We have no state amphibian, insect or fossil, but on May 10 the Rhode Island General Assembly approved legislation designating the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry as the official sailing education vessel of Rhode Island.
Set to sail in July 2013, the SSV Oliver Hazard Perry is a replica of a three-masted 19th century warship that will serve as an innovative ocean-going classroom for Rhode Island students. The square-rigged tall ship will measure 207 feet, and when not fulfilling its education-at-sea duties, will be displayed and available to the public in Newport.
The ship is named after the Rhode Island-born Navy hero of the War of 1812, a conflict of note in these parts, now commemorating its bicentennial. In the state symbol pantheon, it competes somewhat with the replica of the continental sailing vessel Providence, which was adopted as the official Rhode Island flagship and tall ship ambassador in 1992. It also bumps up against the image of the America’s Cup yacht Reliance, which is prominently featured on Narragansett Bay, with the Newport (Pell) Bridge in the background, on the Rhode Island commemorative quarter.
Half Shell is not opposed to making more room in the attic for the clutter of Rhody symbols and emblems, from anchor, flag and great seal to the Crescent Park Loof Carousel (American folk art), Rhode Island Red (bird), coffee milk (drink), striped bass (fish), flower (violet), fruit (Rhode Island greening apple), mineral (Bowenite), rock (Cumberlandite), shell (quahog), tartan and tree (red maple).
(The official symbols list even has its own quirky only-in-Rhode-Islandisms, most notably in the legacy of the state song. “Rhode Island,” with words and music by T. Clark Brown, was adopted as state song in 1946. Fifty years later it was replaced by “Rhode Island’s It For Me,” with lyrics by comedian Charlie Hall, music by Maria Day, arranged by Kathryn Chester. Instead of dismissing Brown’s ditty from the archives forever, legislators made it the official march of Rhode Island.)
The SSV Oliver Hazard Perry fits comfortably into the mix, especially since Rhode Islanders collect boats the way Imelda Marcos hoarded shoes. That’s true even during these austere times, when many residents who own sailboats find them too expensive to maintain and those who own motorboats can’t afford the fuel. This explains why Half Shell owns a pair of kayaks, the precursor to our master plan to restore a small boat in retirement with the ultimate goal of making it the official dinghy of Rhode Island.
What should be the next Rhode Island state symbol?
Monday, May 21, 2012
Monday, May 14, 2012
Do the Locomotion
It is Half Shell’s contention that there are few more attractive rail routes in the country than the brief stretch that passes along the coves from northeastern Connecticut into southwestern Rhode Island at sunset or sunrise, when the track deviates from coast to swamp, a view we’ve enjoyed on the Amtrak line to West Kingston during various excursions from New York, Washington, D.C. and Colonial Williamsburg.
We’ll have a review of Frank Heppner’s “Railroads of Rhode Island: Shaping the Ocean State’s Railways,” an entertaining survey of the state’s rail heritage and culture written for The History Press, in this Thursday’s paper (and online). But for the purposes of today’s blog, we’re going to mine the minutia for the nuggets and oddities that give the book such a Rhode Island flavor.
As Heppner writes about the Ocean State in the preface: “It abounds in contradictions. Rhode Island has produced some of the most distinguished and honorable national politicians of recent times…However, during one recent ten-year period, an ex-governor, the ex-mayor of the largest city, the ex-mayor of the third-largest city and a superior court judge were all serving time in the slammer on various corruption charges.”
Personal anecdotes and comments throughout lend a touch of humor to the history. Writing about the Providence and Springfield Railroad: “Most of the names of the towns along the right of way would not be recognized by anyone outside Rhode Island, but one town name would be instantly recognized by anyone who was a child in the 1920s through the 1940s. The Esmond Mills made baby blankets and, in a stroke of marketing genius, published a little book in 1924 designed to be read aloud to children. Called The Tale of Bunny Esmond, it was about an adorable bunny that was always cold until somebody wrapped him in a Bunny Esmond blanket. By a strange coincidence, Esmond Mills made a baby blanket that had Bunny’s image printed on it. Bunny Esmond was the Elmo of his day. The Esmond blankets were softer than most, and in 1943, the author would have killed with his tiny fists anyone who tried to take his Bunny Esmond blanket away from him.”
