Sandy’s coming. Wind gusts are strengthening, stripping trees of limbs and leaves. The rain has moved from mist to spit to drizzle, with downpours expected. A full moon tide may create strong storm surges, causing erosion and flooding throughout the state. Here in Rhode Island, today should be the worst of it. So we wait.
Many of us have been in the newsroom since early this morning. Schools have closed. All state workers described as non-essential have been asked to stay home. Many businesses also have chosen to remain shuttered today. But in the media game, extreme weather is a headline maker. Most of us will spend today trying to think of a sexier way to say “Frankenstorm.”
At 10 a.m., the power went out at The Newport Daily News. After rebooting the computer, I just spent the last couple of minutes reconstructing the first two paragraphs from memory. Advice for the apocalypse: Hang on to that old manual typewriter gathering dust in the attic. When the grid goes, you’ll be grateful.
Mandatory evacuations already have been declared in low-lying and coastal portions of Westerly, Charlestown, Narragansett, South Kingstown, Tiverton, Middletown and Bristol. Yesterday, during a break in the Patriots game, a reporter for The Weather Channel showed the scene at Narragansett Town Beach. The reporter marveled at the skills of the local kiteboarders riding massive waves along the shore. He also warned that much of the beach could be wiped out after this storm, depending on its track, timing and intensity. It is the story of Rhode Island in the age of climate change. We are becoming more Ocean than State.
In addition to the South Shore beaches, the surge probably will be worst along the upper part of the East and West Bays. The Fox Point Hurricane Barrier will be closed in Providence, protecting low-lying DownCity from massive flooding. But all that water has to go somewhere. My little cove community of West Barrington could be one of the places that endures the bounce back.
The barrier itself was constructed after two hurricanes – the 1938 Great New England Hurricane, known locally as the Hurricane of ’38, and Hurricane Carol in 1954 – slammed into Rhode Island and submerged Providence’s financial district in water. The hurricane barrier, a 3,000-foot-long tidal flood barrier spanning the Providence River, was constructed between 1960 and 1966 to keep downtown dry during major storms. In 1985 the barrier was credited with sparing Providence from being deluged with two feet of water from Hurricane Gloria. Six years later, when Hurricane Bob roared through, the barrier saved the city from being inundated with four feet of water.
Two odd bits of hurricane barrier trivia: City officials use it to keep the river level higher during low tides during Providence WaterFire events. During an April storm in 2007, the barrier’s pumps are thought to have been the primary cause for the sinking of the Soviet submarine K-77, a.k.a. “The Russian Sub Museum” in Providence. The sub’s evolution from an instrument of the Cold War to a unique tourist attraction to scrap metal is worth chronicling in a collection of “only in Rhode Island” stories someday. But for now I can’t help wondering how much Russian sub remains in the mountains of scrap that border the highway along Providence’s industrial waterfront?
Once this whole thing blows over, Half Shell would like to know: What’s your Hurricane Sandy story?
Monday, October 29, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
Side By Each
Rhode Island always has been a state of odd juxtapositions. Most days when I drive to work through Warren I tap the brakes out of respect for the life-sized Cornelius – a “Planet of the Apes” character in a white NASA flight suit – that occasionally stands in front of the Warren Exchange at the funky corner where Water Street merges with Main Street. The space ape was on display yesterday, when the shop held one of its “parking lot sales” during the Warren Walkabout. Adding to its kitschy appeal, a plastic jack-o-lantern dangled from its neck.
“It’s part of the team now,” said Kevin, one of the workers monitoring visitors in the parking lot. “People stop in just to take their picture with it.”
Last week, while driving back from Newport, I saw a flock of wild turkeys in the Warren streets, making their way to a yard decorated in political signs. On the same drive, going the opposite direction, I’ve seen wild turkeys sleeping on a lawn in front of a funeral home in Portsmouth. There’s also a tiny historical cemetery just off busy West Main Road, known as the Holy Cross Episcopal Cemetery but once a family graveyard on old Rogers Farm, which I only noticed because I was stopped at a light. Directly across the street from it is a Benny’s.
