Digger's Racing Stripes

In the mid sixties, Digger had a 1949 or 1950 Ford car. It ran good as all of Diggers autos died. All of the family borrowed the Ford when needed in case of an emergency. One time RaNae’s little brother, Jerry, who was going to BYU at the time, had his own car break down and needed a loaner. I arranged for him to use Digger’s ’49 Ford. After that, the car got nicknamed “Jerry.” I don’t remember what happened to the car The following is about Digger and the way he conducted his affairs while doing his job at BYU. It involves the car we called “Jerry.”

When Digger worked for BYU, he was always tearing buildings down, preparing sites for new construction, and general remodel on BYU facilities. It was his custom to carry a can of Blue spray paint in his truck in case he found anything that he wanted for himself. When coming on an object too big for him to move himself, he would get out and spray “Digger” on it in his handwriting in large cursive letters. Every one on the jobs then knew whose it was. Old swamp coolers, fans, pipe, furniture, toilets and other fixtures, 50 gallon drums, tanks, steel, plywood, other kinds of wood, it didn’t matter.

He saw most of this “stuff” as goods he could trade for something he really needed. In 1964 he had an old faded 1949 or1950 Ford. He made a deal with the guys in the BYU paint shop to trade him a new paint job for a toilet one of them needed in remodeling his house. The deal was, the color didn’t matter, just use whatever paint they had extra.

After about two weeks, they called him one night and told him they would finish it that night and it would be dry and ready for him the following morning.

Digger always left for work early in the morning. This was a Saturday and he got me up (We were visiting for the wekend) to go with him so that I could drive his truck back home and he would bring the car. We got there around 6:00 am – summertime so it was light. The garage to the paint shop was locked and no one was there yet but Digger wanted to see what the car looked like.

Digger couldn’t wait. He got a hammer out of his truck and started banging on the lock, but it would not break. Finally, he used the claw on the hammer to pry the door open just enough to put one eye up to the door and look in. As soon as he looked, he exclaimed “sons-a-bitches”, and stomped off to the truck.

I immediately ran up to the door and put my eye up to look in. The lights were still on inside curing the paint so I could plainly see what had been done. The painters had painted Digger’s Ford a most interesting dirt brown color – but that wasn’t what he had reacted to. Starting at the front grill and continuing uninterrupted up over the hood, top and trunk - except for the windshields, they had painted two “Digger Blue” racing stripes about 3” wide the length of the car.

We left the car and went back home. He never said anything. On Monday he went to work with a toilet in the back of his pick-up, traded it for his new paint job, told them how great it looked and drove it for many more years. When he came on campus, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind whose car it was.