Requiem for a Lost Day

I feel as if I should be out quahogging or calculating the precise length of the Rhode Island coastline with a 444-square-mile tape measure. Or competing in an all-you-can-eat gaggers-till-you-gag eating contest. Or joining Awful-Awful-aholics Anonymous.

Instead, like most Rhode Islanders, I’m slogging through work on a typical too-much-to-do Monday. Not that the work is physically taxing. Just a matter of putting the Arts & Living section to bed, writing a magazine piece on Rhode Island beaches and typing whatever comes into my head on this blog. But that’s not the point. We shouldn’t be working today. It’s Rhode Island Independence Day. At the very least, we should be doing something independently Rhode Island.

Like collecting starfish from a tide pool. Getting drunk on coffee milk. Fortifying our border with Connecticut.

I mentioned this last week but it bears repeating: They know what they’re doing in Massachusetts. Patriots Day is a terrific holiday, a celebration of Bay State and New England culture. You get the world’s best marathon, the only baseball game in the majors that begins before noon, and a bunch of folks in Halloween costumes shooting at each other on Lexington Green. More importantly, if you live in Massachusetts, you get the day off.

Now, to Rhode Island. Where we celebrate our independence from British tyranny with a yawn. Where the Independent Man stands proudly on the State House, covered in pigeon guano. Where The Independent is published every Thursday. (Shameless plug alert, one sentence too late.)

Oh, I’m sure that somebody is reading a proclamation somewhere. That’s the State House idea of fun. Toss out a bunch of “whereases” and “wherefores,” light a candle on a cupcake and call it a night. As I wrote last year in a column kind-of, sort-of on this same topic, every state should have its day. Give Texas an Alamo Day, Tennessee a Volunteer Day and tell Connecticut fine, go ahead, have a nice Nutmeg Day.

Rhode Island needs a day. It also needs a name for its day because, let’s face it, Rhode Island Independence Day ... not so much. It’s clunky, confusing, boring, has too many words and makes a lousy acronym (RIID). So this week’s question: What should be the new name of Rhode Island Independence Day?