John Lea came into town Monday morning with Willie, the devil, Frida Kahlo and a trophy strapped into the passenger seat of a pickup. The Orange native who now lives in Mexico arrived triumphantly with the trophy after winning top prize at the Houston Art Car show this weekend.
The painted 2003 pickup truck pulling a painted 50-year-old Serro Scotty Gaucho trailer gathered lots of stares at the Old Orange Cafe where he met friends and classmates from the Lutcher High Class of 1965. His friends in Orange knew him as “Butch,” a nickname he blames on his grandmother.
Lea is as colorful as his truck-trailer rig. He wore a Hawaiian-style shirt with a pattern that coordinated with the interior curtains of the trailer. The pattern includes the famous image of the iconic Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. His long, graying hair was pulled back into a ponytail and topped with a straw cowboy hat.
He retired to San Miquel de Allende, Mexico, where it’s cheap to live, and became an accidental art car owner.
When he lived in Austin, he bought the 2003 pickup and he’s owned it for 10 years. About eight years ago, he was on his leased land cutting cedar trees. He couldn’t see one of the stumps and ran into it. The front passenger side had a dent and he didn’t want to pay the insurance deductible to get it fixed.
He moved to Mexico about three years ago and after a while, he decided to get a painter friend to paint a design over the dent. Lea said he designed all the figures on the truck, and later the trailer. He told the painters where everything was to go. Fourteen days later, he had a colorful pickup.
The front bumper of the truck is lined with bright red devil faces. If you’re religious or superstitious, there are also images of saints. The grill is painted like an open shark’s mouth showing white teeth. Frida surrounded by monkeys is on the driver’s door. Then come the skull images from Mexico’s Dias de Muertas along the passenger side panel.
Lea added a wooden fence to the top of the side bed panels. The back panel is topped with a wrought iron design he created.
The Houston Art Car Show has become one of the most popular activities in that city and the parade of the entrants draws a quarter of a million spectators. Lea last year wanted to enter, but he missed the deadline.
Perhaps it was fate. This past year, he acquired the vintage tiny trailer and added it to the truck.
Lea has seven children and quips “we didn’t have television.” He was visiting a son, who’s a lawyer in Taos, New Mexico. A Craigslist ad had the trailer listed for $800 in a nearby town. He wanted it and left his number on an answering machine, but had no call back. The trailer was back on for a reduced price. When he called, a man answered and said he would sell it for $400.
Lea said he told his girlfriend he was going to buy the trailer, even though he had only $42. He spent $20 on gas and drove to get the trailer. He left his World Series ring as payment for the trailer until he could get his Social Security check and the cash.
A listener backs him up to the World Series ring. Besides having an MBA in finance and credit toward a doctorate in economics, Lea was a professional baseball scout for the Arizona Diamondbacks and when the team won, he too got a ring. He also scouted Diamondback top draft pick John Patterson, a West Orange-Stark graduate.
The scouting is only one of his ties to Fruit City. His grandfather and great-grandfather served as mayors of Orange. His uncle was a district attorney. He’s also related to the pioneering Ochiltree family.
His Texas roots also go to Brenham and Alexander Milroy, who started the creamery that turned into Blue Bell ice cream. A Blue Bell half-gallon carton is on one side of the trailer along with other Texas icons like Dr. Pepper, Whataburger and Nolan Ryan.
The images include the Southern Pacific Railroad’s Sunset Limited passenger train. Lea said he and his friend Bob Peterson used to ride the Sunset Limited from Orange to Houston. If you look around, you’ll also see images of LBJ and Lady Bird.
The door to the trailer includes a painted political poster touting Willie Nelson for president in 2016. “He’s more qualified than anyone running for president,” Lea said.
Lea, the truck and trailer are returning to the highways for more adventures and stares. He has a list of art car shows to attend, one as far away as Seattle. And he’s not worried about whether the truck will be able to complete the trips.
On the dash are figures of Buddha, Ganesh, a plastic alien he calls “Roswell,” and Our Lady of Guadalupe. Protection is coming from every angle.
-Margaret Toal, KOGT-
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