Dorr and more

For those Rhode Islanders who grew up around these parts since the 1970s, our study of American history in schools was startlingly lacking in previous Rhode Islanders. Oh, sure, we might have spent a day or two on Roger Williams and Samuel Slater, squeezed in between the timeline of Columbus, Pilgrims, American Revolution (mostly the events in Boston and Philadelphia), the Civil War (Gettysburg), World War II and the Kennedy years, but otherwise most of us meandered around the state, driving on asphalt called Willet Avenue, Metacom Avenue and Newman Avenue without knowing the stories behind the street names.

The religious seekers, political pioneers, radical patriots, revolutionary thinkers, independent women, Wampanoag and Narragansett sachems, privateers and pirates, slave traders and abolitionists, innovative entrepreneurs and military heroes – including the soldiers of the First Rhode Island Regiment, also known as the Black Regiment of Rhode Island, comprising slaves who agreed to fight for their country in exchange for freedom – that made up the patchwork of Rhode Island history were anonymous to us.

Things are better now. Schools have made more of an effort to incorporate local history into their curricula. The Web, cable television and publishers like Arcadia and The History Press have created a market for stories and images documenting regional and community histories. So every now and then someone who was part of the state limelight in some long-ago generation returns from the shadows to earn the spotlight again.

Such is the case with Thomas Dorr. In an age when only white male landowners (i.e., the filthy rich) could vote in Rhode Island, Dorr, the son of Conservative Whigs, shocked his family by becoming the people’s champion, leading a short-lived revolution that fizzled in its day but opened the door to a future in which Rhode Island and the nation would become more democratic.

As Rhode Islander Rory Raven, author of “The Dorr War: Treason, Rebellion & The Fight for Reform in Rhode Island” (2010, The History Press) notes:

There is a Dorr Street in Providence; it is a dead end, and on my last visit, there was no street sign. And while an official portrait of Dorr was hung in the Rhode Island Statehouse some time ago, giving him his rightful place among the other governors honored there, that portrait has not been seen in many years, and no one seems to know where it has gotten to.

Raven’s book restores Dorr’s place in the pantheon of the state’s quirky and independent but significant historical figures. As leader of the Dorr Rebellion, he helped draft the “People’s Constitution,” mandating universal suffrage for white males. (There is some evidence that he was sympathetic to the plight of African Americans and women as well, but decided that those were civil rights battles that would have to be fought later.)

Studying the bare bones of history, the Dorr War appears almost comical. On the day when Rhode Island had two governors, Dorr marched with his supporters up to the Rhode Island State House to claim his seat, only to the find the doors locked and no way to get in, so he held swearing-in ceremonies in a nearby foundry still under construction.

Later, he attempted a military victory by marching on a Providence arsenal, tugging along two cannons (that allegedly had been seized from British General Burgoyne after his defeat at Saratoga during the Revolution and ended up in Rhode Island), both of which misfired, causing most of his followers to abandon the effort.

When his political enemies marched up Acote’s Hill in Chepachet to capture him, “there he was,” said the Woonsocketer in the militia, “gone.” So they took the cannons and smashed up a local tavern, eating and drinking everything the owner had, and confiscating the lot, including household silver, a cookstove and a pair of garters belonging to someone named Ripsy Tift. (The victors and writers of history would later call this “the sacking of Chepachet.”)

Dorr was eventually imprisoned for life and sentenced to solitary confinement and hard labor. (He painted fans all day. Some of his fans are now in the Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art.)

One side note: Raven makes the point that for generations in Rhode Island all major political rallies were structured around the classic Rhode Island clambake, which then as today certainly would make the politics more palatable. Memo to candidates in 2012: Less negative advertising. More rockweed and quahogs.

What Rhode Islander do you think deserves more prominence in the history books?

Beating a Dead Potato

A brief look back at the news of the previous decade from the perspective of one of its biggest celebrities, Hollywood star, toy Hall-of-Famer and Rhode Island’s own, Mr. Potato Head:

Upon opening the parcel, Customs officers were greeted with the smiling face of Mr. Potato Head. When a panel from Mr. Potato Head’s back was removed, a quantity of MDMA (ecstasy) tablets was found in a small taped bag concealed in the cavity space.

