CATEGORY: METZGER
PHOTO: FAMILY ROOM MURAL
One day in the mid ’50’s, driving along Barbur Boulevard, I saw a new billboard.  It was a Rainier Beer ad.  The whole billboard was a picture of a golden grain field with Mt Rainier in the background rising above green and purple foothills.  The foreground was swaying heads of ripe barley that extended from the bottom to the top of the billboard as if someone had taken a photo lying down at the edge of the field.  RAINIER BEER was written in curving script over the top, and a frosty beer can was below it and to one side, but the part showing Mt. Rainier, the grain field and barley heads was without blemish.

I fell in love with that picture.  How many times had I gone walking in the wheat fields at the top of the hill above our valley and sat or laid on the ground looking out at “our” mountain through the heads of grain.  Our grain was wheat, and our mountain was Mount Hood, but Mount Rainier and barley were of the same vernacular–maybe even more wonderful, because barley heads were bearded and much more graceful than wheat.

The sign was very large and I wondered if the picture part would fill up the wall of our house in the room I had just created out of our bedroom: a combination family room and bedroom–a room that was open to the kitchen and more casual than our living room.

When I got home, I called the number for Rainier Beer in Portland and was able to get the address for the home office in Seattle.  I wrote to them asking if it would be possible to get one of their billboard ads and if so what they would charge.  A few days later someone from Rainier called me.  He said they had some extras of the ad, and they would be happy to send me one free of charge.  I was thrilled!  I thanked him profusely.  It arrived a few days later.  Rainier even paid the postage.  As it turned out, the picture part just fit the eleven foot wide by eight foot high wall in our new room.  Every day my heart expanded into that view.  Every night I was rocked to sleep in the cradle of the deep, deep barley.

The pictures I have included here show the combination of kitchy decor and unfinished details that I didn’t know how to resolve. Note the fir-tex ceiling, the joints of which I had filled but not painted.  Sheet rock would have been the answer.  To the right of the mural is the last 2×4 left from tearing out the wall and, at the ceiling, what was left of the top plate.  On the floor in front of the hearth is where the closet wall was torn out.  I had removed the bottom plate and filled the space with putty.  Of course it should have been another floor board.  I couldn’t make the hearth any wider because the hearth tile wouldn’t have come out even.  These things just show what an amateur I was.