49: The boats employed . . .
Little Follies, “Life on the Bolotomy,” Chapter 6
6
The boats employed in the harvesting of clams from Bolotomy Bay are painted in shades of gray, and are as little distinguished from one another as are the men who captain them or the clams that they hunt. Though all imaginable gradations of gray are represented, the most popular is a brownish gray, much the color of the bay itself. What a delightful contrast the gaily colored pleasure boats make, each as it were a frolicsome Pierrot, flitting about among the clumsy, mirthless, working boats.
Boating on the Bolotomy
RASKOL AND I rummaged in Grandfather’s cellar, and found a few half-empty cans of paint. None contained enough to cover much area, so a debate ensued between us on the subject of the best way to paint the boat with what we had. I suggested stripes, but Raskol wanted to take the easy way out.
“Here,” he said, “I’ll get a bucket, and we’ll mix all the paint together, and then we’ll have enough to cover the whole boat, and we can get started on the painting right away.”
I was against that.
“Wait,” I cried. “Don’t do that. You’ll wind up with a drab, joyless muck. We want something bright, gay, optimistic. Watch this.”
I poured a little of each color of paint onto the lid of one of the cans and stirred the colors together with a stick. The result looked much like the muck beneath the Lodkochnikovs’ house.
“What’s wrong with that?” asked Raskol. He looked at me with genuine surprise. “That’s my favorite color,” he said. “Taupe. It’s quiet, and it goes with almost anything. Most of the clam boats on the bay are that color, haven’t you ever noticed? The clammies like it because it doesn’t clash with anything. Say you paint your boat yellow instead, and then you go out to buy rain gear. You buy yellow rain gear and take it back to the boat, and the first time a storm blows up, you pull the rain gear out and put it on. Well, the chances are very good that the boat and the rain gear won’t be the same yellow, and they’ll look just awful together. Your whole day is ruined. Not only is it raining, but your colors are clashing. You look like a jerk. You feel like a jerk. You might as well call it quits and go back in. But if you paint your boat taupe, then just about anything looks pretty good with it, and a little splash of color seems to kind of stand out.”
[to be continued on Wednesday, July 21, 2021]
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