wet paint

the invitation

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a longhandled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant whitewashed streak with the farreaching continent of unwhitewashed fence, and sat down on a treebox discouraged. Jim came skipping out at the gate with a tin pail, and singing Buffalo Gals. Bringing water from the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom's eyes, before, but now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at the pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarrelling, fighting, skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only a hundred and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water under an hour -- and even then somebody generally had to go after him. Tom said:

"Say, Jim, I'll fetch the water if you'll whitewash some."

- From "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", by Mark Twain

We had a backyard barbecue and fence painting party today. Okay, so it's not the most original idea we've ever had for a party. Young Tom Sawyer happened upon it first when he decided to get his friends to help him paint Aunt Polly's fence. Regardless, our fence needed to get painted, so we thought it would be the perfect excuse to get some friends together for some summertime fun and barbecuing. The fence got painted, we enjoyed good food, cold drinks, great beach party tunes from my university dorm days...and I even got a bit of a tan! I wanna do it again next week. Except for the painting part.