Home Is Where The Haunt Is

Here’s a list of things I like about lists:

1) They’re easy to compile.
2) They spark conversation.
3) They’re fun to cross out.
4) When you’re sitting in a coffee shop, working on a list, it looks like you’re writing a novel, even though you’re only reminding yourself to go to the bank and pick up the dry cleaning.
5) You can turn them into columns and blog posts.

There’s no shame in this. Some of the world’s most important writings have come to us in list form. (Consider the Ten Commandments, which is basically just a To-Don’t List, etched on stone tablets.)

So today I thought I’d share a list of someone else’s invention. My favorite Rhode Island-based list of recent vintage appeared in a book titled “Rhode Island Legends: Haunted Hallows and Monsters’ Lairs” by South County author M.E. Reilly-McGreen. It’s her list of the most unusual haunts in the Ocean State. Given that politics, weather and a midweek date on the calendar muted the annual New England Halloween festivities in many communities, I thought it would be worth passing along while the days are getting darker and the November landscape turns skeletal.

Here’s Marybeth’s field guide to Rhode Island legends:

ALIENS (BEST BETS): Wood River Junction, Providence, Newport County, Cumberland
BIGFOOT: the Great Swamp, South Kingstown
BLEEDING ROCKS: Indian Corner, Slocumville, North Kingstown
CLASSICAL GODS AND GODDESSES AT PLAY: Narragansett Beach, Narragansett; Worden’s Pond, South Kingstown
CRYING ROCKS: Child Crying Rocks, Charlestown
CURSED MATCHING THRONES: the Salt Chairs of Belcourt Castle, Newport
THE DEVIL: Devil’s Hole, Woonsocket; Devil’s Ring, Peace Dale
THE DEVIL’S HOOFPRINT: Devil’s Foot Rock, North Kingstown; Purgatory Chasm, Middletown
FAIRIES: Worden’s Pond, South Kingstown
FLESH-EATING VEGETATION: Roger William’s Root, Providence
GHOSTS OF FAMOUS HORROR WRITERS: Edgar Allan Poe, Benefit Street, Providence; H.P. Lovecraft, Barnes Street and Swan Point Cemetery, Providence
GIANT WOLVES AND BLACK SHUCK: Devil’s Hole, Woonsocket; Fort Wetherill, Jamestown; Wolf Rocks, Exeter; Wolf Bog, Peace Dale
HAUNTED ASYLUMS: the Ladd Center, Exeter
HAUNTED HOLY SITES: the Monastery, Cumberland
HAUNTED MILLS: Slater Mill, Pawtucket; Ramtail Factory, Foster; Mooresfield Road, Kingston
HAUNTED WEDDING VENUES: Sprague Mansion, Cranston
HEADLESS GHOST HORSE: Belmont Avenue, Wakefield
GHOST REGIMENTS: Route 138, Kingston; Hessian Hole, Portsmouth
GHOST SHIPS: Beavertail, Jones’s Ledge, Jamestown; Grave’s Point, Jamestown; the Seabird, Newport; the Palantine, Block Island
HEADLESS HUMAN GHOSTS: Indian Corner, North Kingstown; Mooresfield Road, South Kingstown
IT: Dark Swamp, Chepachet
JEWELRY-WEARING GIANT SERPENTS: Wilson’s Woods, South Kingstown; Carbuncle Pond, Coventry
MOANING BONES: Arcadia, Narragansett
ORBS: Charlestown
PIRATES’ GHOSTS: Gravelly Point, Newport
PIRATES’ TREASURE: Block Island; Sugarloaf Hill, South Kingstown
POSSESSED PAINTINGS: Kingston Free Library, Kingston
SAINTS’ RELICS: Rough Point, Newport
SEA MONSTERS: Block Island; Point Judith, Narragansett
SKELETONS IN ARMOR: Old Stone Mill, Newport
SKULKING MONKS: Belcourt Castle, Newport; Nine Men’s Misery, Cumberland
SOLDIERS’ SPIRITS: Hessian Hole, Portsmouth; Kingston village; Nine Men’s Misery, Cumberland
TRAGIC MAIDENS’ SPIRITS: Hannah Robinson, Hannah Robinson’s Tower and Rock, South Kingstown; Dolly Cole, Dolly Cole’s Brook, Foster; Angela O’Leary, Fleur de Lys House, Providence
VAMPIRES: Chestnut Hill Cemetery, Exeter; Mooresfield, South Kingstown; Plain Meeting House, West Greenwich; the Shunned House, Benefit Street, Providence
WAILING KNIGHT: Belcourt Castle, Newport
WAILING WOMAN: The Crying Bog, Narragansett
WANDERING WRAITHS: Dorothy’s Hollow, Narragansett
WEREWOLVES: the Great Swamp, Charlestown; Woonsocket; Watson’s Corner, South Kingstown
WITCHES: Benefit Street, Providence; Chestnut Hill Cemetery, Exeter; Hell Hollow, North Kingstown; Hopkins Hill, East Greenwich; Kettle Hollow, North Kingstown; Ministerial Woods, South Kingstown; Witches Altar, Narragansett; Westerly

