We begin a new feature I'll post up from time to time...SCRAPBOOK. A collection of images I harvest from various web sources, themed with some connection to my experiences of my life and all the "special" meanings that entails. Exciting, huh? No. Well screw you then. ;)
Today's entry is all about the place on earth I hatched and was weened, Woonsocket, RI...
So "trow me down the stairs my shoes" and walk this way into the Wayback Machine, Boy Sherman:
Here's one of the railroad bridges that cross over the Blackstone River. When I was 12, my friends and I walked across this. And then a train came and we ran and I nearly got killed but jumped to the other side at the last minute, then I later got a role on Star Trek: Next Generation...oh wait...that was Wil Wheaton in "Stand By Me". Okay, but I did walk across this...and tried not to look down between the ties to the river far (~50 feet?) below...it was really scary!
Here's one of the great "weenie" places on Main Street. I remember for years these delectable quintessentially Rhode Island hot dogs were available here for just 25 cents each. Yum!
If you ordered a bunch of them, this guy would sit them lined up on his nice hairy forearms as he ladles the sauce and other condiments on them. Yum? Sure, why not...adds "character". BTW, check out his tatoo. Swank! You know this guy must have been in the Navy when he was younger and still, even now, he'd kick your ass where you stood if he had reason to!
Here are a couple, "with the works", ready to chow down...looks like there's some coffee milk here to wash 'em down with.
I learned to swim here. I think I fell in love, at the tender age of 11 with one of my first proto-boyfriends, David P., here too. Watch for a full FLASHBACK on that one. Oh, it's also the place my guardian angel worked at in the 70's. His name was George.
The Stadium was right near the YMCA and on Saturdays we'd go see a movie there. It was a cool thing to look up at the ceiling in the lobby...we kids got a laugh out of seeing a naked lady up there. (Rococo-style Beaux Arts frescoes). It looks like they have live performances there now. Though I think the theater manager should be a tad more careful with spelling ("Grease", maybe?).
Making our way south now, towards nearby North Smithfield...here's the HoJo's I practically grew into adulthood at. Started there as a teenage dishwasher boy and left a teenage soda jerk man. Lots of life lessons learned early on here.
I remember we used to frequent this drive-in when I was a little boy. Then it fell on hard times and turned into a XXX drive-in, so we didn't go there anymore. Just as well, who wants to see titties and gashes anyway. Yuck! Well, it seems like it's back to being "legit" again. Whoopie! (Well, probably less of that steaming up the cars now, though.)
My memories of Woonsocket are mainly fond and longingly melancholy, sometimes illogically so since it, like so many places we remember from our past, is no better than any other place, when you get right down to it. But it's our lost youth that we yearn for.
I was scouting blogs and came across one by a writer who at the time of her post lived in Atlanta. She apparently writes Anne Rice-ish horror novels and went on an homage trip to Providence a few years ago to visit the former stomping grounds of famed horror author H. P. Lovecraft, a RI native, if you didn't already know. She made a side trip to Woonsocket and writes about her experience:
Sprouting from the banks of the Blackstone River, from the mills that fill the narrow valley, Woonsocket has impressed me as a town afflicted with the meanness that too often comes with fallen industry. Imagine a strange fusion of small-town suspicion and inner-city threat. There's a museum of "work and culture" (or something like that) downtown, and some half-hearted attempts at gentrification, but these attempts to foster myths of a heritage of proud workers only seem to underscore the squalor and poverty that one encounters at almost every turn. The big houses along South Main Street, before the descent to the river, have a similar effect. I can imagine nothing good in this place. It seems to radiate slow, smoldering hatred, this town. You can see it in the eyes of the people, especially the younger people. I would not live in Woonsocket for a million dollars. Really. Almost every place I go I see ghosts, but it's not often they seem to possess such a terrible despite.
It's weird hearing it from an "outsider", but, yeah, basically she's summed the city up in one succinct, and boldly truthful paragraph.
That's my hometown...a bitter, festering ghost town.
Today's entry is all about the place on earth I hatched and was weened, Woonsocket, RI...
So "trow me down the stairs my shoes" and walk this way into the Wayback Machine, Boy Sherman:
Here's one of the railroad bridges that cross over the Blackstone River. When I was 12, my friends and I walked across this. And then a train came and we ran and I nearly got killed but jumped to the other side at the last minute, then I later got a role on Star Trek: Next Generation...oh wait...that was Wil Wheaton in "Stand By Me". Okay, but I did walk across this...and tried not to look down between the ties to the river far (~50 feet?) below...it was really scary!Here's one of the great "weenie" places on Main Street. I remember for years these delectable quintessentially Rhode Island hot dogs were available here for just 25 cents each. Yum!
If you ordered a bunch of them, this guy would sit them lined up on his nice hairy forearms as he ladles the sauce and other condiments on them. Yum? Sure, why not...adds "character". BTW, check out his tatoo. Swank! You know this guy must have been in the Navy when he was younger and still, even now, he'd kick your ass where you stood if he had reason to!
Here are a couple, "with the works", ready to chow down...looks like there's some coffee milk here to wash 'em down with.
I learned to swim here. I think I fell in love, at the tender age of 11 with one of my first proto-boyfriends, David P., here too. Watch for a full FLASHBACK on that one. Oh, it's also the place my guardian angel worked at in the 70's. His name was George.
The Stadium was right near the YMCA and on Saturdays we'd go see a movie there. It was a cool thing to look up at the ceiling in the lobby...we kids got a laugh out of seeing a naked lady up there. (Rococo-style Beaux Arts frescoes). It looks like they have live performances there now. Though I think the theater manager should be a tad more careful with spelling ("Grease", maybe?).
Making our way south now, towards nearby North Smithfield...here's the HoJo's I practically grew into adulthood at. Started there as a teenage dishwasher boy and left a teenage soda jerk man. Lots of life lessons learned early on here.
I remember we used to frequent this drive-in when I was a little boy. Then it fell on hard times and turned into a XXX drive-in, so we didn't go there anymore. Just as well, who wants to see titties and gashes anyway. Yuck! Well, it seems like it's back to being "legit" again. Whoopie! (Well, probably less of that steaming up the cars now, though.)My memories of Woonsocket are mainly fond and longingly melancholy, sometimes illogically so since it, like so many places we remember from our past, is no better than any other place, when you get right down to it. But it's our lost youth that we yearn for.
I was scouting blogs and came across one by a writer who at the time of her post lived in Atlanta. She apparently writes Anne Rice-ish horror novels and went on an homage trip to Providence a few years ago to visit the former stomping grounds of famed horror author H. P. Lovecraft, a RI native, if you didn't already know. She made a side trip to Woonsocket and writes about her experience:
Sprouting from the banks of the Blackstone River, from the mills that fill the narrow valley, Woonsocket has impressed me as a town afflicted with the meanness that too often comes with fallen industry. Imagine a strange fusion of small-town suspicion and inner-city threat. There's a museum of "work and culture" (or something like that) downtown, and some half-hearted attempts at gentrification, but these attempts to foster myths of a heritage of proud workers only seem to underscore the squalor and poverty that one encounters at almost every turn. The big houses along South Main Street, before the descent to the river, have a similar effect. I can imagine nothing good in this place. It seems to radiate slow, smoldering hatred, this town. You can see it in the eyes of the people, especially the younger people. I would not live in Woonsocket for a million dollars. Really. Almost every place I go I see ghosts, but it's not often they seem to possess such a terrible despite.
It's weird hearing it from an "outsider", but, yeah, basically she's summed the city up in one succinct, and boldly truthful paragraph.
That's my hometown...a bitter, festering ghost town.