These are the kinds of things that amuse me during the daily commute. The fleeting moments of Rhody culture that offer brief mental relief from the tedium of traffic, endless lights and the blight of sprawl that has crept into what was once an entirely scenic stretch of villages, farms and ocean vistas. Every now and then, the juxtapositions are transcendent – such as the October sunset I saw while crossing the Mount Hope Bridge last week, wild streaks of burning clouds, sky and leaves set against the blue bay. Or yesterday in Warren, wandering into the Medium Gothic Baptist Church to discover the Atwater-Donnelly Band performing Celtic folk, Irish airs and clog dancing on the black walnut pulpit with sunlight streaming through a kaleidoscope of huge arched stained glass windows.
What is your favorite “side by each” Rhody moment?
“It’s part of the team now,” said Kevin, one of the workers monitoring visitors in the parking lot. “People stop in just to take their picture with it.”
Last week, while driving back from Newport, I saw a flock of wild turkeys in the Warren streets, making their way to a yard decorated in political signs. On the same drive, going the opposite direction, I’ve seen wild turkeys sleeping on a lawn in front of a funeral home in Portsmouth. There’s also a tiny historical cemetery just off busy West Main Road, known as the Holy Cross Episcopal Cemetery but once a family graveyard on old Rogers Farm, which I only noticed because I was stopped at a light. Directly across the street from it is a Benny’s.
These are the kinds of things that amuse me during the daily commute. The fleeting moments of Rhody culture that offer brief mental relief from the tedium of traffic, endless lights and the blight of sprawl that has crept into what was once an entirely scenic stretch of villages, farms and ocean vistas. Every now and then, the juxtapositions are transcendent – such as the October sunset I saw while crossing the Mount Hope Bridge last week, wild streaks of burning clouds, sky and leaves set against the blue bay. Or yesterday in Warren, wandering into the Medium Gothic Baptist Church to discover the Atwater-Donnelly Band performing Celtic folk, Irish airs and clog dancing on the black walnut pulpit with sunlight streaming through a kaleidoscope of huge arched stained glass windows.
What is your favorite “side by each” Rhody moment?
Monday, October 15, 2012
Rhody Gone Wild
The wilds of Rhode Island are getting wilder. The latest creature to cause a stir in the Ocean State is the fisher cat, which doesn’t fish and isn’t a cat but is a particularly vicious member of the weasel family. Sightings have exploded. A fisher bit one woman in Lincoln when she tried to kick it with bare feet. Friends in Kingston have heard their screeching at night and seen them trotting on the tops of stone walls, using them as rural highways to watering holes and easy kills.
Squirrel-heavy neighborhoods that suddenly don’t have any squirrels are a sign that fishers might be lurking around. Same with communities that put up signs for missing cats. They were hunted out of Rhode Island in the early 1700s, but are back with a vengeance.
Coyotes, also suspected in local cat thefts, have adapted quite easily to Rhode Island, even though they never lived in Rhody (or anywhere in the East for that matter) until last century. The absence of wolves in this part of the world gives them room to roam. I’ve heard them baying at night in Matunuck, watched them slink through the woods at Trustom Pond in South Kingstown and even spotted them darting across the bike path in Barrington and East Providence.
South County and other parts of the state are glutted with deer. I never saw one in Barrington until recently. Now I see them every week. A large female bounded between the post office and the middle school around 11 a.m. one day. The next night, when I was jogging at dusk on the bike path, two young deer trotted toward me, pounding the asphalt, only veering off at the last minute.
In recent years, young male black bears have returned to the state in the spring. Moose are prevalent once again in Massachusetts (numbering about 1,000) and friends from Connecticut have reported sightings on the main roads of the Nutmeg State. While no moose have been spied in Rhode Island yet, the great antlered beasts are getting closer to our borderlands. The state has more forested land than it did a century ago, when it was more agrarian. There may not be much elbow room, and even less wiggle room, but there are pockets of habitat that can sustain big creatures – at least as tourists, if not residents. So Bullwinkle’s coming, folks. Bet on it.