Among the things the staff at Half Shell did not know:
“The lowest temperature ever recorded in Rhode Island – negative twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit – was noted at Wood River Junction, located at the current route in southwestern Rhode Island. Wood River Junction is consistently the coldest location in the state.”
“The Great Swamp was also the home of another most unusual railway, perhaps a unique one: the Rhododendron Railroad.” (It was established by Dr. Lorenzo Kinney Sr., a professor of botany at URI, who in the early 20th century became one of the world’s foremost experts on rhododendrons and azaleas, and began a business exporting native and cultivated rhodies to East Coast estates.)
Two straight stretches of track in Rhode Island are two of only three places on the Amtrak line where Acela trains can go as fast as 150 miles per hour.
There was once a village of Sinking Fund, Rhode Island.
The first Union Station building in Providence was “the longest building in the country at the time (some historians dispute this; none of them is from Rhode Island).”
The Providence and Worcester Railroad’s freight train PR-3 serves a single customer in South County – Arnold Lumber of Kingston.
In addition to its record for Rhode Island cold and its sad role as the site of one of Rhode Island’s worst railway disasters, Wood River Junction earned another kind of notoriety when, in 1964, the United Nuclear Co. built a nuclear fuel reprocessing facility “less than half a mile from the location of the wreck at Richmond Switch.” After pouring a solution of uranium compound into a mixer, a worker at the plant saw a blue flash, was knocked over and died of radiation poisoning two days later. “His was the first and only death due to acute exposure to radiation in a commercial nuclear facility in the United States.”
Rhode Island, America’s smallest state, once had two of the shortest railroads in the country. The smallest, a revamped version of the Warwick Railroad, was about a mile long. Perhaps more interesting was the Moshassuck Valley Railroad, “which operated as an independent line for over a century with only 1.8 miles (generously) of track.”
Providence was the only New England city to have cable cars.
One unusual aspect of the Providence and Danielson Railroad: It had a single freight car that carried a particular cargo – occupied caskets. Heppner explains: “Trolley lines were often built near cemeteries (the land was cheap), and in an era before automotive hearses, a specialized trolley car with seating space for the funeral party and cargo space for the departed was often a feature of trolley lines, including the Providence and Danielson Railroad.”
The original paint job of Kingston Station was three shades of brown.
One of the more familiar electric locomotives that passes through Rhode Island is the AEM-7, made by General Motors for Amtrak, a generally reliable train distinguished by its ugliness. Railroad enthusiasts call them “Toasters;” to Amtrak employees, they are known as “Meatballs.”
What is your favorite Rhode Island train story?
We’ll have a review of Frank Heppner’s “Railroads of Rhode Island: Shaping the Ocean State’s Railways,” an entertaining survey of the state’s rail heritage and culture written for The History Press, in this Thursday’s paper (and online). But for the purposes of today’s blog, we’re going to mine the minutia for the nuggets and oddities that give the book such a Rhode Island flavor.
As Heppner writes about the Ocean State in the preface: “It abounds in contradictions. Rhode Island has produced some of the most distinguished and honorable national politicians of recent times…However, during one recent ten-year period, an ex-governor, the ex-mayor of the largest city, the ex-mayor of the third-largest city and a superior court judge were all serving time in the slammer on various corruption charges.”
Personal anecdotes and comments throughout lend a touch of humor to the history. Writing about the Providence and Springfield Railroad: “Most of the names of the towns along the right of way would not be recognized by anyone outside Rhode Island, but one town name would be instantly recognized by anyone who was a child in the 1920s through the 1940s. The Esmond Mills made baby blankets and, in a stroke of marketing genius, published a little book in 1924 designed to be read aloud to children. Called The Tale of Bunny Esmond, it was about an adorable bunny that was always cold until somebody wrapped him in a Bunny Esmond blanket. By a strange coincidence, Esmond Mills made a baby blanket that had Bunny’s image printed on it. Bunny Esmond was the Elmo of his day. The Esmond blankets were softer than most, and in 1943, the author would have killed with his tiny fists anyone who tried to take his Bunny Esmond blanket away from him.”
Among the things the staff at Half Shell did not know:
“The lowest temperature ever recorded in Rhode Island – negative twenty-five degrees Fahrenheit – was noted at Wood River Junction, located at the current route in southwestern Rhode Island. Wood River Junction is consistently the coldest location in the state.”
