(UN)RELIABLE
SOURCES:
LOOSE ENDS AND RANDOM THOUGHTS
by FRANK O'DONNELL
May 18, 2008
It’s time once again to look back on recent columns to wrap up loose ends and collect any random thoughts.
LEE’S PLAT LOCKDOWN. After my column about the Memorial Day/ Civic Pride Parade, I heard from a number of folks who live in Lee’s Plat. They’re worried that on parade day, if they don’t get out early, they’ll be held captive until the parade is over. Someone decided that the town has one too many cut-throughs, and the gate to Birchwood School is now padlocked when school is out of session. That leaves only Douglas Avenue as the outlet for Lee’s Platters, so on parade day, they’re stuck. Unless of course they disguise their cars as floats and temporarily join the parade.
SKATEBOARDING AWAY. Speaking of the parade, a reader pointed out that I’d missed a very important float, one celebrating our recently mobile skateboard park. The suggestion: the float starts in the tenth position of the first division. A politician gets upset with where it is, and moves it to the second position. Another politician gets upset, and moves it back to eighth position. The placement leap-frogging continues all along the route, until they get to the turn at Douglas Avenue, where the skateboard float will continue eastward on Mineral Spring, finally coming to rest at the Lexington intersection, where it will stay for a year or so. Less than that, if someone complains.
PRIME REAL ESTATE. I understand that enterprising residents along the Douglas Avenue parade route are putting For Rent signs up on their front lawns. Complete your negotiations now, and for a price, you’ll be able to plop your lawn chair in a prime viewing area this Memorial Day.
GRAVEL PITS OF WENSCOTT. I guess the town has given up on the Islands of Wenscott – those concrete-curbed barriers in the middle of Wenscott Lane that were designed to cut down on speeding cut-through traffic. As conceived, they were supposed to also be planted with flowers or greenery. I recently suggested we build them up and use them as tomato planters. But as of this writing, they sit there, unadorned, unused and filled with gravel. In effect, they’ve become little more than rocky speed humps for trucks unable to navigate the turns.
THE HILLS OF CENTERDALE. Last week, I drove into the Centerdale by-pass. The Public Works crew was hard at work, whacking the grass on the right side, mowing on the left. The power equipment exhaust wafting through my window reminded me of a summer day in Los Angeles. As I rubbed my eyes and coughed up a lung, I thought, why mow? Why not seed the hillside with perennial flowers, and let nature take its course? That way, the hills will be colorful at least part of the year, and we won’t have to worry about developing emphysema as we navigate the Centerdale Corridor.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE TREES. As I peel away the layers of skin lost to my latest Babe Ruth-related sunburn, I return again to the trees summarily executed at the high school baseball field. In the spirit of Why Can’t We Get That, we really missed the boat once the trees were felled. All that wood, just gone. Think of the number of wooden bats they could have yielded. Or wooden bleachers for the first-base side of the field. Toothpicks, even, to help dislodge the Gummy Bears purchased at the snack bar. Something, instead of nothing, which is what we got. Not counting the sunburns, of course.
GOHO, REVISITED. The celebrity of North Providence High School’s principal, Joe Goho, continues unabated following his recent appearance on a television ad. I’m told that autograph seekers crowd the school’s high-security vestibule at the beginning of the end of each school day, while paparazzi snap his picture regularly. Okay, truth be told, it was one guy who asked JoGo – that’s his new celebrity name, by the way – to sign his name on a Stop & Shop receipt while another captured JoGo’s image on his cell phone. The latest rumor: Steven Spielberg called JoGo about replacing Harrison Ford in the next Indiana Jones epic, tentatively scheduled to be filmed in Rhode Island in the summer of 2009. Working title: “Raiders of the Coffee Cabinet.”
***
[Join the North Providence Gang, and weigh in on the town’s MOST IMPORTANT topics. What a great way to celebrate your civic pride. Just send an email to frankocomedy@cox.net, and you’ll be signed up.]
Reprinted with permission from The North Providence Breeze
Cartoon by Charlie Hall