Finally, state environmental officials downplay sightings of mountain lions in Rhode Island, citing a lack of any credible evidence. But the true big cat believers are out there. According to the excellent eco RI blog, the last mountain lion in the Ocean State was shot in 1847 in West Greenwich and is preserved at Harvard University. But the mountain lion conspiracy theorists don’t buy it. Many of them insist that a mountain lion was spotted in Matunuck last year. Lending credence to some of their claims, one was killed on a Connecticut road, not far from Rhode Island. So for now the cat people have an edge over the folks who report Bigfoot, alien and Tom Brady sightings in Rhode Island.
What is the wildest thing you have ever seen in Rhode Island?
Squirrel-heavy neighborhoods that suddenly don’t have any squirrels are a sign that fishers might be lurking around. Same with communities that put up signs for missing cats. They were hunted out of Rhode Island in the early 1700s, but are back with a vengeance.
Coyotes, also suspected in local cat thefts, have adapted quite easily to Rhode Island, even though they never lived in Rhody (or anywhere in the East for that matter) until last century. The absence of wolves in this part of the world gives them room to roam. I’ve heard them baying at night in Matunuck, watched them slink through the woods at Trustom Pond in South Kingstown and even spotted them darting across the bike path in Barrington and East Providence.
South County and other parts of the state are glutted with deer. I never saw one in Barrington until recently. Now I see them every week. A large female bounded between the post office and the middle school around 11 a.m. one day. The next night, when I was jogging at dusk on the bike path, two young deer trotted toward me, pounding the asphalt, only veering off at the last minute.
In recent years, young male black bears have returned to the state in the spring. Moose are prevalent once again in Massachusetts (numbering about 1,000) and friends from Connecticut have reported sightings on the main roads of the Nutmeg State. While no moose have been spied in Rhode Island yet, the great antlered beasts are getting closer to our borderlands. The state has more forested land than it did a century ago, when it was more agrarian. There may not be much elbow room, and even less wiggle room, but there are pockets of habitat that can sustain big creatures – at least as tourists, if not residents. So Bullwinkle’s coming, folks. Bet on it.
Finally, state environmental officials downplay sightings of mountain lions in Rhode Island, citing a lack of any credible evidence. But the true big cat believers are out there. According to the excellent eco RI blog, the last mountain lion in the Ocean State was shot in 1847 in West Greenwich and is preserved at Harvard University. But the mountain lion conspiracy theorists don’t buy it. Many of them insist that a mountain lion was spotted in Matunuck last year. Lending credence to some of their claims, one was killed on a Connecticut road, not far from Rhode Island. So for now the cat people have an edge over the folks who report Bigfoot, alien and Tom Brady sightings in Rhode Island.
What is the wildest thing you have ever seen in Rhode Island?
Monday, October 8, 2012
Small State, Big Gourds
Unlike, say, Texans, New Englanders aren’t big on bragging. In fact, here in Rhody, we aren’t really big on anything. Cultivating a belief in the appreciation of beauty on a small scale is part of the local habitude. But when the season of Falloween rolls around, with its cornucopia of apple-picking, foliage-viewing, haunt and harvest rituals, Rhode Island brings out the big gourds.
Giant pumpkin grower Ron Wallace of Greene grew the world’s first one-ton pumpkin, a gourd dubbed “The Freak II,” which tipped the scales at 2009 pounds at the Topsfield Fair in Massachusetts. The new world-record holder for giant pumpkins, “The Freak II” wrested the “pumpking” crown back for Rhode Island, topping a record held for two years by a Wisconsin man (1,810.5 pounds), which itself was broken by a New Hampshire grower (1,843 pounds) in September at a state fair in Deerfield.
Wallace seems to enjoy smashing pumpkin records. Last week at the Frerichs Farm pumpkin weigh-off in Warren, his entry, “The Pleasure Dome,” came in at 1,872 pounds. Although not a new world record, it was the heaviest pumpkin ever weighed in Rhode Island, and the second-heaviest weighed worldwide.
A member of the Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Growers Association, Wallace uses Epsom salts, Borax and a variety of fertilizers to grow his monsters. Weather conditions during the growing season contributed to this year’s fertile crop. Temperatures in the low 80s during the day with nighttime temperatures hovering around 70 are ideal for producing gourds the size of a Buick.
