Bill moved the single-wide down the road from Carol's folks place and we set up living at the corner of one of his fields. It was a great time in our lives. I was working as a car salesman for the local Ford dealership and Carol was a legal secretary in Moses Lake, thirty-seven miles each way, every day.

We moved in and Carol planted flowers, tomatoes and we put in a lawn. Prior to our moving there the front lawn area had actually been a giant, tumbled down haystack. The haystack was cleaned off and we found it had been home to thousands of friendly mice. Mice, coyotes, badgers, weasels, stray dogs, ferrel cats, skunks, and a few bullsnakes all lived around our yard area. Yard cats took care of the mice, a family dog kept us informed when coyotes were passing by, a shotgun and my twenty-two took care of the rest of the critters.

The single-wide came with an attached building for the washer, dryer and freezer. It was a plain sort of building and had definitely seen better days. Carol was busy decorating the yard with flowers. I decided to try my hand at decorating the house with my yet to-be-discovered art talent. I had always hankered to create some great art piece that would go down in history and so I pondered on a theme and finally arrived at Noah's ark. I could see it it in my mind's eye as I sketched it out on paper and then proceeded to do my Michaelangelo on the side of our building.

It came out pretty well if I do say so myself. Carol was supportive, being well-raised and not given to hurting the feelings of great artists. I put the finishing touches on it and then proceeded to enjoy it every night when I came home. I was the only one on our road who had one like it.

We lived ten and a half miles out of town on a three-mile long dirt road. Most of our traffic was neighbors or the school bus. I had the satisfaction of knowing that they could all see the painting from the county road as they drove by. Once in a while someone would slow down for a better look.

Some time after finishing my painting, we invited my folks out to enjoy dinner with us. They came and I was looking forward to hearing my dad's comments when he saw the side of our house. They arrived and we had a nice evening together, but nothing was mentioned about the mural. I was eager and curious. Finally I had to ask.

"Dad, did you see the side of the house when you pulled up?" I asked.

"Yes," came his reply.

"I painted it myself, what did you think of it?"

A short pause followed. I should have known to leave well enough alone. My dad has always been supportive. Whenever I wanted to do something productive and not fool-hardy, he was among the first to encourage me. The silence wasn't exactly what I had expected.

"Looks like a bunch of damn hippies live here," came his reply.

I guess he wasn't raised to appreciate great art.

At any rate, I continue to enjoy my painting for another three years until we finally sold the home to move to Moses Lake. By that time I had come to realize that perhaps I wasn't exactly another Raphael. In fact we were getting a little tired of it and I think Carol had even suggested that the wall could be repainted sometime in the future.

One day, after we put the home up for sale, a man said he wanted to buy it. Could we move out right away? He needed a house immediately. Yes, we moved out on the moment and went to live in Lee and Millie's basement. I was a little bit afraid that my painting might goof up the deal and I told the man that the side of the building could easily be painted over.

"Naw," he replied," I kind of like it."

It made my heart happy to know that another lover of fine art was moving onto our road.