I spent the better part of a warm summer afternoon — when I could have been jogging or golfing or fishing or working on my tan — doing my best to expose my young children to art. That’s just the kind of guy I am.

We took our artfully planned picnic lunch to Davis’ latest red-hot cultural attraction, the Massive East Area Tank (MEAT) and were shocked to find we were the only ones there. In fact, so absent were the expected crowds that we were able to park right next to the tank and had the lone bench available all to ourselves.

Yes, this would be the same MEAT that our beloved city fathers and mothers decided to decorate with 75,000 of your dollars and mine, hoping it would lure cash-laden tourists off the freeway and into our trendy town.

Decorate the tank and they will come, so the thinking went. But, based on the number of tourists attracted so far, the city would have been better off simply tossing 75,000 one-dollar bills into the wind and letting Davis’ merchants scramble for them with brown paper bags.

To be fair, the art on the tank is apparently not complete. At least one certainly hopes not. And the Red-Headed Girl of My Dreams warned me against writing this column prematurely.

“Why don’t you want until it’s finished and then comment,” she said. “You might be surprised at what they come up with.”

Hard to imagine. In fact, it’s hard to describe the collection of drab colors currently gracing the MEAT without being both crude and rude.

“That’s art?” asked our 7-year-old with a wrinkled nose. “Mickey could have done that,” she added, disparaging her 6-year-old brother.

Let’s just say that the art on the tank, as currently constituted, is not likely to be mentioned as a “must-see” attraction in the 2011 AAA guidebook for Northern California.

Sure, I realize $75,000 is just a drop in the bucket, but when we’re told that the bucket is empty and swimming pools will have to be closed and city employees laid off, suddenly $75,000 for random yellowish-brown paint strokes on a water tank seems like a lot of money.

Worse yet, nearly a quarter of the tank is entirely obscured by a large pump house that is easily twice the size of an East Davis starter home. Young trees block visibility at other strategic points as well, and when those little trees become big trees, hardly anyone will be able to see the tank at all. Which, based on what we observed, is probably a good thing.

Still, if this is to be the tourist attraction the city envisioned when it passed out the cash for this project, why is the entire MEAT surrounded by a rock-solid, 9-foot, pitch black fence with spikes on top? Not to mention sharply worded “WARNING” signs all around, telling what ills will befall the poor soul who dares to breach the tank’s security.

Hardly the kind of thing to give a warm-and-fuzzy feeling to a first-time visitor to our town.
Shouldn’t this wonderful piece of public art be surrounded by picnic tables and lush green lawns and daffodil-lined walking paths instead of a forbidding fence, threatening signs and thick patches of star thistle, the most lethal weed known to man or beast?

Even the eastbound Amtrak didn’t slow even a whisker to give its passengers a glimpse as it roared off toward Reno while we dined in the tank’s shadow.

If we’re to truly get our money’s worth here, and we should, let’s turn the pump house into a true Pump House, serving 40 kinds of beer with burgers and onion rings on the patio. And let’s follow the words of that famous former governor of California, Ronald Reagan, who told Mr. Gorbachev to “tear down this wall.”

Yes, art must be appreciated up close and personal. The fence must go. School children should be able to touch the tank with their own two hands and smell the yellowish-brown paint as their imaginations run wild.

Even a Picasso doesn’t rate this kind of security.

— Entries to the Contest to Replace the Above-Pictured Columnist are due by Friday, Aug. 19. Entries may be about any subject, should be between 400 and 800 words and emailed to [email protected] Be sure to include an email address, daytime and evening telephone numbers and a brief background on the author.

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