“The Great Swamp was also the home of another most unusual railway, perhaps a unique one: the Rhododendron Railroad.” (It was established by Dr. Lorenzo Kinney Sr., a professor of botany at URI, who in the early 20th century became one of the world’s foremost experts on rhododendrons and azaleas, and began a business exporting native and cultivated rhodies to East Coast estates.)
Two straight stretches of track in Rhode Island are two of only three places on the Amtrak line where Acela trains can go as fast as 150 miles per hour.
There was once a village of Sinking Fund, Rhode Island.
The first Union Station building in Providence was “the longest building in the country at the time (some historians dispute this; none of them is from Rhode Island).”
The Providence and Worcester Railroad’s freight train PR-3 serves a single customer in South County – Arnold Lumber of Kingston.
In addition to its record for Rhode Island cold and its sad role as the site of one of Rhode Island’s worst railway disasters, Wood River Junction earned another kind of notoriety when, in 1964, the United Nuclear Co. built a nuclear fuel reprocessing facility “less than half a mile from the location of the wreck at Richmond Switch.” After pouring a solution of uranium compound into a mixer, a worker at the plant saw a blue flash, was knocked over and died of radiation poisoning two days later. “His was the first and only death due to acute exposure to radiation in a commercial nuclear facility in the United States.”
Rhode Island, America’s smallest state, once had two of the shortest railroads in the country. The smallest, a revamped version of the Warwick Railroad, was about a mile long. Perhaps more interesting was the Moshassuck Valley Railroad, “which operated as an independent line for over a century with only 1.8 miles (generously) of track.”
Providence was the only New England city to have cable cars.
One unusual aspect of the Providence and Danielson Railroad: It had a single freight car that carried a particular cargo – occupied caskets. Heppner explains: “Trolley lines were often built near cemeteries (the land was cheap), and in an era before automotive hearses, a specialized trolley car with seating space for the funeral party and cargo space for the departed was often a feature of trolley lines, including the Providence and Danielson Railroad.”
The original paint job of Kingston Station was three shades of brown.
One of the more familiar electric locomotives that passes through Rhode Island is the AEM-7, made by General Motors for Amtrak, a generally reliable train distinguished by its ugliness. Railroad enthusiasts call them “Toasters;” to Amtrak employees, they are known as “Meatballs.”
What is your favorite Rhode Island train story?
Monday, May 7, 2012
Rhody Squid
On Friday at an Irish pub called O’Hara’s in the Newton Highlands part of Massachusetts, my friends and I, all visiting from Rhode Island, began our lunchtime food-and-drink excursion by glancing at the appetizers. At the top of the list was calamari, served “traditional” and “Rhode Island style.” So we asked the waitress: How do you make the Rhode Island style?
“Comes with banana peppers and garlic butter.”
“And the traditional?”
“Comes without those things.”
A day later, I talked with a couple of folks from Connecticut, who said that menus in the Nutmeg State increasingly refer to “Rhode Island-style calamari.” Some diners have even found it on menus in southern California. There are subtle variations, but the gist is hot cherry peppers (served as rings) or banana peppers (or both), cooked in garlic butter or garlic and oil. Often a small condiment serving of marinara sauce accompanies. In general, it’s a spicier and greasier version of the dish and famed New England chef Jasper White pays tribute to those qualities by calling his flavorful version, “Spicy and Greasy Rhode Island Calamari.”
In the past year, Rhode Island has been referred to as “the squid capital of the East Coast,” with more than 7 million pounds caught in local waters. Last fall Bryan Rourke of the ProJo reported it this way: “Squid is to Rhode Island what lobster is to Maine; cod is to Massachusetts.”
But the Rhody cuisine renaissance isn’t limited to calamari. Clear-broth Rhode Island chowder, sometimes called South County chowder hereabouts, is also making its way onto more menus, along with variations of white, from the thick, stick-a-spoon-in-it-and-it-won’t-move versions popular in Boston and Cape Cod to the thinner milky versions, locally called Newport chowder. One food Web site reported that “Rhode Island Red chowder” is gaining fans as well, popping up on regional menus, elbowing its way as a soup du jour as something distinct from Manhattan chowder, far spicier and creamier than its New York-dubbed cousin.
