9.15.2006

San Andreas Fault


I got mad the other day because I was thinking about how some kids would come to school with a project that their fathers helped them do (or did for them) and they would look beautiful and professional. In the 6th grade I was assigned to make a San Andreas Fault so I came home and begged my dad to help me with it. He said OK (for the first time ever) and I thought this was going to be "the one". We go to Paul's Arts & Crafts and get a box of modeling plaster. We brought it home and my dad mixed it and poured all of it in a metal pan. It has to set over night and it swells up like bread. It's fucking huge the next day and it's like a 2 square foot brick of white plaster thats smooth and hilly on top like butter top. Then my dad takes it out but he can't get a clean break in it like the fault so it shatters into a couple of different pieces. I line them up on some dirty old board we had in the garage and proceed to paint it with the brown (for the dirt) and green (for the grass) paint we got at Paul's except we just picked up any old paint we saw and this wasn't paint that sticks to fucking modeling plaster. I had to really pour the paint on but it was all uneven and you could see swirls of the white plaster underneath and it wouldn't dry so we had to leave it out over night. Then the next morning (when it was due) I went out to get the Fault and the paint/plaster/chilly spring morning combo that we created grew these long salt crystals all over it. So I had this white, brown and green fuzzy brick of broken cement "mounted" on a piece of plywood and the whole thing weighed about 25 pounds. I only weighed about 65. (A note about my dad) he was an amatuer junk yard owner, (for real) which was in our yard for at least 15 years, and I think his skills and interests reflected in the art of our San Andreas Fault. So my biggest regret now is that the fucking theme song from Sanford and Son wasn't playing at volume 10 while I presented this hulking piece of shit to my uninterested classmates.

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