-- Australian customs postal director Karen Williams after discovering a large amount of drugs inside a Mr. Potato Head toy mailed to Sydney from Ireland. From Google News AFP. Oct. 3, 2007.

Its bright colors, strange shape and moveable parts make it fascinating for Louis. The secret space within Mr. Potato Head allows us to hide tasty treats like fresh crab inside and that perhaps more than anything has resulted in him becoming such a hit.

-- Matt Slater of Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay, Cornwall referring to a 6-foot, giant Pacific octopus that refused to let go of a Mr. Potato Head for hours at a time. From The Scuba Herald. Jan. 11, 2008.

On the Democratic side it’s definitely Senator Obama, and on the Republic side it’s Senator McCain.

-- Andy Green, an Iowa man who gained national attention by asking 2008 Presidential candidates and other politicians to pose for photographs with a Mr. Potato Head, referring to his best-selling snapshots. His portfolio included images with Obama, McCain, Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and John Edwards, whom Green described as the most uncomfortable with the idea. From WHDH News. Jan. 2, 2008.

If you look at this potato head, the only thing missing is a watermelon.

-- Onna Moniz-John, East Providence affirmative action officer after seeing Kathy Szarko’s “Tourist Tater,” one of the giant Mr. Potato Heads that appeared throughout the state as part of a Rhode Island tourism campaign in 2000. From A.P. reporter Gillian Flynn’s story as reported on ABC News. Sept. 30, 2000.

He’s a potato. That’s why he’s brown.

-- The artist Szarko, responding to the complaint.

The whole Potato Head campaign is supposed to encourage people to visit. Obviously, we did not intend to offend anyone.

-- Then Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian on the decision to remove the 6-foot Mr. Potato Head from outside City Hall. The statue had been on display since May but complaints started after its photo appeared in a newspaper in September.

Mr. Potato Head goes organic.

-- Headline on a story about giant potatoes riding bicycles in the Dutch countryside to promote the health benefits of organic farming. From the Web site, www.greenpeace.org. May 29, 2009.

Starbucks teaching efficiency with Mr. Potato Head.

-- Headline on a blog post quoting a Wall Street Journal story about Starbucks executives training managers throughout the country: “One odd tactic that he used was to challenge managers to reassemble and box a Mr. Potato Head toy.” From the site, www.bloggingstocks.com. Aug. 5, 2009.

Hasbro Inc.’s Mr. Potato Head, for example, demonstrates the potential for amusement in manipulating and distorting the human form and shows that children’s toys can find a place in art.

-- Quoted from Farrah Tan’s article headlined “Mr. Potato Head, Barbie and Eeyore help redefine our view of bodies in student-curated art exhibition,” about a show titled “Bodies Unbound: The Classical and Grotesque” at Cornell University. From The Cornell Chronicle. May 5, 2010.

‘Toy Story 3’ hits a high point of comic surrealism when Mr. Potato Head is forced to reinvent himself as Mr. Pita Bread Head – it’s harder than it looks, especially when a pigeon turns up…

-- Quoted from Ty Burr’s review of “Toy Story 3” in The Boston Globe. June 18, 2010.

…that’s what Mr. Potato Head has always been about. You can make him into anything you want…His theme isn’t just imagination, but the opportunity to be and do anything.

-- Quoted from Matt Cuthbert’s article headlined “Mr. Potato Head encourages kids to tap their imagination at McWane Science Center” about “The Adventures of Mr. Potato Head” exhibition in Birmingham, Ala. From the Web site, al.com. July 6, 2010.

They say, ‘That’s Mr. Potato Head! You can’t throw him away! You’ve gotta give him to the neighbor kids! People identify with him so much.

-- Mark Westlund, spokesman for San Francisco’s Department of the Environment, responding to the anger of city residents when they discovered Mr. Potato Head figures were being used on blue recycling bins to promote responsible waste disposal. As a result, the city reversed its plan to transform Mr. Potato Head into Mr. Plastic and place him “alongside detergent bottles, disposable cups and other plastic items,” according to reporter Joe Eskenazi. From The San Francisco Weekly. Sept. 15, 2010.

