Prince of Tidings : Richard Perkins wants to be heard, so he takes his message to the streets of Tustin--on the tailgate of his truck. The weekly signs have become a tradition.
Perhaps because we live and drive in an area with no discernible geography (now that you can hardly see the Matterhorn) or architecture (“Just turn left at the 23rd strip mall”), our eyes place a premium on roadside distractions.
From giant doughnuts to the jocular message signs of Toro Tools or the old Chippers Nut Hut, we need these things to break the freeway monotony. I’ve spent many a happy time tooling along the 405 in Los Angeles imagining battles between that giant golfer and the Western Exterminator man, thinking of their respective 3 wood and mallet whacking BMWs and Volvos out of their paths.
Though not known to as large a public, many drivers in Tustin keep an eye out for Richard Perkins’ aged Chevy pickup truck. Every week since 1984 the 70-year-old retiree has adorned its tailgate with a different painted message. This past week it was “Vote out all, all, all in-come’ bents.”
Like rock star Prince--but not much--Perkins likes to use modified spellings, the explanation for this one being, “The income is your salary getting spent, and the politicians are all bent out of shape anyway. I know it’s not spelled right, but it draws attention, doesn’t it?”
His post-election message this week will likely read, “If God can get by on 10%, why can’t the government?”
Perkins often can be found sitting in his garage headquarters with a weathered Bible and a cold Meister Brau, watching the world pass by and figuring what to say about it on his truck. On this particular day, his gray crew cut was getting long enough to flop over a bit, and one of his steady progression of Carlton cigarettes was causing a tiny trash fire in a coffee can next to his chair.
“I wear two different color socks,” he pointed out, “You know why? Because I can--I’m single.”
He jots some of his ideas down in a little notebook. He turned to a page at random and handed it over.
“This says ‘barbecue sauce,’ Mr. Perkins.”
“Oh, that’s my shopping list.”
His actual messages frequently will suggest reading a particular Scripture verse. Other times it asks: “If this were our last day what would we do?” He can lampoon either national or local politics. When the city’s planning commission was considering making a neighbor get rid of his roosters, Perkins’ message was, “Save the roosters and fry the commissioners.”
He and the truck live on a residential part of Tustin’s Main Street. No one, he said, pays any attention to the actual traffic signs, so as a public service, he changed his message to “This street is closed” when freeway construction blocked the way. On Mother’s Day, he’s painted, “You only ever have one mother, so send her flowers, or don’t shoot her, anyway.” That’s about as long as he lets his missives get. “I can get it all on there, but some people have to go around the block a second time to get all of it,” he said, “Once in a while I just paint, ‘I’ll give you a break,’ and have no message.”
The painting rarely takes him more than five minutes. He goes over the previous lettering with a can of black spray paint--”It’s on about this thick now,” he said, indicating the thickness of a cigarette pack--and brushes the new one on in white.
People have told him they drive down the street only to see what his newest message is. Others leave notes on his truck, some supportive and some disagreeing. Once kids or gang members scrawled spray paint on the driver’s door. “They should have painted the whole truck. It could use it,” he said.
Perkins didn’t set out to become a tradition. He started because “the truck was just sitting there, and it was like when you get the urge to change your house, so you just change it.”
He was born in Grand Rapids, Mich., but has lived in Orange County since 1934. He recalls when the street in front of his house was just a dirt road.
For his last 20 years in business he was a dispensing optician, owning Perkins Optical in Corona del Mar. Before that, “I used to pull radishes. I made false teeth, I worked for Western Union. I was in the service, in Pearl (Harbor) when they bombed it. Just a normal life, like anybody else.”
His penchant for unique signage began with one painted on his business door in his optician days. It read, “If the sun is shining, it’s foggy or it’s raining, I’ll be a little late. But when it’s time to leave, I’m gone .”
One might call his Bible well-thumbed, if bears had thumbs: The front cover is torn off and the rest of the book has seen such use that the pages appear to have been clawed. “A lot of people think this book isn’t up-to-date, but you can find everything in here, right up-to-date, if you look for it,” Perkins said.
For example, one recent message, “Let’s try Proverbs, Chapter 17,” was inspired, he said, by “these high fives you see a lot of people doing, the sports figures and everybody.” Turning to a page in Proverbs, he read, “Man, void of understanding, striketh hands.”
He does often try to make a moral point on his tailgate. On Thanksgiving, for example, the message was, “Let’s be thankful for what we’ve got, not what we want.”
“People want so much and they can’t afford it. That’s why they’re so screwed up. It sure would be nice to have a Cadillac in the driveway, wouldn’t it? Aaah, that Cadillac won’t get me any further than that thing will,” he said, pointing to a tired Toyota.
“I always put ‘ Let’s try,’ because it means all of us, not you . I don’t believe in the word I . It’s we . ‘If we would do things together we wouldn’t have as many problems, but it’s always I, I, I.”
Despite that sentiment, Perkins does like to keep his tailgate ticklers to himself.
“This garage is the ‘beer barn.’ My buddies come over around 3:30 and have a little gab session most days. They’ll always suggest things to me to put on there, but I never write them down. I just listen and ignore it. You’ve got to have some little individuality to express our opinions. I don’t get around much--see, I have cancer and other problems--and the truck is my way to be heard out there.”
