(UN)RELIABLE SOURCES:

DIGGING THE RIZZO RUINS

by FRANK O'DONNELL
July 28, 2008

The other day, I drove past the town’s most celebrated intersection – MSA and Douglas – and saw what’s left of the Rizzo automotive complex.

Two crumbling cinder block walls on either side of what used to be a garage door bay, I’m guessing, with a steel beam connecting them. Off to one side is the shell of some sort of diagnostic machine, or perhaps a rolling tool chest.

With the setting sun behind it, the scene reminded me of the Pompeian ruins I once toured.

And that’s when it struck me, like a lightning bolt out of the blue.

Hold everything!

This could be an archaeological gold mine. Little bits of North Providence folklore scattered throughout the site, going all the way back to the town’s establishment in 1636.

The Rizzo Ruins.

There’s history there, people. And it’s our job to get to it before it all gets bulldozed away.

Even as you read this, it could all be gone. There wasn’t a moment to lose.

I quickly called my friend, Artie Faxx, the noted anthropologist.

When I told him what I was thinking, he rushed right over. Under the cover of darkness, wearing our special explorer helmets complete with mounted headlights, we began our exploration.

It wasn’t long before we hit pay dirt.

“Look at this,” cried Artie, holding up what appeared to be a large splinter.

“That appears to be a large splinter,” I said.

“To the untrained eye, a large splinter,” he said, holding the wood under a magnifying glass. “But I’m here to tell you this is what’s left of a tent stake.”

“Cub Scouts?”

“Better than that. This is what was left behind when Roger Williams overnighted here in 1637.”

“Roger Williams came to North Providence?”

“He was making a deal with some local costume jewelers to design original Providence Plantations trinkets that he would later sell to people coming down from Massachusetts to swim in Narragansett Bay.”

“You can tell all that from one sliver of wood?”

Artie beamed a little. “I am, after all, a noted anthropologist.”

Of course.

We dug some more, and I pulled up what appeared to be a tenacious root. I was about to toss it aside when Artie caught my arm.

“Stop! Don’t you know what that is?”

“Looks like a tenacious root to me.”

“Those are the fossilized remains of the town’s first tomato plant. This land was once cultivated by an immigrant known only as Ragu. He brought in North Providence’s first tomato crop, and now they grow like weeds around town.”

“I had no idea.”

We kept at it until dawn, unearthing a treasure trove of memorabilia.

The biggest prize of all was a large piece of rock with a rudimentary painting of a three-lane thoroughfare cutting through the forest. One lane had an arrow pointing east, one had an arrow pointing west, and the one in the middle had an arrow pointing both ways.

“Proof positive,” said Artie, “that Mineral Spring Avenue was designed by cavemen.”

I’m sure there’s more to be found, but we’re done looking.

We’re donating what we found to the North Providence Museum of Natural History, which we plan to build soon with the remaining cinder blocks from the Rizzo Ruins.

The site?         

Camp Meehan.

Naturally.

***

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