The old flour mill property about a mile west of town is undergoing an extensive cleanup project. Raymond Pacheco is in charge of dismantling the old Robertson house, removing dead trees and beautifying the area surrounding the old grist mill which was built by Enos Hotchkiss in 1873.

This is a landmark of the Saguache area and I think it is great Dr. Nance and his wife are having many improvements done to their property.

I asked Raymond if I might have a board from the door jamb in the living room of the old Robertson house. I want this painted board as a memento of the work of a craftsman of an era long past.

When I was 16 years old, I worked as a carpenter’s helper for Dan Howard and helped on the construction of the new home up Rito Alto Creek for the newlyweds, Bill and Marie Shellabarger.

Harve Cutler was the painting contractor and my brother, Charlie was his helper. Harve was a painter of the old school – this was before the days of all our modern latex paints and other “do it yourself” items. Paint rollers were unheard of then. Professional painters used only the best of pure bristle and camel’s hair brushes.

Besides being a wonderful painter, Harve was also a great entertainer and story teller. He and his twin brother Cal were in Vaudeville when they were young men - I think in Iowa and both sang and played the banjo and were real crowd pleasers.

(The board from the Robertson house quite likely was the work of Harve Cutler). I never saw the work being done, but I well remember Harve describing the various steps of the process. The first step was a base coat of flat paint, tinted a shade of beige coloring. After the prime coat dried a secret formula, mixed with vanish stain was applied. Then special graining combs were used and the end result looked amazingly like the. grain of expensive wood. The final operation was a couple coats of good spar varnish.

The main ingredient of the above mentioned secret. Formula was stale beer. Harve said he and his brother once had some church pews to work on and when minister heard of their plans, he protested their method. Harve said the painters substituted buttermilk for stale beer on that job. But the results were not nearly so good!

After we moved from Saguache in 1955, I spent nearly 30 years working as a painting contractor.  It is common knowledge that it “goes against the grain” for a house painter to let a bottle of beer go stale!