So a nation heaves a sigh of relief. After all that worry, Mr. Potato Head is back in the ample, if recently sagging, bosom of Manchester United.

-- British magazine The Week quoting Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times about England footballer Wayne Rooney’s expensive return to Old Trafford. The British press has begun referring to Rooney routinely as Mr. Potato Head. Oct. 30, 2010.


What has been your favorite Potato Head moment of the new millennium?

Blizzard Thoughts

Why do we give names to hurricanes but not blizzards?

That was the thought that kept me company during the digging out this morning. Sometime between 6 and 6:30, while the coffee was brewing and the weather forecasters were explaining why they got wrong what they got wrong, I shoveled and scraped and warmed up the car in a Blanding Avenue conga line with my neighbors. The drive to South County was sloppy, choppy and slow, but the roads were mostly empty, and the office, once the computers rebooted, hummed with electricity and heat. Now, moaning winds and the plow music of beeping, grinding and road rumble make the sounds of the day beyond the window. Phones go off haphazardly. The workday settles into the pace of a snowdrift.

The Not-Quite-White Christmas was truly a Boxing Day blizzard, with aftermath lingering into Monday. It barely made deadline as the biggest storm of 2010, the largest accumulation of snow in Rhody since the two snowfalls that struck last December. Between blizzards, we passed a year, and in this week’s Arts & Living section we relive some of the scenes of 2010 from southern Rhode Island – from roads turned into rivers during the March floods to the University of Rhode Island research vessel Endeavor voyaging to the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the BP oil spill. Skipping through the images in our photo archives was an odd experience, compressing the news and seasons of an entire year into a couple of hours of fleeting glances and memories.

In the whirl of a snow globe, photographs fell from filing cabinets and folders, no two quite alike. A pair of snowmen greeted travelers along Slocum Road in Exeter. Children pushed through a tight passage of blossoms at Kinney Azalea Gardens in Kingston. Visitors to the South County Museum in Narragansett held newly hatched chicks and watched cracking eggs during the museum’s Fourth of July Rhode Island Red Chick Hatch. Waves from tropical storm Nicole battered the breakwater off Point Judith. Maples erupted in red and orange over an artist’s studio in Rockville.

A swirl of scenes, brief moments and encounters, and then it was over. Times grow yellow in a dusty morgue. This weekend's snowstorm at least gives the space and silence necessary for appreciation and reflection, countering the norm of accelerated lives. So to friends and strangers, followers and any folks just passing through, may these winter-worn days, dressed as they are in snowflake sweaters, thick boots and skin-tight balaclavas, give you pause to be grateful for the people and places you know. Remember, "zero visibility" is just a weatherman's way of saying "blindness," and always keep a shovel and a scraper in your car – but don’t forget the sleds, skates, skis and snowshoes either.

Rest in peace, 2010, and happy New Year.

What will you remember most from the past year?

Saugatucket Solstice

It appears that the calendar will conspire with New England weather to turn tomorrow’s historic winter solstice, timed to coincide with a total eclipse of a full moon, into just another cloudy workday. So for me the ritual walk likely will be little more than a late afternoon trip for coffee along the icy Saugatucket River, just a snowball’s throw from my window.

It’s still worth celebrating the return of incremental light, and scenes of mallard tribes huddled against the riverbank and randomly scattered copper oak leaves trapped under thin skins of cracked ice make the detour a pleasant one, despite the increasingly annoying intrusion of sign pollution marking the short walk. Where once there was just a river abutting a parking lot, with no signs to speak of, now there is a fenced boardwalk leading to a gravel path connecting the area to the bridge that leads from Wakefield School to Main Street, sprouting signs like weeds. They are permanent admonishments, mostly variations of: PLEASE DON’T FEED THE WATERFOWL and PLEASE CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR DOG. While the rebukes are well intended, it’s somewhat ironic that before the river walk became a recreational haven, it lacked the aesthetics of modern leisure (benches, viewing platform, a dock) – but it also didn’t need the cautionary overkill.