In some Rhode Island restaurants (and, I’ve heard, Long Island ones as well), we’ve had a clam chowder variant that could be called “dirty chowder” or “gray chowder,” being a blending of the clear and milky chowders. Perhaps it should be called “New England skim chowder.” Long Island food shacks have also popularized a mix of the red and white chowders. One of my friends calls that “Long Island chowder,” although I’m not sure anyone over the Throgs Neck Bridge would be able to identify it as such.
The predominance of food shows on TV, easy recipe hunting on the Internet, a growing awareness of regional cuisines and ubiquitous kitchen experimentation has led to the discovery of Rhode Island’s notoriously insular food culture on plates and platters outside the state. Can anyone envision the day when French cafes, along with their croissants and brie, will offer Rhode Island New York System hot wieners? (Wouldn’t be the same without the neon sign in the window.)
What will be the next Rhode Island food to go national?
“Comes with banana peppers and garlic butter.”
“And the traditional?”
“Comes without those things.”
A day later, I talked with a couple of folks from Connecticut, who said that menus in the Nutmeg State increasingly refer to “Rhode Island-style calamari.” Some diners have even found it on menus in southern California. There are subtle variations, but the gist is hot cherry peppers (served as rings) or banana peppers (or both), cooked in garlic butter or garlic and oil. Often a small condiment serving of marinara sauce accompanies. In general, it’s a spicier and greasier version of the dish and famed New England chef Jasper White pays tribute to those qualities by calling his flavorful version, “Spicy and Greasy Rhode Island Calamari.”
In the past year, Rhode Island has been referred to as “the squid capital of the East Coast,” with more than 7 million pounds caught in local waters. Last fall Bryan Rourke of the ProJo reported it this way: “Squid is to Rhode Island what lobster is to Maine; cod is to Massachusetts.”
But the Rhody cuisine renaissance isn’t limited to calamari. Clear-broth Rhode Island chowder, sometimes called South County chowder hereabouts, is also making its way onto more menus, along with variations of white, from the thick, stick-a-spoon-in-it-and-it-won’t-move versions popular in Boston and Cape Cod to the thinner milky versions, locally called Newport chowder. One food Web site reported that “Rhode Island Red chowder” is gaining fans as well, popping up on regional menus, elbowing its way as a soup du jour as something distinct from Manhattan chowder, far spicier and creamier than its New York-dubbed cousin.
In some Rhode Island restaurants (and, I’ve heard, Long Island ones as well), we’ve had a clam chowder variant that could be called “dirty chowder” or “gray chowder,” being a blending of the clear and milky chowders. Perhaps it should be called “New England skim chowder.” Long Island food shacks have also popularized a mix of the red and white chowders. One of my friends calls that “Long Island chowder,” although I’m not sure anyone over the Throgs Neck Bridge would be able to identify it as such.
The predominance of food shows on TV, easy recipe hunting on the Internet, a growing awareness of regional cuisines and ubiquitous kitchen experimentation has led to the discovery of Rhode Island’s notoriously insular food culture on plates and platters outside the state. Can anyone envision the day when French cafes, along with their croissants and brie, will offer Rhode Island New York System hot wieners? (Wouldn’t be the same without the neon sign in the window.)
What will be the next Rhode Island food to go national?
Monday, April 30, 2012
With Apologies to Monty Python...
Friday is Rhode Island Independence Day, marking the moment when our forebears became the first residents of the Colonies to renounce allegiance to the British Crown. Details are murky, but according to some historians of ill repute, Rhode Island patriots gathered in a dim pub and, fired up on casks of ale and the demon rum, collectively asked, “What have the British ever done for us?”
One voice spoke out meekly:
“The ale house?”
“Right. Fine. But except for the ale house, what have the British ever done for us?”
“Well, Shakespeare…”
“Very well. Shakespeare and the ale house.”
“Dictionaries.”
“Dictionaries. Of course. That goes without saying.”
“Shorthand.”
“Clearly. Conceding the points on shorthand, Shakespeare, dictionaries and the ale house, what have the British ever done for us?”
About an hour later, after the patriots had exhausted the positive benefits of British rule, they all agreed to revolt and, following a few historical anomalies in the ensuing years, Rhode Island, as we know it, was born.
