| My first trip into Boston
in two and a half years started with bright blue skies and ended in
the rainy malaise that provided the backdrop for my whole trip.
My brother and I found a great parking space outside the Utrecht Art
Store, where I became intoxicated visiting my old paint supplier.
I fought temptation and ended up buying a minimal amount of needed
supplies, and we headed further into town. I was full of
vigor, ready for anything, free from the bounds of living in the
Commonwealth. We walked everywhere, snaking
our way through Back Bay, the Common, and up and down the wharf.
We made the requisite tourist stops like Cheers, Fanueil Hall, and
the like. We tried to see Austin sports painter
Opie
Otterstad's show of Red Sox World Series victory paintings I had
stretched a month earlier, but the gallery was closed.
As we wandered the streets, I kept expecting to get
into a fight with some Bostonian at any moment. I avoided the
subways and stayed over ground, doing my best to keep my spirits
high. It worked, as I viewed the city with a detached irony
and reveled in its good points while ignoring most of its
negatives.
It was refreshing to be in a large city again, and
the hustle and bustle is hard to get caught up in. While
heading closer to Government Center, we stopped off at the Old
Granary Burying Ground, where we snaked our way through hundreds of
antediluvian graves and found Paul Revere's nestled towards the
center back. I paid my respects to our little patriot
forefather, but got a bit disturbed seeing a Masonry symbol drawn
into the sand in front of his monument. Of course, he was a
Mason, as were 95% of the other people who founded this once great
country, but I still took a modicum of offense, mostly because of
all the
illuminati and conspiracy theories that have been floating
around my head of late. So, I stepped up and erased it with my
foot, forgetting Paul's bones were down below.
I then spent the next couple hours in a moral
conundrum over whether I should have or not. The deed was
done, and the skies began to turn. After being wowed by the
Big Dig, and setting off on a quest to find the Boston Tea Party
Boat, we ran through town dodging raindrops to get to Chinatown for
a hot meal. I told my brother if I saw a cop along the way I'd
ask him if we were heading the right way towards the Combat Zone.
That was the notorious den of sin, vice and murder in Central Boston
through the mid 80's. Now it's cleaned up and redeveloped, and
no one has probably uttered that phrase in Boston in fifteen years.
Unfortunately, all the cops were in one of Boston's ubiquitous
Dunkin Donuts avoiding the rain, so we chugged on.
After a filling Vietnamese meal, we made the long
trek back to the car, and Boston was just as I remembered, fun,
filled with things to do and see, and still mysteriously retains its
puritanical roots, but I was very happy to have a
home far away from it.
|
Apparently, mauve is the new black of the color field painters that
are always so trendy on Newbury Street. I mean, wouldn't that
painting look great over your couch? |
