The Brown Blue and Letting the Cutter do the Work

The Brown Blue and Letting the Cutter do the Work.------------------------------
While I was employed by Clyde White at the Western Auto, he decided that it was time for an upgrade and a modernization. He had the old style yellow brick front which came about knee high before the store front windows extended up to the old striped awning. The old style front was pulled out and replaced with a ceiling-to-floor plate glass front window encased in a gleaming brushed aluminum finish and topped off with a plate glass door to provide entry. What had once been the front windows in which Truetone T.V.’s sat so the public could gaze upon the wonder of a picture being transmitted by air from far away Nashville, now were replaced with showroom as the store’s floor now extended several feet forward toward the sidewalk. The old oiled hardwood floors were replaced with gleaming 12x12 tiles and eventually the final step, replacing the fixtures inside the store.
Western Auto provided assistance for store installing and modernization and our store installer was a guy by the name of Eddie Brown. He showed up one Monday morning from the Nashville area office and immediately brought new life to the store. He was one of life’s characters. He had a joke for every occasion and a glib reply to every inquiry. He was funny, accommodating, and engaging; and I enjoyed every moment he was with us. Eddie was the creator of “the Brown blue.” We were searching for a color to paint the walls that showed above the fixtures; one that would be vibrant and grab the customer as he came through the door. We weren’t able to fine one among our color charts that Clyde and Sadie felt was just right, so Eddie began to mix up some samples, eventually coming up with the brilliant blue that some of you may remember on the Western Auto walls. It was perfect and we called it “the Brown blue.”
The fixtures in Western Auto and Variety Stores in those days had bins for small items such as fishing bobbers, packages of Eagle Claw hooks, and License Plate bolts with orange reflector tops. The glass for these bins came in wooden crates and contained 48 pieces of glass 3 inches wide and 3 feet long. The bins themselves were constructed by measuring and cutting the glass to the desired lengths with a glass cutter. Eddie undertook to teach me to cut glass and he had his work cut out for him. I was trying as hard as I could but breaking as many pieces as I cut. The ones I was finally able to cut, were jagged edged and not presentable of customer viewing.
Finally Eddie put his arm around my shoulders and said, “Lets go down and get a coke.” We walked down to Oldham’s Pharmacy and he told me the secret of glass cutting.
He said, “R.C. the problem is, you are trying too hard.” “Thanks,” I though to myself, but he went on, “You are trying too hard, and pressing too hard, and over thinking what you are doing and the result is you are making too much impression on the glass. It’s like with girls. You like girls don’t you, R.C?”
I confirmed his suspicions that I did indeed like girls and he continued with his fatherly advice, “See it’s no good to try too hard, You end up making an impression alright, but it may be too much or the wrong kind. You understand what I’m telling you?”
I told him I did, which was only partly true, but he said, “Now let’s go back and you just relax and let the glass cutter do the work.”
And I did, and after a couple of false starts, I began to get the hang of it and let the glass cutter do the work to which it was especially adapted. Miracle of miracles, the glass began to cut and snap like butter, clean and smooth. It was a thing of beauty. .
It seems to me we often try too hard in life. The Lord has told us, “My burden is easy and my yoke is light.” but we insist on bearing our burdens alone instead of leaning on Him. The result in that instead of our edges being smooth and the impressions we make being clean and straight, we try to hard to be in charge of our own destiny and shatter what could have been useful. On occasion we need someone to put their arm around our shoulder and remind us to let up and let the cutter do the work.