So the question is: How should we celebrate Rhode Island Independence Day?
Some suggestions:
1) Take the day off. As currently constituted, Rhode Island Independence Day, unless it falls on a weekend, is a working day for a majority of Rhode Islanders. But how can we all exuberantly assert our independence when we are working for The Man?
2) Rename it. As holiday names go, Rhode Island Independence Day has all of the poetry of Administrative Professionals Day. Massachusetts figured it out. They have Patriots Day (celebrated with a little road race in Boston, a skirmish between Minutemen and Lobsterbacks on the Lexington Green and a morning baseball game at Fenway). So why not Rogue’s Day, a day of roguery to commemorate the subversive dissident in all of us?
3) Renounce all things British for a day. That means no listening to old Beatles, Stones or Who albums. No catching up on “Dr. Who” DVDs. No bangers ’n‘ mash for lunch. No bitters after work. No checking on Premier League scores. No following Ricky Gervais on Twitter. No practicing your fake Cockney accent while shaving in front of the mirror.
4) Convert Rhode Island Shore Dinner Halls into all-you-can-eat May Breakfast buffets.
5) Anchor something somewhere.
6) Pay bills in wampum.
7) Attend Fifestock, an all-day Fifeapalooza of fife and drum music at Fort Adams.
8) Invent a Roger Williams drinking game. (Believe me, this is harder than it sounds.)
9) Moon Connecticut
10) Go quahog tipping.
One voice spoke out meekly:
“The ale house?”
“Right. Fine. But except for the ale house, what have the British ever done for us?”
“Well, Shakespeare…”
“Very well. Shakespeare and the ale house.”
“Dictionaries.”
“Dictionaries. Of course. That goes without saying.”
“Shorthand.”
“Clearly. Conceding the points on shorthand, Shakespeare, dictionaries and the ale house, what have the British ever done for us?”
About an hour later, after the patriots had exhausted the positive benefits of British rule, they all agreed to revolt and, following a few historical anomalies in the ensuing years, Rhode Island, as we know it, was born.
So the question is: How should we celebrate Rhode Island Independence Day?
Some suggestions:
1) Take the day off. As currently constituted, Rhode Island Independence Day, unless it falls on a weekend, is a working day for a majority of Rhode Islanders. But how can we all exuberantly assert our independence when we are working for The Man?
2) Rename it. As holiday names go, Rhode Island Independence Day has all of the poetry of Administrative Professionals Day. Massachusetts figured it out. They have Patriots Day (celebrated with a little road race in Boston, a skirmish between Minutemen and Lobsterbacks on the Lexington Green and a morning baseball game at Fenway). So why not Rogue’s Day, a day of roguery to commemorate the subversive dissident in all of us?
3) Renounce all things British for a day. That means no listening to old Beatles, Stones or Who albums. No catching up on “Dr. Who” DVDs. No bangers ’n‘ mash for lunch. No bitters after work. No checking on Premier League scores. No following Ricky Gervais on Twitter. No practicing your fake Cockney accent while shaving in front of the mirror.
4) Convert Rhode Island Shore Dinner Halls into all-you-can-eat May Breakfast buffets.
5) Anchor something somewhere.
6) Pay bills in wampum.
7) Attend Fifestock, an all-day Fifeapalooza of fife and drum music at Fort Adams.
8) Invent a Roger Williams drinking game. (Believe me, this is harder than it sounds.)
9) Moon Connecticut
10) Go quahog tipping.
Monday, April 23, 2012
We Are What We Are
The Web site The Awl ranked Rhode Island's latest slogan, "Unwind," as the third worst out of 51 (including all states and the District of Columbia), barely beating out Maryland's "Maryland of Opportunity" and Washington's "SayWa!" The ranking, which is entirely fair, illuminates a long-standing problem for Rhody: We can't sell ourselves.
For many of us who live here, that's fine, of course. We're happy with our secret knowledge of Rhody's collective cool, contentedly brunching at Jim's Dock in Jerusalem, watching kids catch crabs near the moorings or gazing at boats that motor or sail in and out of Salt Pond. Taking our rambling drives along coast and through country to Tiverton Four Corners, for a cone of coffee or butter brickle at Gray's Ice Cream. Cycling with a picnic lunch to Colt State Park in Bristol, where the bay opens up to a patchwork of green fields attracting communities of kite flyers, Frisbee tossers, smorgasbord crashers and games of volleyball, baseball, touch football, bocce and horseshoes. No, it doesn't bother us that the rest of the world hasn't discovered some of our simple but peerless pleasures.
