Events in the Life of an Ordinary Man

Among the items I collected and located for my estate sale were about a dozen paintings Almost all had been purchased at charity art auctions for the local animal shelter, school, or church. The self-imposed obligation to buy at such an event resulted in purchases that, now that they were off the wall and piled on the floor in a corner, I appraised as "not so visually aesthetic” and in several cases, “not so difficult to paint.” Having fully retired a few weeks earlier, I had some available time and decided that it would be a worthwhile and challenging goal to be able to paint a picture of which I was sufficiently proud that I would want to hang it on my wall. Yes, ignorance is bliss. An engineer without training, or even much exposure to the visual arts, I systematically concluded that I must begin my foray into painting with a drawing course. I was serious about learning to draw, so on the first day of class I arrived early and sat front row center in one of two chairs behind a large, fold-out table. The woman who subsequently became my tablemate was tall, thin, and whom I assessed as being in her early forties, plus or minus twenty years. She had lackluster, straight brown hair that hung unimaginatively to her shoulders, wore large hoop earrings and a one-piece dress that hung loosely over her body all the way to the floor. She reminded me of the pot-smoking hippies that I use to see along Cannery Row in Monterey, California during the late 1960s. The teacher entered, introduced herself to the class, summarized her bona fides, and said to the class, "I'd like each of you to tell me why you are taking this class and what you hope to learn from it?" She then quite naturally pointed to me, sitting in the first row directly in front of her, and told me to begin. I admitted to being a total novice and told my story about being underwhelmed over some of the paintings I had acquired and my hope of someday creating a painting or drawing (I'm no dummy) that was worthy of hanging on my wall. She nodded, approvingly I thought, although it could have been condescending of this student without any experience who had the audacity to join her Drawing I Class. She then turned to my tablemate, who quickly commanded my complete attention as she assertively revealed, "I'm having an affair with a guy who owns a Tattoo Parlor. I'm here to learn to draw tattoos". I can only assume that the teacher nodded approval, my mind was busy recognizing the fact that these people were unlike the engineers and mathematicians that I had spent my life dealing with and that this foray into the world of artists could really become an adventure. My tablemate continued as she raised the hem of her dress up to her knees, "And I've been practicing. I've drawn a chain bracelet around each of my ankles and some pictures on my calves." Her legs were shapely; "very good" in male parlance, and the ballpoint pen drawings she displayed raised my self-esteem. She needed this course worse than I did.