What else is biggest about the Biggest Little State in the Union?
Giant pumpkin grower Ron Wallace of Greene grew the world’s first one-ton pumpkin, a gourd dubbed “The Freak II,” which tipped the scales at 2009 pounds at the Topsfield Fair in Massachusetts. The new world-record holder for giant pumpkins, “The Freak II” wrested the “pumpking” crown back for Rhode Island, topping a record held for two years by a Wisconsin man (1,810.5 pounds), which itself was broken by a New Hampshire grower (1,843 pounds) in September at a state fair in Deerfield.
Wallace seems to enjoy smashing pumpkin records. Last week at the Frerichs Farm pumpkin weigh-off in Warren, his entry, “The Pleasure Dome,” came in at 1,872 pounds. Although not a new world record, it was the heaviest pumpkin ever weighed in Rhode Island, and the second-heaviest weighed worldwide.
A member of the Southern New England Giant Pumpkin Growers Association, Wallace uses Epsom salts, Borax and a variety of fertilizers to grow his monsters. Weather conditions during the growing season contributed to this year’s fertile crop. Temperatures in the low 80s during the day with nighttime temperatures hovering around 70 are ideal for producing gourds the size of a Buick.
What else is biggest about the Biggest Little State in the Union?
Monday, October 1, 2012
Rooster Boosters
Antonia Farzan, a colleague here at the bricks-and-mortar home of Half Shell in Newport, showed me a piece of Rhode Islandiana last week. She inherited a small enamel label pin of a Rhode Island Red rooster superimposed over an anchor from her grandfather. The souvenir dates back to sometime in the middle of the 20th century, when a group of Providence businessmen got together to think of ways to promote the state. Part of the campaign involved wearing the pins with the pride. There was also a jingle:
For about a century, the Rhode Island Red was the state's second-most visible symbol, after the anchor. The breed was established in the mid-1800s in Adamsville when farmer William Tripp crossed his Cochin hens with a Red Malay or Chittagong rooster he bought from a sailor in New Bedford. A neighbor bred his hens with the “Tripp fowl” and turned his flock into what he called the “Biggest Poultry Farm on Earth.” The bird’s fame spread quickly near and far, and its immediate success in the international poultry market made it a source of pride for Rhode Islanders.
This was around the time when Rhode Island led America into the Industrial Revolution. The state, which became world-famous for engineering and manufacturing achievements, started to romanticize about its pastoral, agrarian past. Once a place of farmers and fishermen, Rhode Island turned rapidly into a state of mills, factories, mechanical triumphs and immigrant workers. Somehow in the psyche of the average Rhode Islander, a rooster had more personality than a steam engine. So it became the state icon. (Although to be fair we should note that Providence once had a professional football team named Steam Roller and a professional basketball team called Steamrollers. It also had the minor-league hockey Reds, with their rooster logo, which lasted for 51 years.)
Rhody’s agrarian symbols weren’t limited to poultry. The University of Rhode Island mascot, the Rhody Ram, is a direct link to the state’s longtime heritage as an innovator in the design and manufacture of textiles. But sometime in the early 1970s, the state began to wean itself from its agricultural roots and went all in on the ocean. Part of it may have been a growing consciousness surrounding the pollution of Narragansett Bay and the notable efforts of the Save The Bay, one of the most significant environmental charity success stories in the country. The state also changed its license plate signature from “Discover” Rhode Island to adopt “The Ocean State” nickname. An American Soccer League championship team dubbed the Rhode Island Oceaneers played in East Providence. And suddenly, it seemed, everyone started talking about quahogs.
Rhody billed itself as Quahog Country, harvesting a quarter of the nation’s annual catch. Quahog festivals popped up here and there in places like North Kingstown and Warren, and quahogs began getting more of a mention in Rhode Island menus. The quahog became the official state shellfish, and even though the Rhody Red remained the state’s official bird, the fact that the Rhode Island Reds hockey team eventually disbanded didn’t help the rooster in its rivalry with the hard clam. If you add the prevalence of steamers, oysters, mussels and scallops to the local mania for all things oceanic, Rooster Boosters never stood much of a chance. Today, bivalve mollusks rule, and the state taste tends to the salty and briny. In fact, many Rhode Islanders nowadays, when they hear the word chicken, think of the name for one-pound lobsters.
