Happy Holidays....2014

Wishing all of you that have taken the time to read some of my writings a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Frank “KiKi” Baltazar

Automotive Paints

By KiKi

I worked as an automotive painter for 40 years, give or take a few, owned my own body & paint shop for some years. I started as a painter’s helper in 1955 and I saw lots of changes in the types of paints used in those 50 years.

When I started in ‘55 there were two types of base paints used, lacquer and enamel. General Motors and Chrysler cars came from the factory with lacquer paint, which if you didn’t polish it at least once a month would start getting dull. In ’57 I believe it was; GM started using acrylic lacquer and that made it easier on the elbows because you didn’t need to polish it as often. Chrysler switched to enamel (vitreous) around the same time. At the time, Ford Co. cars were painted in enamel (vitreous).

In my early years as a painter’s help, the paint bases that were used for repair work was lacquer for spot repair and enamel (synthetic) for complete paint jobs…The lacquer had to be color sanded and rubbed with rubbing compound and polished once it dried. The synthetic enamel gave you a beautiful finish, but it didn’t last if you left your car out in the elements you were lucky if the paint job lasted three years. Good enamel painters were hard to come by. You could get a hand-rubbed lacquer paint job, but it was very pricey. Lacquer clear was not much used as it would in time crack.

In the mid-‘60’s paint manufacturers came out with an acrylic enamel base paint for spot repairs. In the early years after its debut, the acrylic enamel base paints created many headaches for the painters; as it had many kinks that took till the mid-‘70’s to be worked. By the late ’70s, the acrylic enamel was great for spot repair and complete paint jobs, it could also be rubbed like the old lacquer.

Just as the painters had the acrylic enamel down pat a new base paint was introduced by the car manufacturers in the late ’70s. The urethane, or polyurethane, was a two-stage finish (late a three-stage came out) a base color coat with a clear coat. Again, in the beginning, it was nothing but headaches for the painters. By the early ’80s, the problems with this base were worked out and the painters that mastered the system were making big bucks as they were in high demand.

As I was getting ready to retire in the early ’90s a new base paint, waterborne, came out, I never had a chance to use it. My understanding is that it is still used at the present time. I retired in ’93 and I never looked back.

Our Sixty-Second Wedding Anniversary

                 Connie at 15 years old, and I, at about 20 years old.

By kiki

I added some pictures to this piece that I picked at random of Connie and me at different times of our marriage, times that saw us grow old together.

Connie and I were kids when we were married on my 18th birthday, December 13, 1954, and here sixty-two years later, we still sometimes act like kids. But, of course, Connie will tell you that only I act like a kid, and she might be right. Although Connie also likes to say that I am in my second childhood, I tell her that I haven't gotten out of my first childhood yet!.

Connie at 15 years old and pregnant with our first progeny, daughter, Linda - 1956.

                           Us celebrating a mid-1960 New Year's Eve.

 Sixty-two years ago, Connie and I started a journey without knowing where we were headed. All we knew was that there was a life out there for us as a couple; where that life would take us, we didn't know, but we forged forward anyway, sometimes not too steadily because of my immaturity. And like most marriages, ours had its up and downs, but in the end, thanks to Connie's strength, it all worked out blissfully for us, and I thank her for that. Of course, we're not in sync all the time, and of course, we lose our temple and patience sometimes, but we are more forgiving because we've built a foundation of talking and listening that continues to anchor everything we do. I don't always agree with her, and she doesn't always agree with me, but that's okay. Because we respect each other and we've grown, we listen, and more importantly, we learn from each other. And through it all, she still laughs her beautiful laughter at some of my corny jokes.

                                 Us at the 1984 Los Angeles Toy Run.

 

In the sixty-two years we've been together, we've experienced happy and sad times. We enjoyed happy times when the kids were born and suffered sad times at the loss of a newborn child, a grandchild, and a great-grandchild. But we take solace in that those little Angels are looking over us. Losing our parents was also hard on both of us.…. We were like new parents when the grandchildren and now great-grandchildren started arriving. We now have so many of both that I've lost count. But I will say I love them all, whatever that count might be!!

At a 1990 company Christmas party

 The day in 2004 of my sister Mary Ellen's funeral

A mid-1990 Christmas

Connie and I may not agree on everything, but we've become two souls with a single thought. Two hearts that beat as one…Now, we laugh, weep and mourn the loss of loved ones as one being….And now that we have reached the twilight of our journey, we can look back at some very cherished, along with some bittersweet moments, and say, hell yes, we made it!.... Love you, Babe, and thank you for your devotion to our marriage…Happy Sixty-Second Anniversary, Babe, and I look forward to spending the next sixty-two years with you!! She'll probably say with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes, "hell no, 62 years is enough!" She loves to pull my chain that way, and I love it.

We got old

December 13 is now a bittersweet day for us. Yes, we celebrate our anniversary and my birthday on that date, but December 13 is when my older sister Rachel Baltazar-Egan, passed. So we will have a moment of silence on this, the 4th anniversary of her passing, to honor her.