No doubt the walkway has brought more people to the river. And, yes, there are minefields of doggy detritus to navigate because some pet owners can’t be bothered to pick up after themselves. And, yes, some misguided souls like to feed Wonder Bread to wildlife. But the signs don’t seem to prevent people who leave waste untended and feed Twinkies to geese from doing those things. They just sort of ruin the view. If signs really could change behavior, I’d be the first in line to make them: PLEASE FEED THE HUNGRY. PLEASE CLOTHE THE TATTERED. PLEASE SHELTER THE HOMELESS.

As long as we’re admonishing folks, we might at least try doing society some good.

What sign would you like to post for anyone passing by?

A Scrooge a Day

‘Tis the season of dueling ‘Messiahs,’ battling Claras and Scrooge-a-Palooza, a trinity of choral concerts, ballets and plays around the winter holidays that serve as a kind of artistic eggnog, the comfort food of creative expression at Christmastime. The Chorus of Westerly, which performed the region’s first concert of Handel’s “Messiah” just before Thanksgiving, editing the masterwork from its 2-1/2 hour running time to 75 minutes of highlights, sent out a press release with the following note:

In December, when The New York Times lists holiday musical performances, there is an entire section entitled: "Messiah and other oratorio performances."

And it’s true. There are "Messiahs" wherever you look. Scores of them, in churches and colleges and community chorales throughout Rhode Island, from Brown University’s orchestrated production to the sing-it-yourself-"Messiahs" at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd (Jan. 2) in Kingston and the First Baptist Church (Jan. 9) in Wickford.

But one might just as easily publish a calendar with listings for dance and theater that reads:
“'Nutcracker’ and other ballets” and “'A Christmas Carol’ and other plays.”

Rhode Island “Nutcrackers” range from the Festival Ballet of Providence version at PPAC to the lavish staging at Rosecliff Mansion in Newport to Rhode Island Youth Theatre’s “Madeleine Meets The Nutcracker” in East Greenwich. The New York Times recently ran a piece titled “'Nutcracker’ Nation: Yes We Can!,” chronicling Alastair Macaulay’s quest to see two dozen productions of “The Nutcracker” across America. One in Washington, D.C., set in a Georgetown mansion, featured Miss Liberty and John Paul Jones in the company of Drosselmeyer’s dancing dolls and staged Act II in a dreamscape of the Potomac “with female cherry blossoms dancing the Waltz of the Flowers.”

“A Christmas Carol” is the annual cash-cow staple at Trinity Rep in Providence. But they’re also playing the Dickens out of it in East Greenwich (The Academy Players at the Varnum Armory), Cranston (The Black Box Theatre at The Artists’ Exchange), Woonsocket (Encore Repertory Company at the Stadium Theatre) and Westerly (The Granite Theatre, where artistic director David Jepson performs all of the roles in a one-man show).

Like the Ghosts of Christmas Past, every year Handel, Tchaikovsky and Dickens come back to haunt the hallowed performance halls of Rhode Island. No doubt one day, for sheer convenience, the works of all three artists willl be combined into one festive event.: “The NutMessCarol.” Scrooge is redeemed, waking on a snowy Christmas morning to the sound of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Nutcracker Prince singing the “Hallelujah” chorus, while Tiny Tim marries Clara, Marley’s Ghost dances the pas de deux with the Snow Queen, and the Cratchits welcome the angel Clarence, the Little Drummer Boy, Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Heat Miser, Snow Miser and all the boys and girls of Whoville to their humble home.

This week’s question: What turns you into a Grinch?

Season's Greetings

As we wait for the first snowfall, Rhode Islanders are comforted by certain sights that kindle the spirit of the winter holidays, from the tree lightings and Main Street ornamentation that give each town and village its distinctive seasonal look to the backyard glowing-bulb narratives of nativities, winter wonderlands and Santa’s workshops.

Each day my commute passes Santa on a forklift along I95 South and every evening I return home to the sight of New England Pest Control’s giant termite, wearing lighted antlers, a blinking red nose and blue illumination on its thorax and abdomen. But Rhody’s Big Blue (Christmas) Bug isn’t the only yuletide roadside ritual.

Trips to Tiverton are marked by the homeless nativity scene at Amicable Congregational Church, where about a dozen years ago Pastor William Sterrett and local chainsaw artist Michael Higgins teamed up to present a modern version of the First Noel. The scene features Jose, an unemployed migrant farm worker; Maura, a pregnant runaway; Hope, their newborn daughter; Gabe, an African American angel; David, a Native American working at Walgreens; Anna, a battered woman working the night shift at a medical center; a shopping cart; and an oil drum providing heat.

