Stuck in the Comic Book
If you didn’t read it when it was published on the 2nd (yes, I’m still behind), take a look at Tyler Hayden’s op-ed musing on getting stuck in Rhode Island:
Eight years later and I’m still here, I’m still cold and sometimes I still think I’m stuck. I keep expecting I’ll get used to it, but surprisingly, my first impression still rings true. Some people simply aren’t meant for certain locations. Like a fish out of water, I flip-flop around looking ridiculous and awkward. I am Kermit the Frog lost in the ghettos of Gotham. I’ve given up trying to “fit-in.” …
Tough guys, meatheads, whatever you want to call them. Machismo reigns supreme throughout Rhode Island. Intimidation is the weapon of choice. There are jerks everywhere but Rhode Islanders are just really good at it.
There’s so much to love about Rhode Island that it’s hard to resist the call to change what’s not so good — with improvement requiring nothing so much as convincing Rhode Islanders to get out of their own way. As I’ve said before, sometimes I think the full motto of the state is: “Hope… you’re going to need it.”
“There’s so much to love about Rhode Island”
1. Waterfire
2. Newport Beach
3.
Rocky Point3… umm…
“I think the full motto of the state is: “Hope… you’re going to need it.”
I always thought the motto was “Everything falls off the truck in Rhode Island”.
I suppose it is not PC to note that Rhode Island made Southboro, MA the nations capital for truck thefts.
Justin- thanks for the link. I enjoyed the oped.
Dan “”There’s so much to love about Rhode Island”
1. Waterfire
2. Newport Beach
3. Rocky Point
3… umm…
Posted by Dan at January 16, 2011 1:10 PM ”
4. Dan Dan the dancing libertarian is no longer here. Here here.
To Dan Dan the dancing libertarian.
Granfaloon is what a Rhode Islander is and not something or someone to define beyond certain limited shared experiences. You were just a Rhode Island carpetbagger and a bad one at that. Thank you for leaving.
Is repeating my name twice and giving me the label “dancing” David S’s lame attempt to belittle me when he has no substance to his argument? Is this David Segal I’m addressing, or some other wanna-be politico with delusions of grandeur from the Louisiana of the North?
Hey Davy Dave, the “dancing” liberal, I’m glad you amuse yourself so thoroughly with your arbitrary literary references.
Leaving RI was the best thing I ever did. Don’t be thankful so soon- your stagnating cesspool of a unionized welfare state has lost another taxpayer, and many more are following. You’ll have to find another source of income with which to social engineer your corrupt little dystopia now.
Feel free to add to my list. Maybe you can turn it into a postcard and raise some revenue for your soon to be Chapter 11 state. If the past 3 years are good predictors, the budget deficit this year is going to be visible from space.
I enjoyed reading the article by Tyler Hayden.
David S
You could add Hope Island Oysters to Dan’s list don’t you think? That list was a tourist’s list and a timid tourist at that. By the way, Dan, there are more than one beach in Newport and Rocky Point has not gone anywhere.
Phil – my list is a “tourist’s list” because there is nothing positive about living in Rhode Island compared with other states. The usual saying is, “It’s a nice place to visit,” but after my last visit I can’t even say that that’s true of my birth state anymore. All of the interesting people I knew have already fled and the businesses moved out.
Newport has one coastline i.e. beach and any native who isn’t being deliberately obtuse would know that I meant Rocky Point Amusement Park, which is now a highly symbolic rusting pile of scrap metal and rotting wood.
Dan,(Dan the angry man) I wish you well in your new location. But I doubt a change in address alone is ever going to improve your outlook. Other than a time in college, I have lived my entire life in Rhode (the cesspool) Island. So maybe I know nothing. Acknowledging limited experience with other places, I have found joy and love and spiritual nourishment where I have lived. In RI. I don’t know if that is to RI’s credit or mine, or something else. I wish you well. And will not use your name in any way(amusing to me)that you find offensive.
So in other words, David, the “wonderful” things about living in Rhode Island are things that you can find in any state. Only with better employment, better public services, warmer weather, friendlier people, and more disposable income after taxes.
There is NO reason to stay in Rhode Island unless you are one of the corrupted or most of your family already lives there. Even then- at least move to NH or something. Even MA would be an improvement as long as you stay away from Boston.
The worst places I’ve lived were north Texas and Illinois.I say “lived”in north Texas because I was stationed at Sheppard AFB in Wichita Falls-it was do deadening that I volunteered to go to Vietnam just to get out of there.It worked. I can’t think of one good thing about that area. Illinois wasn’t quite as bad-Chicago was a toddlin’ town as the song says. Corrupt beyond imagination. When I moved out to the “suburbs”it was worse-first we rented in an isolated apartment complex in the middle of an industrial park. Then we bought a townhome(end unit)in a tract developement.There was a lot of transiency and no sense of community.I also had some neighbors who were absolute a**holes. One couple would get drunk and slug it out on their front lawn about once a week.Another family had a car up on blocks and came right out of Deliverance-their retarded adult daughter used to visit my wife,but one day said”I can’t come by anymore because my family says I can’t hang around spics”-my wife didn’t get angry because the woman had no idea what she said was offensive. This family terrorized a family of Iranians who were very nice and finally it got to the point where I told the instigator that he was courting a Federal civil rights charge,since the local PD was useless.He decided not to dispute it with me.These Iranians had fled Khomeini and only wanted to live peacefully. Another neighbor ran a hose from his exhaust into the house of a man who was banging his wife.The plot failed when the family woke up from the fumes. I really like Rhode Island and my neighborhood.I am kind of sad how Chalkstone Avenue has deteriorated,but it’s still a good place to live. The only thing I hate about RI… Read more »
Joe, I, too, really like my neighborhood such as it is in rural Rhode Island. A bunch of gun totin’ right wingers that I count as neighbors and friends. Dan, though, is best gone. The back side of him is his best. A gone Dan is a good Dan. When I try to visualize Dan I come up with this image of this inept putz that I crossed paths with during a snowstorm. Dan drives into a 711 in shorts and flipflopps- seeking to replentish his warm cave with soda and chips. Did dan ever think he may have to face the elements? either for himself or someone else? Clearly not. Dan can go on and on about the public sector workers around him and have his little illusion about how he does not need them. But dan in his flipflopps is protected and his presumptions are protected from reality.