None of that should discredit the triumphant role of the Rhode Island Red in helping to form the state identity. Still, it might be time to put on a clam pin and change the booster jingle to something like:
(Life lesson No. 8,472: Never try to jingle before your second cup of coffee.)
What is your favorite Rhode Island souvenir?
Be a Rooster Booster/Now’s the time to crow!/Be a Rooster Booster/And help Rhode Island grow!The pins are collector’s items today, but they also point to a time when the rooster had more cache than it does now in the state. As recently as the 1980s, people were more aware of Rooster Boosters in our midst. The second item on a Google search of the phrase includes a reprint of a St. Petersburg Times column from 1983 announcing a dinner of the R.I. Rooster Booster Club at a Florida Holiday Inn.
For about a century, the Rhode Island Red was the state's second-most visible symbol, after the anchor. The breed was established in the mid-1800s in Adamsville when farmer William Tripp crossed his Cochin hens with a Red Malay or Chittagong rooster he bought from a sailor in New Bedford. A neighbor bred his hens with the “Tripp fowl” and turned his flock into what he called the “Biggest Poultry Farm on Earth.” The bird’s fame spread quickly near and far, and its immediate success in the international poultry market made it a source of pride for Rhode Islanders.
This was around the time when Rhode Island led America into the Industrial Revolution. The state, which became world-famous for engineering and manufacturing achievements, started to romanticize about its pastoral, agrarian past. Once a place of farmers and fishermen, Rhode Island turned rapidly into a state of mills, factories, mechanical triumphs and immigrant workers. Somehow in the psyche of the average Rhode Islander, a rooster had more personality than a steam engine. So it became the state icon. (Although to be fair we should note that Providence once had a professional football team named Steam Roller and a professional basketball team called Steamrollers. It also had the minor-league hockey Reds, with their rooster logo, which lasted for 51 years.)
Rhody’s agrarian symbols weren’t limited to poultry. The University of Rhode Island mascot, the Rhody Ram, is a direct link to the state’s longtime heritage as an innovator in the design and manufacture of textiles. But sometime in the early 1970s, the state began to wean itself from its agricultural roots and went all in on the ocean. Part of it may have been a growing consciousness surrounding the pollution of Narragansett Bay and the notable efforts of the Save The Bay, one of the most significant environmental charity success stories in the country. The state also changed its license plate signature from “Discover” Rhode Island to adopt “The Ocean State” nickname. An American Soccer League championship team dubbed the Rhode Island Oceaneers played in East Providence. And suddenly, it seemed, everyone started talking about quahogs.
Rhody billed itself as Quahog Country, harvesting a quarter of the nation’s annual catch. Quahog festivals popped up here and there in places like North Kingstown and Warren, and quahogs began getting more of a mention in Rhode Island menus. The quahog became the official state shellfish, and even though the Rhody Red remained the state’s official bird, the fact that the Rhode Island Reds hockey team eventually disbanded didn’t help the rooster in its rivalry with the hard clam. If you add the prevalence of steamers, oysters, mussels and scallops to the local mania for all things oceanic, Rooster Boosters never stood much of a chance. Today, bivalve mollusks rule, and the state taste tends to the salty and briny. In fact, many Rhode Islanders nowadays, when they hear the word chicken, think of the name for one-pound lobsters.
None of that should discredit the triumphant role of the Rhode Island Red in helping to form the state identity. Still, it might be time to put on a clam pin and change the booster jingle to something like:
I’m a happy clam/At the beach or in the fog/Rhode Island’s where I am/Home of the wild quahog.
(Life lesson No. 8,472: Never try to jingle before your second cup of coffee.)
What is your favorite Rhode Island souvenir?
