I was twelve when we moved.
We’d lived at 70 Colonial Avenue in Pitman, New Jersey since I was 6. We moved on August 8, 1977. The day before we left the house for good, my mother thought it would be fun and a good way to occupy us kids, if we painted the garage out back.
A couple years earlier my parents had had the house painted by a crew of hardworking, professional painters. Us kids found them to be highly entertaining. They were fun to “spy on!” We’d creep around the house as they painted, doing reconnaissance and reporting back to each other what we’d learned about house painting and the painters. It was the 70s and we made our own fun. The painters left behind some blue paint for siding and white for trim. On the eve of our departure my mother assessed the painting supplies and decided there were just enough for us to paint the front of the two-car garage to match the house: blue siding and white trim. She determined that it didn’t matter if the sides and rear weren’t painted and remained green, you couldn’t see them from the house. Mother didn’t seem to mind what the new owners might think of a multi-colored garage.
She set-up the four of us with paint brushes, buckets and a couple ladders. Apparently these items weren’t making the move to Pennsylvania as the moving truck had already pulled out. Painting that garage was FUN! Our earlier spy missions were paying off now. Our youthful hubris told us we knew exactly what we were doing! We had the front completely painted in no time at all. And there was still some paint left over. What if we painted the side of the garage that you could see from the driveway? But there was a hitch, we now had only enough blue paint for trim work. Could we make the white paint we had left cover the siding, and do the trim in blue? Oh! This would be fun! The side of the garage would now be the reverse of the front and that was better than leaving it green, right?
We set to work. Mother came out sometime early in the evening to see if we wanted supper, but we were busy. Supper would wait. She admired our painting and our cleverness at painting the side the negative of the front. It really was the 70s, when parents let kids have freer rein. We finished in the late twilight of that evening.
We left 70 Colonial Avenue for the last time early the following morning. As the Pontiac backed out of the garage we all admired the newly painted front –it matched the house! So pretty. And then we pulled down the long driveway, past the side of the garage and admired the negative effect…the green paint showing as a shadow beneath the too thin white trim paint used to cover the siding. “Oh well,” my mother sighed, “the new owners can paint it whatever color they like and I don’t ever have to look at it again!”
This is the front of 70 Colonial Avenue as it appears recently. A satellite view shows the garage is still out back. As you can see the house is painted green, not the blue and white that my family left it in 1977. The English ivy has take over the front wall. I remember my mother doing battle with it regularly. I wonder if underneath the ivy the house sign is still there. My Dad named the house Tregony Bow and had a lovely brass sign made and screwed into the wall to the left of the steps coming down to the sidewalk.
After some email exchanges with my mother, she doesn’t remember this event quite the way I do. She does however admit that it’s the kind of thing she would have readily advocated for! Especially as she wouldn’t have to look at it ever again, no matter how neatly (or not) it was done! (Her words!)
what good memories – love them:)
🤍