Apologetic

  When I was a young kid living on a dirt road bordering northwest woods in East Hampton, yes the Hamptons, I didn't have any neighborhood child to play with. I had an older sister and two older brothers. Most of the time that was the gang as visitors were few and far between. For reasons I really can't explain our friends didn't come to our house, we always went to theirs. But we had the woods to play in and explored them endlessly. The woods were our refuge. I'm not going to tell you how we became expert woodsmen and learned about all the animals, plants and secrets of the woods. No, we just played in them and occasionally hunted a few pheasants or a squirrel. Deer hunting was very restricted and we had no part in any of that. We did pick "Lady Slippers" for mom, they were her favorite. The thing is they were supposed to be a protected species and against the law to pick. At least that is what we were told. We picked them anyway, watching carefully for anyone that might get us. Never got caught.

  At the far end of that dirt road, Hunting Lane I later learned was its' name, there was a home owned by a man named Pablo. He was some kind of artist and was only there during the season. Back then the season was a real thing, lasting from memorial day to labor day. He would come with his family and paint these rather large art pieces on what appeared to be plywood. I had never seen any artist canvas that big so I figured that what it was. Besides canvas is flexible and folds up, that stuff wasn't doing that. I met him a few times and watched as he splashed his paint on those boards. He explained what he was painting and I just nodded in agreement. Back in my day that is what you did with adults, you just nodded and went along with whatever they said. When labor day was approaching he would pack those things away in a little shed. I have no idea if they were finished works and not, no telling with those things. I couldn't tell which way you were supposed to look at them either, was it a portrait or a landscape? I'm thinking Pablo suffered from vertigo.

  I recall one year when my brothers and I decided to build a tree fort. Dad was a builder and so had some 2x4's and the like laying around that we could take, he wouldn't miss them. So, we built the framework for a tree house about six foot off the ground or so. Those old scrub oaks don't grow all that big and so we were limited by that. We had some good sturdy boards of various sizes to use for flooring and built that but what we needed was some walls. Well, we knew where there were some sheets of plywood, already painted and ready to go. Yes, we raided that little shed of Pablo's. Those sheets were about four foot in height as I remember and maybe six foot long or the other way if you want to look at it that way, we used the shorter side for the vertical portion of the walls. It was the only way we would have enough to go all the way around. We did put the painted side facing in so as to hide the crime. At a later time we came to get some carpeting from someplace and run it on the floor and up those walls. We spent quite a few hours inside our fort doing what boys do. Yes, we had a few cigarettes, beer and some literature secreted there as well. 

  I don't remember when we abandoned it or what became of it in the years that followed. I imagine it was discovered by some other kids playing in the woods. I have thought about it often over the years, the theft of that art I mean. At the time we never gave that a thought figuring Pablo wouldn't know what happened. I have no idea what that mans' last name was or if he was an established artist or not. Where those works valuable? I still have no idea about that. I don't recall ever hearing anything about it so I'm guessing it wasn't a big deal. No report to the local authorities or anything, otherwise I'm certain I would heard about that. It would have been a topic of conversation at the dinner table for certain given he lived on my road. 

  At some point Pablo quit coming and that house was rented. It was controlled by what we called welfare back then, section eight housing today. A family named Hulse was there for a short time and they had kids. I remember a kid named Teddy and his sister Peggy. Then they moved away, I remember being quite sad about that. Hard to believe all of that was over sixty years ago. I'm sorry Pablo that we took your artwork that way. I hope it didn't cause you too much grief. Never did figure out what the picture was supposed to be but that paint sure was thick. I remember sanding it down some before we got that carpet. Hoping I didn't sand a few thousand dollars away.

 Maybe his name wasn't even Pablo. It could be that is just what my dad called him. You know Pablo Picasso. I certainly wouldn't have called him by his first name, just yes sir or no sir. You didn't call adults by their names! Still, I think his name was Pablo, he looked like a Pablo. He wore round glasses, was bald on top and had bushy black hair on the sides. A little overweight, paunchy is what we called it, and looked like a Mexican. Didn't know about Latinos back there, they were all Mexicans. He wore baggy white pants and a pullover shirt, also white. The big tell was that he wore sandals! Yes he wore those  "curararchas" , that's what we called them but I've learned the real name is huarache. All I knew is they weren't like anything the men I knew wore. Only one I saw wearing them was Speedy Gonzales. I figured all Mexican people wore them. Well, whoever he was, I apologize. My bad. 

                                                                               

Looked like this. Can you identify the artist? My dad did some plumbing work for him back in the day. He didn't live in that house though.