Painting the Reservation 2007-2008. Part One
May 5, 2007. Job #1. At the Yazzie family house. 900 square feet? Dark skies from horizon to horizon. Light rain now and then. Was working from an extension ladder on the leeward end of the house when Mr. Yazzie (about my age) came out and watched a minute or two, then voiced the encouraging opinion that “Tomorrow will be better.” It wasn’t. Hey ya!
Every day it seems, the wind blows from a different direction. Temp about 35. Not supposed to paint below 40, but on the Rez I have to or the job just doesn’t get done.
It was a small house and the job took only four days. Mr Yazzie came out often, to thank me for working on his place. Had a lot of good help from a young woman named Arlene, sent out by Millie at the Senior Center. Can’t remember her last name. Darn.
Wednesday. Temp is down to 31. Lower, with wind-chill factor. Snowed at Spider Rock, where we camped last night. Low temp 29. Out there walking Josie, finger tips became numb. Forecast is 30 for tomorrow. This is just too much. Will have to spend more nights in motel. The Thunderbird Lodge.
Job #2: painting the exterior of a (deceased) World War II vet’s house. On a clan compound of several acres five or six miles from Chinle, alongside the highway to Many Farms. He died in 2003, the year Maggie and I began Painting the Rez. On one of the windows is a decal showing the shoulder-patch of the AA Airborne, the highly decorated 101st “Screaming Eagles” Airborne Division. A second window decal reads, Korea War Veterans Memorial Dedication.
An adult daughter lives in a nearby mobile-home, on the same acreage. The plan is for her to move into this house. She’s very solicitous of my well-being; makes sure I drink lots of bottled water which she supplies. Said that when she first saw me on the ladder, it reminded her of her father when he used to work on the house.
Out here is like working at a ranch line-camp. Corrals, sheds, small open-sided hay barn, tractors, mud-splattered pickup trucks, a gooseneck stock trailer, a two-horse trailer. And a few horses and beef cows grazing in a field.
