Beat Up

As I sat down to rest for a minute in the garage at the end of a successful day of working on the Corvette frame, I looked around the garage, and it occurred to me that it looks like I feel beat up. Don’t get me wrong, I am good, so is the garage, but some days we are ready for rest, to chill out, shut down, and recuperate. I had this garage built in 2002 to work on my car projects. At that time, the only project I had was the Corvette. Over the years, I had picked up a few more projects that I love working on; the VW Bug, the two vintage Honda Trail 70 mini bikes, and the 1953 Chevy Wagon that was my grandfather, uncle, and Cousin before it was given to me. Right now, none of them run. Before the flood, the Bug and one of the Mini-Bikes ran, and I enjoyed taking them out from time to time. That was the best way to unwind after a busy day. I am now working on the Corvette with the goal of getting the body back on the frame before the end of this month. I have had these goals before, and a situation arose that prevented them from happening. I do see the light at the end of that tunnel; however, I am really close to achieving that goal this time.

As I sit here looking around the garage, which has open floor space, which is rare, I can see how beat up the floor is. I painted this floor with 2-foot-by-2-foot black-and-white squares after the garage was built. I had always wanted a garage with a floor like this. When it came time to paint the floor, several people told me I couldn’t do it the way I had planned. They said it would not look right, checkered floors that are painted never look right, it must be tiled. I can’t have a tiled floor in a garage, that would tear up fast, the way I work. I cut metal, weld, and am working on heavy engine parts that will tear up a tiled floor. I went ahead with my plans anyway. When I bought the epoxy paint, the guy at the paint store said that I could not paint a floor like I planned, in black and white squares. It will not look right. That made me even more determined to prove all of them wrong. The secret is to paint the entire floor white. Let that cure for two weeks, then tape off for the black squares. To tape it off, you must find the exact center of the floor and start there. Once the first four squares are taped off around the center point, it gets easier. Just keep working that pattern of taping off. The other big secret to making it look right is that every black-and-white corner must touch. Even if the square is off a little in measurement, as long as the corners touch, it looks right. So, there it is, my secret of painting the perfect black and white square floor. I had figured all of that out by studying other black-and-white square floors and learning from their mistakes.

Another thing I see that is obvious in the garage is that the lower half of the walls is still missing from after the flood. One day soon, I plan to hang plywood there, but only after I finish this phase of the Corvette build. For me, the one thing missing is that this afternoon, an old, trusted friend told me he did not believe me when I told him something I know to be true based on firsthand experience. That was like a gut punch that I am not sure I can get over. I will still respect him and be friends, but I am not sure if I will ever trust that person again. That really hurts. Oh well, I guess everyone goes through something like this at some point in their life.

I need to get back up and bring in everything from the driveway I took out to make room to work on the Corvette frame. In about an hour, the garage will be full of cars and other things we normally keep in here. I do see brighter days ahead. I will drive that Corvette along with the Bug, ’53 Chevy Wagon, and Trail Bikes again. The garage walls will be complete again, and I plan to repaint the floor to its former glory. We all need to recuperate; even the garage will look like a normal garage again one day.