Reunion
We had a family reunion recently. Originally, six were scheduled to attend but the number crept to eleven. Some drove almost two hours for fried seafood plates by the ocean’s edge. Diets be damned. New Englanders are suckers for such a meal, with ice cream afterward.
A restaurant popular with locals and tourists was chosen for the special noon occasion. Fortunately, we found two adjacent tables to accommodate our crowd and claimed them. Unbeknownst to us, while we took our time determining who was going to have what, a busload of retired tourists showed up. Naturally, they got in line ahead of us, but that was fine, for we continued evaluating our lunch options while in line. Once we had our trays, we finally settled into the reason we were there.
There was the usual banter about which of the kids are married, who’s had a baby, health issues, diets, etc. Then, one of the cousins opened a folder with a dozen or so old family photos. People started shooting them with their cell phones. “Oh, I remember her, that house, the dog” was the type of comment the photos elicited.
There’s something remarkable about reunions. People yearn to catch up, in person. Facebook is alright for those who use it, but if you’re like me, you prefer the eye-to-eye contact a reunion offers. At our gathering, the matriarch of the clan was present and everyone flocked around her, curious about her goings-on and well-being. I doubt she has any social media accounts, so it was nice speaking directly with her.
I had not planned to depict in paint the occasion, but when I saw the cell phone photo for which we assembled, I could not resist. Given that we met at a seafood hut, I put everyone in a typical, yellow fisher(wo)man’s rain suit. While painting, I had two realizations. First, reunions are like fish. Some fish swim in schools, as if they’re one entity. College reunions are like that. So are regional amateur Olympics, like those of the AYF and Homenetmen. Everyone wants to see that old friend once a year or run into that individual they haven’t seen in ages. Then, there’s the fish that swims alone, minding its own business and not concerned otherwise.
The second realization is that my painting is basically blue and yellow. So are the logos of Ikea and the University of Michigan. Yellow is the narrowest wavelength in the color spectrum, meaning there’s a lot less yellow to choose from than, say, blue or red.
Yet, Vincent Van Gogh used yellow expertly and probably better than any other artist. Honey bees are yellow-ish, as are yellowjacket wasps, obviously. Yellow sports cars pop on the highway, and there was the movie classic, The Yellow Rolls-Royce. No stock paint there. Caterpillar Inc. coats its heavy construction machines yellow. Lay’s potato chips, M&M’s and French’s mustard come in yellow containers and Clicquot’s champagnes in smugly sport yellow labels. Dorothy and friends followed the Yellow Brick Road. The Man in the Yellow Hat was Curious George’s friend. The phone book of yore was printed with a yellow cover and so was author Howard Floan’s 1966 book, William Saroyan.
Now, I feel more comfortable rendering the reunion attendees in bright yellow. Come to think of it: even I owned a Gorton’s Fisherman rain suit once. I used it for years, mostly when snow-plowing my driveway at my former Cambridge house. I bought it from my then part-time employer, the gas and electric utility (their trucks were yellow), when I graduated from college. I treated myself to a windjammer vacation along the coast of Maine and needed the suit. Coincidentally, the other vacationers had yellow suits, too.
So, I’m pleased with my yellow painting. I hope you like it. No jaundiced eyes here. And the reunion attendees? Well, I haven’t heard anything negative. Phew.