But the state wants tourist money. So it comes up with slogans. Like "Discover Rhode Island." As if we are too small for the average American to find. Or "Unwind." As if the world's tightly wound will encounter bliss, harmony and tranquility in a Rhode Island February.
The slogan concept has even confused the Great Oz of Dictionaries, Wikipedia, which in a list of state slogans, says the following about Rhode Island: "Unwind (formerly Hope)."
Uhh, sorry all you Wikipedians out there, but Hope is our motto, never our slogan. A motto is a much deeper thing than a slogan, a core tenant, a belief, a way of being. A slogan is just trying to sell something, a marketing gimmick, a shallow catch phrase. Perhaps that's why we've never gotten the hang of it. "Unwind" sounds like something California would say. It's not us. We're a state of slapstick. We're a state of scandals. We're a state of contradictions. We're a state of little-known secrets. We're a state that loves to laugh. We're a state that lives to the daily rhythms of the ocean. We're a state obsessed with our quirks. We're a state that likes to eat and drink and gamble. We're a state that immerses itself in history and nature and roadside kitsch. We're a state that is happy it's not Connecticut.
It's hard to get all of that into a slogan.
More successful was the response to a student posting a Yahoo Answers question, requesting help for a social studies project in which the assignment was to come up with a slogan for Colonial Rhode Island. The best answer, chosen by three voters:
We've asked this question before, but we're not above repeating ourselves. What should be Rhode Island's slogan?
For many of us who live here, that's fine, of course. We're happy with our secret knowledge of Rhody's collective cool, contentedly brunching at Jim's Dock in Jerusalem, watching kids catch crabs near the moorings or gazing at boats that motor or sail in and out of Salt Pond. Taking our rambling drives along coast and through country to Tiverton Four Corners, for a cone of coffee or butter brickle at Gray's Ice Cream. Cycling with a picnic lunch to Colt State Park in Bristol, where the bay opens up to a patchwork of green fields attracting communities of kite flyers, Frisbee tossers, smorgasbord crashers and games of volleyball, baseball, touch football, bocce and horseshoes. No, it doesn't bother us that the rest of the world hasn't discovered some of our simple but peerless pleasures.
But the state wants tourist money. So it comes up with slogans. Like "Discover Rhode Island." As if we are too small for the average American to find. Or "Unwind." As if the world's tightly wound will encounter bliss, harmony and tranquility in a Rhode Island February.
The slogan concept has even confused the Great Oz of Dictionaries, Wikipedia, which in a list of state slogans, says the following about Rhode Island: "Unwind (formerly Hope)."
Uhh, sorry all you Wikipedians out there, but Hope is our motto, never our slogan. A motto is a much deeper thing than a slogan, a core tenant, a belief, a way of being. A slogan is just trying to sell something, a marketing gimmick, a shallow catch phrase. Perhaps that's why we've never gotten the hang of it. "Unwind" sounds like something California would say. It's not us. We're a state of slapstick. We're a state of scandals. We're a state of contradictions. We're a state of little-known secrets. We're a state that loves to laugh. We're a state that lives to the daily rhythms of the ocean. We're a state obsessed with our quirks. We're a state that likes to eat and drink and gamble. We're a state that immerses itself in history and nature and roadside kitsch. We're a state that is happy it's not Connecticut.
It's hard to get all of that into a slogan.
More successful was the response to a student posting a Yahoo Answers question, requesting help for a social studies project in which the assignment was to come up with a slogan for Colonial Rhode Island. The best answer, chosen by three voters:
I named a chicken 'Red.'Yup. That about sums it up. Beats "Unwind," at any rate.
We've asked this question before, but we're not above repeating ourselves. What should be Rhode Island's slogan?