Another sign of the season is the holiday press release. Every year companies pitch various holiday-survey stories to newspapers to keep their products in the public eye during the Christmas blitz. Last week we received one from Dunkin’ Donuts asking the question: “Which part of the gingerbread man cookie do you eat first?” Turns out that 64 percent start with the head (my choice), while 20 percent go for the legs and only 16 percent begin at the arms. Left unsaid is that gingerbread men occupy the same diminished land of extremities as Oscar statuettes and harem guards, but since this is a family-friendly blog, we’ll leave our exploration of this topic right there.

Except to add that a town council in England recently voted to change the name of gingerbread men to gingerbread persons, only to reverse course after people not made of gingerbread complained that it was a plan that could only have been dreamed up by a fruitcake.

What is your favorite sign of the winter holidays in Rhode Island?

Winterizing

Geographically the dividing line between southern and northern New England may run in a rough, jagged crust separating rocky beach from sandy beach, but culturally the difference is most keenly felt in how each region handles winter. Up in New Hampshire, where I last lived, it was common for store marquees and school booster boards to proclaim “THINK ICE” or “LET IT SNOW” as soon as the apples dropped from the trees and until someone collected the payoff for correctly predicting the exact day of ice-out.

Down here in Rhody, it’s a different story – a tale of dreaded snowfalls and legendary blizzards, snowplows stuck behind school buses and annual milk and bread panic. The first scrape of winter was apparent this morning in my West Barrington cove, where the neighborhood woke to frosted car windows and a temperature reluctant to climb out of the 20s. Over the weekend I reshuffled the wardrobe, moving out the Hawaiian shirts to make room for clothes of a more Alaskan bent – the scarves and sweaters, fleeces and balaclavas that accessorize winter.

Alaskan aside: The 49th State is getting a lot of mileage and free publicity out of TLC’s “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” so here’s a way for Rhody’s new governor to put the 13th State on the map: “Linc Chafee’s Rhode Island,” a reality TV program showing the Chafee family living la vida Rhody. Suggested programs: 1) “East Bay Ecstasy”: The Chafees enjoy a morning of duckpin bowling at Dudek Lanes in Warren, followed by lunch at Rod’s Grill (an arm of gaggers all the way) or Blount’s Clam Shack, culminating in a night of competitive bocce at the gravel pits in Bristol’s Colt State Park. 2) “South County Sojourn”: With halibut-bashing not an option, the Chafees choose to spend the morning quahogging barefoot in the mudflats along Galilee Escape Road, before hopping on the slow boat to Block Island for an afternoon of TV drinking games at the bar in The National Hotel. (How it works: Every time Sarah Palin says “Obamacare” or “lamestream media,” you have to drink.)

Join the fun. Suggest an episode.

Alaskan aside, part deux: On a whim, I decided to Google “How many Rhode Islands can fit into Alaska?” Here’s the scary part: Dozens of sites have answered that question – and others like it, from “How many Rhode Islands can fit into Texas” to “How many Rhode Islands can fit into Mississippi?” In fact, pretty much name a place and somebody has worked out how many Rhode Islands can be squeezed into it. Of course, it wouldn’t be Rhode Island if everyone agreed on the math. Yahoo! Answers says that Rhode Island fits 423.56 times into Alaska, while Wiki Answers puts the number at 634.7. The difference is that Yahoo! uses the 1,545 square-mile calculation, which includes Narragansett Bay, while Wiki sticks to the land-only number of 1,045 square miles. Yes, this is how I spend my Monday afternoons.

And now, back to the post:

As for winter, New Hampshire may be colder, but like the reverse of an Arizona summer, it’s a dry cold. The loss of light in Rhode Island seems even more dispiriting than it does in moose country, for reasons that I can’t entirely fathom – although perhaps it has something to do with our lack of dark sky. Street lamps and neon strip the night of stars. That’s a bad tradeoff, especially in the season of Orion.

This week’s question: What do you dread most – or look forward to most – about winter?