Monday, September 24, 2012
The 'Yo, Dude' of its Day
If you look up the phrase “What Cheer” on Google, the first and third items that pop up are links to information about the What Cheer? Brigade, the multi-piece, multi-style street music brass band from Providence. Second is a reference to a website strategy, design and application development company based in Omaha, Neb. Fourth is a Wikipedia entry on What Cheer, Iowa, a city in Keokuk County strangely named after the Providence motto. (The city’s signature event is the What Cheer Flea Market, billed as the largest flea market in the Midwest.) Other “What Cheer” references that make the first Google page include What Cheer Driving, a chauffer company based in Cranston, and What Cheer Antiques, a Providence store.
That’s a lot of What Cheering for a relatively archaic English greeting, but it looks as if the catchphrase might come back into vogue. On Saturday, Oct. 13, the R.I. Historical Society will host the first “What Cheer Day” promoting aspects of Ocean State history at all four of its sites.
But back to Iowa. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on how the city got its name:
How will you celebrate the first “What Cheer” Day in Rhode Island?
That’s a lot of What Cheering for a relatively archaic English greeting, but it looks as if the catchphrase might come back into vogue. On Saturday, Oct. 13, the R.I. Historical Society will host the first “What Cheer Day” promoting aspects of Ocean State history at all four of its sites.
Ever since the Narragansetts are said to have hailed Roger Williams with “What cheer, netop?” (a 17th-century version of “What’s going on, friend?”), the phrase “What Cheer” has been quintessentially Rhode Island: you can find it on street signs and storefronts, and it’s even the motto of the city of Providence.Some of the ways local historians will be What Cheering: By attending roundtables on the RIHS 2012 theme “Rhode Island at War” at the Aldrich House; by learning about Rhode Island’s Civil War hospital at Portsmouth Grove at the RIHS Library; by knitting a pair of Civil War-era mittens in a “knit-a-long” while simultaneously shifting eras and wars in interaction with Revolutionary War re-enactors drilling and cooking in uniform on the lawn of the John Brown House Museum; or by attending a gala at the Museum of Work & Culture to celebrate the region’s industrial legacy during an evening titled “Made in Woonsocket.”
But back to Iowa. Here’s the Wikipedia entry on how the city got its name:
When the future What Cheer was founded in 1865, it was named Petersburg for Peter Britton, the settlement’s founder. This name was rejected by the Post Office, forcing a change of name. Joseph Andrews, a major and veteran of the American Civil War suggested the name What Cheer, and the town was officially renamed on December 1, 1879.Begging the question, then why aren’t there any Iowa towns named Word or Wassup?
Sources differ as to why the name What Cheer was chosen. The phrase what cheer with you is an ancient English greeting dating back at least to the 15th century. One theory of the name is that a Scottish miner exclaimed What cheer! on discovering a coal seam near town. A more elaborate theory suggests that Joseph Andrews chose the name because of one of the founding myths of his native town of Providence, Rhode Island. According to the story, when Roger Williams arrived at the site that would become Providence in 1636, he was greeted by Narragansett Native Americans with “What Cheer, Netop.” Netop was the Narragansett word for friend, and the Narragansetts had picked up the what cheer greeting from English settlers. It is possible that the connection between What Cheer, Iowa and What Cheer, the shibboleth of Rhode Island, was merely coincidental – the entries for these subjects are adjacent but not connected in the 1908 edition of the Encyclopedia Americana.
How will you celebrate the first “What Cheer” Day in Rhode Island?
Monday, September 17, 2012
Crossed Signals
A friend of mine who works in Warren tells this story: He was driving through town when he saw a policeman on the side of the road. The cop waved. Dave waved back. Within a couple of minutes he saw a cruiser flashing its lights behind him. The policeman he had just passed got out and read him the riot act. “This means stop,” he said, raising his palm in the air. “No, it doesn’t,” Dave said, raising his own hand. “This (pushing his hand forcefully forward in front of him) means stop. This (lifting his hand in the air next to his shoulder) means hello.”