Monday, April 16, 2012
Taste for Tacky
After passing the pink gates and fake deer menagerie of a Bristol home along Route 114 en route to Newport, I began thinking about the profusion of tacky lawns in Rhode Island. With streaks of forsythia and daffodil clusters yellowing the commute, and the pinks and whites and pastels of the blooming and budding spring bushes and trees serving as colorful distraction, Rhody’s endless fascination with lawn animals, mini-lighthouses, glass orbs and leftover holiday decoration can go unnoticed. But operating on the theory that there is nothing in the universe that can’t be Googled, when I got to work I plugged into the Matrix and, wouldn’t you know it, there’s already a blog called Tacky Lawns dedicated to documenting the wonderful world of yard kitsch.
My search led to a post on the tacky lawns of West Warwick, a photo sequence accompanied by the following note:
Rhode Island, Land of Giant Termites and Six-Foot Mr. Potato Heads, has long loved its kitsch. Somewhere inside most homes you are liable to find one of the following: Pope-on-a-Rope Soap, Smoking Monkey, Yodeling Pickle, Boxing Nun puppet, a Buddy Christ Dashboard Statue or something equally cheap and tawdry that indulges the bad taste impulse in all of us. (Full confession: My thing is plastic lobster. One crustacean lives in the kitchen; the other’s on a bookshelf.)
Like the circles of hell in Dante’s “Inferno,” there are levels to tackiness. At one end you have pink flamingoes and garden gnomes, deserving induction in the first class of the Kitsch Hall of Fame. Somewhere lower you’ll find the Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure, a pajama bottom-wearing, slipper-clad, wild-eyed, sloppy-haired elderly woman crawling in cats. Or Fred Toothpick Holder, a bulbous, vaguely man-shaped figure, stuck mercilessly in dozens of toothpicks, like an acupuncture session gone horribly wrong, available in “Ouch Gray.” Or a Lookin’ Good for Jesus mini-makeup kit, a selection of Tattoos for the Elderly or Instant Irish Accent Mouth Spray, all novelties in the marketplace of ideas that make you go “hmm…”
So where is the tackiest yard in Rhode Island?
Our purpose and mission is to document the hordes of tacky lawns and lawn ornaments that blight American yards. We seek out everything from the ordinary tacky (pink flamingoes, gnomes on the roam, resin animals of every stripe and shape) to the extraordinary in tackiness.
My search led to a post on the tacky lawns of West Warwick, a photo sequence accompanied by the following note:
As of April 1, 2000 there were 13,186 housing units in West Warwick. As of November 2, 2009, 90% of these housing units featured Tacky Lawns.
Rhode Island, Land of Giant Termites and Six-Foot Mr. Potato Heads, has long loved its kitsch. Somewhere inside most homes you are liable to find one of the following: Pope-on-a-Rope Soap, Smoking Monkey, Yodeling Pickle, Boxing Nun puppet, a Buddy Christ Dashboard Statue or something equally cheap and tawdry that indulges the bad taste impulse in all of us. (Full confession: My thing is plastic lobster. One crustacean lives in the kitchen; the other’s on a bookshelf.)
Like the circles of hell in Dante’s “Inferno,” there are levels to tackiness. At one end you have pink flamingoes and garden gnomes, deserving induction in the first class of the Kitsch Hall of Fame. Somewhere lower you’ll find the Crazy Cat Lady Action Figure, a pajama bottom-wearing, slipper-clad, wild-eyed, sloppy-haired elderly woman crawling in cats. Or Fred Toothpick Holder, a bulbous, vaguely man-shaped figure, stuck mercilessly in dozens of toothpicks, like an acupuncture session gone horribly wrong, available in “Ouch Gray.” Or a Lookin’ Good for Jesus mini-makeup kit, a selection of Tattoos for the Elderly or Instant Irish Accent Mouth Spray, all novelties in the marketplace of ideas that make you go “hmm…”
So where is the tackiest yard in Rhode Island?
Monday, April 9, 2012
The Daffodil Man
I’ve never met the Daffodil Man, but I’d like to thank him. Ronald Lee Fleming, a city planner and urban designer, was honored by members of the Alliance for a Livable Newport recently for his generosity and vision. Fleming is the man responsible for funding the Daffodil Project, in which more than 120,000 daffodils have been planted throughout Newport over the last seven years. As quoted last week by Sean Flynn of The Newport Daily News, Fleming envisions “a gold necklace from the city’s entryways right down to the water.”
