Napping by numbers

Saturday afternoon I was sitting in my favorite chair watching my favorite nap time show and just about dozed off when the phone rang.

Rats.

One thing led to another and I never did get that nap.

I come from a long line of nappers. My grandma in front of her chair at the stove. My mother on the couch. My grandfather in church. Three rows back from the front.

My favorite nap show is the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. I've learned a lot from Ross through the years- namely that a white man doesn't look good in an afro. But I also learned how paint.

Never mind that I haven't put on a smock in, oh, 30 years. Just watching Ross has given me the confidence that, if someone put a gun to my head, I, too, could crank out a pretty good scenic as long as I had a steady supply of Alizarin Crimson, Bright Red, Cadmium Yellow, Sap Green, Phthalo Blue, Van Dyke Brown, Midnight Black and Titanium White.

(In fact, whenever I see an artist looking real serious up in Glacier Park painting a scenic, I'll come up behind them and take their picture. They like that part, until I bring up Ross. You ever see that Bob Ross show? Now there's a painter. I always get a look like I just stuck my thumb in their eye. It's a real hoot.)

But Ross's true gift, like most PBS programming, is putting me to sleep. Every Saturday afternoon, if Ross comes on, I can be zonked out before he's putting shadows on his happy little rocks.

I think it's his voice. It's quiet, sort of like a preacher. Whatever the case, it's a good as gold come nap time.

Ross is actually dead, God bless him. He died 10 years ago at the age of 52. I suffered a small, but memorable panic attack at the time.

"What about my Saturday afternoon nap?" I said to my wife.

At first, other painting shows were aired, but none of them did the trick.

"I don't want to learn watercolors damn it! I just want to sleep! Sleep! You hear me?" I'd yell at the set.

Fortunately, the network that resurrected Lawrence Welk also brought Ross back from the dead. My Saturday afternoons were saved.

Now I read last week in the Daily Inter Lake that a feller from Lakeside is going to do a similar show, focusing on painting scenics in Glacier National Park.

I haven't heard his voice yet. I don't know if his clouds are happy and his rocks are smiling. They darn well better be. I got a nap to take.

Chris Peterson is the editor of the Hungry Horse News.