What is your favorite haunted hot spot in Rhode Island?

Adventures at the Ballot Box

Life in parts of America may soon be easier for gays, gamblers, hunters, potheads, euthanisers, car-insurance salesmen, grammarians and horses.

That's how The Economist cogently summed up America's 2012 trip to the ballot box. Tomorrow's vote will decide the next U.S. President, but Rhody and the Other 49 have their own problems to worry about. Taking another look at the quote that begins this post, we Rhode Islanders find ourselves, not for the first or last time, lumped in with "gamblers."

Questions 1 and 2 ask us to decide whether Twin River and Newport Grand should be allowed to introduce table games - blackjack, roulette, craps, poker - moving Rhody closer to a casino royale culture. If it passes, maybe James Bond (alias Daniel Craig) can finally make a long overdue appearance in Newport to film one of those iconic baccarat scenes opposite The Villain while impressing The Bond Girl. Jet-propelled paddle boarding in Narragansett Bay followed by a frenetic though unresolved battle with The Villain's Physically Distinctive Henchman on the Cliff Walk. Tuxedo scene at Rosecliff. Car chase down Ocean Drive. Narragansett Beer shaken, not stirred, with the exploding froth used to create a temporary distraction the second time The Villain's Physically Distinctive Henchman appears, interrupting 007's seduction of The Bond Girl at The White Horse Tavern. You get the idea.

Anyway, for once, Rhode Island isn't a contender for oddest ballot measure. Idaho will vote on whether to protect the rights of fishers, hunters and trappers against campaigns by animal rights groups. Proponents cite history, reminding residents that trappers founded Idaho. (It does make you think. Taking a cue from our own founding, maybe we need to strengthen our state constitution to protect exiled preachers and other free thinkers from people who think thinking is the devil's work.)

In California, voters in Los Angeles County will be asked to consider the issue of mandatory condoms for porn stars. Measure B (or "The Safer Sex in the Adult Film Industry Act") would require all adult movie actors to wear protection on camera. (Consider the bright side. It'll be easier to work a Trojan horse reference into the XXX version of "The Iliad.")

In Arizona, Republicans want voters to take the Grand Canyon back from the federal government, and give it to the state (presumably so business interests can start doing things like building canyon condos and mining for minerals, pronto). The ballot measure, known as Proposition 120, would give Arizona sovereignty over the "air, water, public lands, minerals, wildlife and other natural resources" of the Grand Canyon, essentially harnessing the kind of power that even the ancient Greeks decided should be divided between multiple gods.

In North Dakota, passing Measure 5 would mean stiffer punishments for those who inflict harm on cats, dogs or horses. (Of course, you're still free to torture hamsters.) Measure 78 would allow the state to make improvements in its constitution's spelling and grammar - which must be pretty bad, if it requires a ballot measure to fix. If it passes, the next step is to find a school marm with a red Sharpie.

What measure would you like to see on the next Rhode Island ballot?

State of Emergency

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?

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?

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?

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?

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:

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?