THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 12, 1995 TAG: 9502100195
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Random Rambles
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: Medium: 84 lines
Yes, indeed, those Rembrandts of rehabilitation known as the ``Paint Your Heart Out Chesapeake'' volunteers are gearing up for their annual good deed. D (for ``deed'') Day is April 22.
What they do is go forth as a big-hearted bucket brigade, painting the homes of 25 elderly or handicapped Chesapeake people who can't get the painting done themselves. The idea started with the Chesapeake Rotary Club, but now it has branched out to where more than 1,000 people get involved.
I think it's a fine project, which is why I went to see Harry Blevins. He's the retired principal of Great Bridge High, and now he's one of the head honchos of ``Paint Your Heart Out Chesapeake.'' I told him I would be willing to help spread the word but not to spread the paint. I am a lousy painter.
How lousy? This lousy: My wife and I have an agreement. If I pick up a paint brush, she picks up the phone and calls a divorce lawyer. Though an expensive agreement, it has preserved our marriage into its 43rd year.
Not that you have to paint to take part. Behind the 25 painting teams of 25 members each, there are back-up tasks of all kinds. Or you can donate equipment or cash. Legal-tender green is a very nice color.
Just like white is a very nice color for a house. So the Rotarians figured that's what they would paint all the houses the first year.
But they didn't figure on offending the artistic sensibilities of a lady in Great Bridge. She did not - repeat, did not - want white. She wanted yellow. So yellow was what she got, and the painters now try to satisfy whatever color choice comes along.
While the Paint-Your-Heart-Outers only promise a paint job, they very often tackle minor repairs and such. Because team membership cuts across the whole community, there is a lot of varied ability available. Blevins remembers one house where a Navy team was swinging the brushes and the homeowner said she was worried.
The source of the worry was an enormous tree limb she was afraid would pay her roof an unwelcome visit during the next high wind. Navy to the rescue with rope and tackle and can-do spirit. Limb down. Lady happy.
For that matter, ``Paint Your Heart Out Chesapeake'' has left a solid trail of happy homeowners. Maybe none happier than the 91-year-old who Blevins talked to. She told him she woke up on the appointed morning to find a bunch of handsome young men crawling all over her house with paint brushes. Ninety-one or not, she spiffed herself up from head to toe for the occasion.
``By the afternoon,'' she said, ``I was so excited and so tired I could hardly wait to take my teeth out.''
As you might figure, you don't just hand brushes and buckets to 625 people and tell them ``Go paint!'' There are, for instance, painting classes for the willing but unskillful. There are preliminary visits to the homes so the elderly owners aren't rattled by the descent of a platoon of strangers. There are cellular phones for quick communication between headquarters and individual teams.
But what was that Robert Burns said about the best laid plans of mice and men? At one house, the cellular phone was locked in a car with no key available. Nobody could steal it, but nobody could use it either.
I couldn't talk to an old public school hand like Blevins without asking him what he thinks about the current hoo-rah over educational quality. First off, he said, he thinks the quality of education in the Great Bridge schools is as good as it ever was. And that, all over the country, there are children getting a good education in a safe environment.
But that doesn't mean there aren't problems. He calls them problems that reflect the community, like what he labels ``a total breakdown of civility.'' Discipline loses when there are kids no longer intimidated or controlled by the authority an adult can wield.
And, Blevins points out, we're asking public schools to do so much: Educate the unruly and the severely handicapped. Teach kids to drive. Give them the sex education so many parents won't give them. Pioneer social change, as when schools had to integrate while the rest of society kept the walls up.
Meanwhile, Blevins says, the private schools can pick and choose their students. Discipline problem? Out. You can't come here any more. Plus the very fact that a child is in a private school means a commitment by the family. So public school-private school comparisons just aren't very fair.
Back at the ``Paint Your Heart Out Chesapeake'' project, Blevens said that homeowners have to be at least 62 or handicapped and can't have an income of more than $12,000 a year. The number to call is 436-0293. That's also the number to call if you want to be a financial sponsor or a volunteer worker.
As I said, though, I'll help them by not painting. I'm so incompetent that if I did paint, they would arrest me for assault and splattery. by CNB