The story of colours (English spelling of color) in my life started when there was a
blackout in the Second World War. My mother lived in London, England
and every time there was an air raid she would spend the
blackout in the shelter. During one air raid, my mother didn't hear
the sirens as she had fallen asleep. She had left her curtains open and
had left the lights on. You were not allowed to leave your curtains open
during a
blackout because the lights could be used by the bombers to find London more
easily. There was no
gray area where
blackouts were concerned. The local authorities had given her a
black mark for having failed to close her windows. That was when all
the blackness (bad things) had started to follow my family. After the war my mother had
married a Canadian soldier and moved to Canada. The rest of her family in
England were very upset that she had left England and she became the
black sheep of
her family. My dad was a big sports fan and over the years he liked to
watch his team on the television, but he hated it when his team played home
games because there would be a
blackout of the game and he would have to read about the results in the
newspaper the next day. One
Black Friday when he was supposed to be at work he stayed home to watch a
playoff game. He told his boss that he got a
black eye on the
loading dock. When he went to work the next day he forgot about his fake
black eye. His
boss took one look at him and knew that he had skipped work and said that he
would put a
black mark on his worksheet. He tried telling his boss that he had
said blacked out not
black eye 
but his boss
didn't believe that story either, and told him that he was giving him another
black mark for lying and that if he got one more
black mark he would be fired. My mom was the
black sheep
of the family for
leaving England and now my dad had a
black mark on his work record. Things were looking
black for
my family. 
When I was caught
red
handed, I
sometimes ended up with a really red hand (when I got spanked). Getting
caught
red
handed is what gave my dad the
black mark. I didn't think my
mom would put a
black mark beside my name, because I was so cute when I was
caught
red
handed, that she couldn't stay mad at me for long. After I grew up and left home
I got a job driving a truck. My mom and dad had hoped that I would go to
university and get a real job. My mom started calling me a
redneck. 
Now that hurt even more than being caught in the cookie jar, because being
called a
redneck made me feel that I had a
black mark on my name. My
brother had become a lawyer and made tons of money. My sister was a nurse
and saved people when they came to the Emergency Ward. I was the
black sheep of the family and a
redneck to boot! What made it even worse
was that I was having trouble paying the bank for the loan on my truck. I was
in the red with the bank and they were threatening to put a
black mark on my credit
record. This would make it hard for me to get a credit card. 
I would be
so far
in the red with the bank
that they would
put a
black mark on my credit rating. My only choice was to sell the
truck, but if I sold the truck I couldn't make any money to finish paying back
the loan to the bank. I was in a
black mood and
feeling blue.
I said to my mom that she hadn't helped me out in a
blue moon. Then
my mom got really mad at me and the
air was blue. I kept batting my
baby blues and telling mom that if I could just get the money for the next payment I
would then be able to get a great contract to haul trash for the city and from
then on it would be nothing but blue sky, because the garbage would just keep on
piling up and I would have a job for life. She told me that I could plead
with her until I was
blue in the face,
she was not going to give me my loan payment.
and after giving me a bad time about being
a
redneck she finally said that she would give me the money. She was sorry
that I was
in the red with the bank and she wanted me to be
in the black.
I told her that I thought she had a
heart of gold.
I told her that even though I was only a
redneck to her, I wasn't too
yellow to go to the bank
and beg them for money, but that I didn't think they would give it to me anyway. She said that she
always remembered the
golden rule and would help her
redneck son get out of
the red and into the black. As she put it, Maybe garbage is going to be your
pot of gold!
Very quickly I was able to turn my one truck into a whole fleet
of trucks and after a while I even started hauling garbage for two other cities.
Garbage had turned into my
pot of gold. I had often thought that
the
grass was greener on the other side of the fence when I looked at how well my
brother and sister had done in their jobs. 
When I didn't go to university
because I was afraid I wasn't smart enough, my brother had called me
yellow.
That had hurt me badly and I knew that driving a truck made me the
black sheep of
the family. But I didn't envy them any more. My brother's firm had
trouble and had let him go. My sister finally couldn't take the pressure
of her job as a nurse and had quit. She now worked out of her house and
made jewelry that she sold at craft markets. I gave my brother a job
driving one of my trucks. He was grateful and I was no longer the
black sheep of the family. My brother had run through a
Florida Green with a
whole load of manure and crashed the truck into a telephone pole. There
was stuff everywhere! He tried convincing the police that he thought that
the light change was sort of a
gray area and that he thought that he would beat
the red light. The police said that the traffic camera had caught him
red
handed and there was no
gray area where running a red light was concerned. They arrested him
and threw him in jail for dangerous driving. Now he was the one with the
black mark and was the
black sheep
of the family. 
I was in in the black and would never be in
the red again, since
garbage had turned into my
pot of gold.Idioms in the story:
blackout,
gray area,
black mark, black sheep,
Black Friday,
black eye, blacked out,
black,
in the black
tickled pink,
in the pink,
red letter day,
red
handed,
redneck,
in the red,
baby blues,
caught between the devil and the deep blue sea,
feeling blue,
blue moon,
air was blue, blue sky,
blue in the face,
heart of gold, bad time,
yellow,
golden rule,
pot of gold,
green stuff,
green thumb,
the
grass was greener on the other side of the fence,
Florida Green,
