathan the paint. Aaron and Matthew followed quietly behind. As Chuck retold the story, Both Jonathan and Jack were laughing heartily.

“HAHAHAHAHA! Oh, that is too funny! And you weren’t even concerned by the blue popping up everywhere, you must have been tired Chuck! Can I use this in my sermon next Sunday?” They had reached the main floor, and entered into the kitchen, where Doris was laughing from Carol account of the story.

“Oh Jack, did you hear about their little escapade this morning?” Jack was in tears laughing, as he nodded in agreement.

“I would have given just about anything to see those two boys sitting there covered in blue” as the words were coming out of his mouth, Jonathan was yelling from the top of basement stairs.

“Well, pop…You got your wish!” Chuck, Carol, jack And Doris were baffled by Jonathan’s comment. So, they approached the stairs. At the bottom, there stood Aaron and Matthew stripped of their clothes and again covered in blue paint, “You guys were laughing so hard, and then it hit me…where did Aaron and Matt go, they were with us in the basement, but I don’t remember them coming upstairs, so I thought I’d better check it out…I know Carol doesn’t like us playing around Chuck tools.”

“Chuck did you let the boys come back in the basement with you?” Carol was about to start an argument with Chuck about paying more attention, when suddenly it occurred to her, “Wait I tightened the lid down on those paints, there is no way they could have opened…OH NO!”

Suddenly, Chuck had also realized, she only tightened the one can of paint, and not the other. So, when they heard everyone laughing so hard about them painting themselves, especially Grandpa, they thought it would be funny to do it again. Matthew noticed that Carol had only tightened one paint can.

Jack thought the incident was hilarious as it happened. And the fact that when the two boys heard them laughing about it, and went and did it again, well his sermon the following week was entitled, “Job’s lesson in making the best in a bad situation.”

As the rest of the afternoon went on, Jack helped Chuck clean them both in the laundry basin in the basement. And they placed both cans of paint up high, where little hands couldn’t reach it, and firmly secured both lids. When all was said and done on the Blue Boys Incident, as it would be come to be known, Jack and Jonathan went out and helped Chuck take out the engine of the 1969 Ford Cortina. And although Jonathan got bored and eventually took Matt and Aaron to the park behind the houses, Jack and Chuck got the new engine in and working within two hours.

Later in the week, Chuck was drive up to Sudbury to the Helicopter Flight Instruction School to meet with whom he thought would be his potential employer, but would be the start of something else, which would last him 30 years. The Cortina ran like the wind, and would do so for another year until the mounts rusted, and the engine started to sag, and some cracks in the engine would become apparent. Chuck would later recount the Cortina as one of the best cars he ever owned, but he would own some more interesting vehicles, like the Triumph Spitfire, The Yellow International Truck, and the Jeep Cherokee. And all these events and vehicles would lead the Hill family to meet some of the most interesting people, and having many more interesting adventures.

Just a postscript to this story, if you go Chuck and Carol’s house on Lake Scugog, there are pieces of furniture with the dark blue paint on it. It’s not a lot of paint, and it wasn’t all from the paint incident, but applied later. You now know where it came from, and how it got there. But the most fascinating thing is that one of the beams that hold the base for Chuck’s auto and boat parts mount on the wall, in his workshop, is from the original bunk bed. It’s just a little reminder of that day.