The Paint Brush
 

   I've told you stories about my Grandma, now let me tell you one about her car.  When I was just a child my Grandma drove a big green Dodge.  It was a forty something.  Finally that car died when I was about eight or so. The engine blew up or something major like that.  It was a very sad occasion.  She cried over that car.   I think it was the only car she ever drove.
    So after a long while she bought a brand new white 1963 Dodge Dart.  There was no gearshift.  It was a push button drive. Just push a button and go.  All the Grandkids that were old enough to drive loved it.  A brand new car and push button too.
  On one of her visits to Columbia she let my brother Mike and my cousin Laurie drive the new car.  My dad was painting the outside of our house when Mike and Laurie pulled up in our driveway with the new car. I was shooting my new BB gun.  When they pulled up, Dad came down from the ladder.  One thing you need to know is that Laurie was the only girl cousin so she got picked on just like me.   She was a few years older than I was.  We won't say how many.
  Soon after she got out of the car I started picking on her or something.  My memory here is just a little blurry.  She told me that she was going to slap me if I didn't stop.  I didn't!  She warned me again.  My brother Mike picked up my BB gun and told her that if she slapped me that he would shoot her.  Laurie told him that if he shot her, she would hit him with my dad's paint brush.  It all happened so fast!  I kept picking, Laurie slapped me, Mike shot Laurie, Laurie reached in the paint bucket, pulled out the six inch wide paint brush loaded with green paint and threw it at Mike.  We all watched as the paint brush missed Mike and traveled through the air in slow motion.  It was a direct hit on Grandma's brand new 1963 white Dodge Dart.
  There was a moment of silence and we were frozen like a deer caught in headlights.  The car was covered in green paint.  Then it was like a Chinese fire drill as we rushed for the water hose.  Thank goodness all the paint came off.  We never spoke of this incident around Grandma.  I think this was the last time we picked on each other.
 
                                                                                       Carl