As our communities asphalt and concrete and sprawl themselves into one homogenous, gray Blobville, we take pleasure in what little grace notes of beautification are left in the landscape. It improves the drive to Newport, for example, on a late March/early April day, to notice satellites of daffodil clusters streaking yellow at the Rotary, in the field along Admiral Kalfbus Road and next to two burying grounds on the aptly named Farewell Street. Somehow civilization doesn’t feel so drab when bulbs are in bloom.
A few daffodils at a time, Fleming has transformed Newport. His contribution to Newport’s charm is reminiscent of local heroes in other communities – such as the late Antoinetta Goodwin, better known in South County as The Chicken Lady, for the Rhode Island Red figures that adorned her automobile and mailbox along her Route 138 property. (Her son has carried on the chicken mailbox tradition, with the birds decked out in Red Sox garb or seasonal decoration, amusing commuters along the route that once connected Tower Hill to Little Rest.) Goodwin made it her mission to plant flowers in many of the roadside and rotary medians in the villages of South Kingstown, bringing color and a sense of tranquility to the increasingly noisy, suburbanized space.
People my age who grew up in Barrington may remember Karl Jones, who tended what was thought to be the country’s largest private rose garden at his property along Nayatt Road. Jones was a cranky, Yankee iconoclast, but his cultivated roses and landscape were beautiful, drawing visitors from around the world in June. Each year he donated his land to Barrington High School for a day, so the graduating class could hold its Friendship Service on the grounds, while the roses were in bloom. When he became too old to take care of the garden, he approached the town for help, hoping his flowers, with a little care and tending, would have new life in posterity. Barrington balked. Jones sold to private developers. The property was split up and turned into a cul-de-sac of homes with an address of Jones Circle. A trellis with a few thorny vines is all that remains visible to the public along Nayatt Road, an echo of what once was the town’s quirkiest and most beloved attraction.
So Barrington lost its rose paradise, and much of its character and charm in the process. Newport is still building its Brigadoon of daffodils. If it takes a village to raise a child, perhaps it takes a villager who sees the world with the eyes of a child to save it.
What would be one way to transform an ugly part of Rhode Island?
As our communities asphalt and concrete and sprawl themselves into one homogenous, gray Blobville, we take pleasure in what little grace notes of beautification are left in the landscape. It improves the drive to Newport, for example, on a late March/early April day, to notice satellites of daffodil clusters streaking yellow at the Rotary, in the field along Admiral Kalfbus Road and next to two burying grounds on the aptly named Farewell Street. Somehow civilization doesn’t feel so drab when bulbs are in bloom.
A few daffodils at a time, Fleming has transformed Newport. His contribution to Newport’s charm is reminiscent of local heroes in other communities – such as the late Antoinetta Goodwin, better known in South County as The Chicken Lady, for the Rhode Island Red figures that adorned her automobile and mailbox along her Route 138 property. (Her son has carried on the chicken mailbox tradition, with the birds decked out in Red Sox garb or seasonal decoration, amusing commuters along the route that once connected Tower Hill to Little Rest.) Goodwin made it her mission to plant flowers in many of the roadside and rotary medians in the villages of South Kingstown, bringing color and a sense of tranquility to the increasingly noisy, suburbanized space.
People my age who grew up in Barrington may remember Karl Jones, who tended what was thought to be the country’s largest private rose garden at his property along Nayatt Road. Jones was a cranky, Yankee iconoclast, but his cultivated roses and landscape were beautiful, drawing visitors from around the world in June. Each year he donated his land to Barrington High School for a day, so the graduating class could hold its Friendship Service on the grounds, while the roses were in bloom. When he became too old to take care of the garden, he approached the town for help, hoping his flowers, with a little care and tending, would have new life in posterity. Barrington balked. Jones sold to private developers. The property was split up and turned into a cul-de-sac of homes with an address of Jones Circle. A trellis with a few thorny vines is all that remains visible to the public along Nayatt Road, an echo of what once was the town’s quirkiest and most beloved attraction.
So Barrington lost its rose paradise, and much of its character and charm in the process. Newport is still building its Brigadoon of daffodils. If it takes a village to raise a child, perhaps it takes a villager who sees the world with the eyes of a child to save it.
What would be one way to transform an ugly part of Rhode Island?
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