Colorblind Graffiti

I think a book could be written about the late Chuck Cuminale, AKA Colorblind James (see some fantastic history of the Colorblind James Experience here). Somebody oughta write a book. He was a lot of things to a lot of people, a local 'rock' band leader, songwriter, poet, not to mention a husband and father of three boys. Taken at the age of 49. I grew up next door to Chuck, so he was always Chuck to me, as opposed to the personality "Colorblind" to much of the rest of world. As a kid, and as an adult for that matter I definitely looked up to him. Some comments I wrote about him after his death can be found here, along with comments by so many others who knew him well, many better than me.

I often think about him and the things we did together during childhood. A while back I remembered an incident from all those years ago that was particularly funny to me, so I wrote it up and passed it along to just a few people who I had Chuck in common with as a close friend. It was just one of those things that showed how Chuck was not like other kids.

Allow me to recycle it:

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Let’s call it 1967. I’m about thirteen years old. I live a short distance away but I’m hanging out with my old Manse Lane buddies. A veritable gang, we are. I’m probably the youngest of the bunch, along with Jim Lotze. The gang is rounded out, as best I can remember by Rick Lotze, Horse Provenzano, Carl Hotto, Wayne Young, and fearless if somewhat reluctant leader Chuck. If I’m thirteen these guys are about 16. This gang was a bunch of wiseasses if not badasses. There were no future convicts in this group. The order of the day was wisecracking humor, making fun of others, barbs back and forth.

A summer night with nothing to do, so we roam. Probably from house to house, gaining gang members and moving on. Eventually we are out in the open weedy field that ran along behind the houses on the south side of the street. That field used to be unoccupied by anything except a makeshift lacrosse field that we used after someone’s father mowed down some of the weeds. But on this night the eastern end is now a construction site, where the Rochester Christian School is being erected. It’s a typical construction site, with a bulldozer, piles of materials and equipment and partially-raised brick walls.

Lo and behold, someone had a can of spray paint. Red. I have no idea why they have it, or if it was premeditated to bring it. But there it is, and now the talk is of vandalism, and what to paint with it. We laugh at various things we could do with the spray paint. It’s dusk and moving quickly into darkness. More laughing. There happens to be a large white shed on the far side of the site. Chuck has settled on what its going to be. The paint is going on the shed. We have now moved into graffiti vandalism. But unlike any other mid-sixties roaming gang of teenagers on a summer night, there will be no drawings of genitalia, marijuana leaves, no profanity, no racial slurs. And it is further decided that we will each take turns contributing to the act, so all are equally culpable. The cap comes off and the paint goes on. When the deed is done, we step back briefly to view our handiwork before taking off into the darkness. In neat, large, red block letters, we have championed a great cause to all who can read: “Re-elect Chester A. Arthur."

painting by Paul Dodd:

http://www.therefrigerator.net/art/paintings/icons6.html