Gesture, like words, can be a tricky way to communicate. Even within the same culture, motioning can be misunderstood. It’s even worse when you leave the country. In Britain and elsewhere, what we think of as a peace sign means victory when the palm faces outward and is equivalent to giving the middle finger when the palm faces inward. Giving the OK sign in Greece, Turkey and several other countries is not OK; it is taken as a rude insult. Thumb’s up in Iran is equivalent to the ubiquitous middle finger here. (Reason No. 1,843 why it’s probably not a great idea to hitchhike in Iran.) Beckoning someone to “come here” with a single finger is frowned upon in the Philippines, where the gesture can be used only to call dogs. Any offender caught summoning a human that way could be arrested and possibly have the finger broken as punishment. Even the “hook ’em horns” sign showing the forefinger and little finger raised with the other fingers down - the signature gesture of the University of Texas Longhorns occasionally used by the general public as a silent “party on” statement - has alternate meanings. It’s been used for years as a form of greeting among Satanists and in many Mediterranean countries the “hook ’em” is an insult essentially calling men a “cuckold,” meaning “your wife is cheating on you.” (Now more commonly flashed at referees during soccer matches.)
Just a brief aside: As I was practicing the Longhorn greeting while researching this blog, I realized it could be adapted to provide a signature gesture for the University of Rhode Island Rams. Curl all of the fingers into a clench (with an open palm, not a fist), then raise the forefinger and little finger at the knuckles to make curled rams horns. “Rack ’em Rams!” Watch for it. Soon it will be sweeping the country.
Leading to this week’s question: What is the definitive Rhode Island gesture?
Please think beyond the middle finger. Some possibilities:
The shrug.
The hand slap to forehead followed by a shake of the head.
One hand on the steering wheel, the other raising a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee to blot out the sun and make the blind side even more dangerous.
The “I’m watching you” point to your eyes, to their eyes and back to your eyes again.
Air kisses. Air quotes. Air guitar. Air “check please.” Air “scratch” indicating an immediate need to purchase a lottery ticket.
The “my bad” hand pat over the heart after you’ve done something stupid on the road while not making eye contact with the angry driver passing you.
The raising a pint in greeting to someone across the bar whose name you either can’t remember or who you just don’t want to talk to.
Gesture, like words, can be a tricky way to communicate. Even within the same culture, motioning can be misunderstood. It’s even worse when you leave the country. In Britain and elsewhere, what we think of as a peace sign means victory when the palm faces outward and is equivalent to giving the middle finger when the palm faces inward. Giving the OK sign in Greece, Turkey and several other countries is not OK; it is taken as a rude insult. Thumb’s up in Iran is equivalent to the ubiquitous middle finger here. (Reason No. 1,843 why it’s probably not a great idea to hitchhike in Iran.) Beckoning someone to “come here” with a single finger is frowned upon in the Philippines, where the gesture can be used only to call dogs. Any offender caught summoning a human that way could be arrested and possibly have the finger broken as punishment. Even the “hook ’em horns” sign showing the forefinger and little finger raised with the other fingers down - the signature gesture of the University of Texas Longhorns occasionally used by the general public as a silent “party on” statement - has alternate meanings. It’s been used for years as a form of greeting among Satanists and in many Mediterranean countries the “hook ’em” is an insult essentially calling men a “cuckold,” meaning “your wife is cheating on you.” (Now more commonly flashed at referees during soccer matches.)
Just a brief aside: As I was practicing the Longhorn greeting while researching this blog, I realized it could be adapted to provide a signature gesture for the University of Rhode Island Rams. Curl all of the fingers into a clench (with an open palm, not a fist), then raise the forefinger and little finger at the knuckles to make curled rams horns. “Rack ’em Rams!” Watch for it. Soon it will be sweeping the country.
Leading to this week’s question: What is the definitive Rhode Island gesture?
Please think beyond the middle finger. Some possibilities:
The shrug.
The hand slap to forehead followed by a shake of the head.
One hand on the steering wheel, the other raising a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee to blot out the sun and make the blind side even more dangerous.
The “I’m watching you” point to your eyes, to their eyes and back to your eyes again.
Air kisses. Air quotes. Air guitar. Air “check please.” Air “scratch” indicating an immediate need to purchase a lottery ticket.
The “my bad” hand pat over the heart after you’ve done something stupid on the road while not making eye contact with the angry driver passing you.
The raising a pint in greeting to someone across the bar whose name you either can’t remember or who you just don’t want to talk to.
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