Education: The Painter

Promptly at 8 o'clock every morning since Dec. 20, the painter and his helper showed up at the Harrison Elementary School in Washington, D.C. Without a word to anyone, they went to work on the outside of the building. No one knew the men's names, and when one staff member remarked that he had no idea that the school was up for a painting, the painter airily replied, "Oh, you know how the Government is." He worked even on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve, and each night he vanished as mysteriously as he had come, taking his brushes and buckets with him.

Last week, with the school covered in a fresh coat of buff paint, the painter hung up a sign saying, "Decorating by George T. Smith, 1309 Clifton St., N.W.," and left for good. But who was George Smith? And who had sent him? The supervisor of repairs, who had once noted that the painter was violating safety regulations by standing on a ladder (rather than a window jack), did not know; nor did the principal or any of the teachers. Finally, the Washington Post decided to find out.

Smith, it turned out, is a worrier. One day he started worrying about the look of the school that his nine-year-old daughter attends. "I was driving by the school with my wife," he explained, "and I said I was going to paint that school. I meant I'd bid on it some time. But it kept coming back to my mind. It said, Taint it,' and I answered, Taint it?' 'Yes,' it said. Taint it for nothing.' And I said, 'Oh, no, not for nothing.' I was talking to myself, and it kept coming back. It stayed on my mind every day until mid-December. I was getting an ulcer. I went to a doctor.

He said I was worrying, and I knew then I had to get that school off my mind." Smith talked his brother-in-law into helping him and swore his daughter to secrecy. "I never painted a school before. There were 241 openings I had to paint. I had to paint things the same color as they were, because I was afraid to change things. I figured when they found out I was doing it for nothing, I'd end up in jail." Smith's job saved the city more than $1,000, and for the time being he feels at peace. "But," says he, "I guess if it came in my mind again and began worrying me like that, I'd do it again."