Spoke too Soon - February 14, 2024

I guess it was too good to be true.

I was so excited to learn that my friend still had Daddy's radio.  It was incredible that he had found the parts to fix it.

We met at noon in the parking lot of the painting studio.  He put it in the back of my car, opened the top, and started showing me what all they had replaced.  When he closed the lid, my excitement began to wane.  It did not look like Daddy's radio.  The brand was correct, but the front panel did not look like I remembered.  My friend assured me that it was the radio I had brought to him, some 30 years ago.

When I got home, I called my sister and asked her to describe the radio as she remembered it.  "Well, it had a dark gray or black case.  A bunch of knobs across the front, and some metal switches.  And I remember a semi-circular dial...."  All of these features were correct.  But I remembered the radio having two semi-circular dials, and this radio had only one; there was a square speaker panel on the right, where the other semi-circular dial should have been.  I did some research on the model number of the radio I brought home.  It was built in the 40s; the story I remembered was that Daddy had bought the radio new, when I was a baby (in the late 50s).  

I texted my nephew (oldest of my parents' grandchildren) and Son #1 and asked them to describe the radio.  My nephew sent a picture of what he remembered the radio looking like.  It had two semi-circular dials.  I texted the picture to my brother, along with a picture of the radio I had brought home and asked which of the two most resembled Daddy's radio.  He picked the one with two dials.

So I am convinced that this is not Daddy's radio.  And I'm also convinced that if Daddy's radio still exists, my friend doesn't have it.  

:-(

* * * * * * * * 

In painting class yesterday, I worked on an oil painting that I started back in December, a picture of an old rusty tractor.  This was a mighty ambitious project for a beginner - all those tractor "doo-dads."  I worked on the tires in class, and worked on them some more on the back porch once I got it home.

Oil is not a good medium for me.  I am a messy painter (oil paint is forever if you get it on your clothes).  This morning, while writing this on the back porch, I stopped to go to the bathroom, and as I was washing my hands, the mirror showed a big blob of burnt sienna on my chin that wasn't there last night.  Evidently, I had smeared paint on the porch table yesterday, and had gotten into it this morning.  I scrubbed my chin clean, but 30 minutes later when I was getting dressed for work, there was burnt sienna paint on my chin again.  After getting dressed, I went on a hunt for a stray paint blob and eventually found it on the bottom of my laptop.  

Good grief.

Perhaps I should stick to watercolors.