Scituate: Where The Road Meets Water

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Here's an interesting look at a road map of Scituate, Rhode Island from 1919.  The Scituate Reservoir didn't start holding water until 1925, but the area is clearly marked on this map.  This area was once home to the villages of Ashland, Kent, South Scituate, Richmond, and the western part of North Scituate, as evidenced by the surrounding roads that run directly into the reservoir’s path.  375 homes, 233 barns, seven schools, six mills and the Providence & Danielson Railroad were destroyed in order to make way for Providence's water supply.  Families fought long legal battles for their homesteads, many of which had been in their possession for generations.  Many of these homes were taken apart, moved to other locations and are still standing today. Anything left behind was destroyed or utilized as resources for the reservoir itself. For example, the roadway on top of the Gainer Memorial Dam, which keeps this land flooded today, is lined with long, square stones that once served as front steps for homes in these villages.

It must have been something to drive through Saundersville in the 1920s and to discover the abrupt end of a road at the shore of this massive water supply.  These days, the land surrounding the reservoir is owned by the Providence Water Supply Board, making the reservoir's shores inaccessible.  Next time you are driving through North Scituate, or down Route 12, take a look off into the woods at any given spot.  You can see many house foundations and stone walls, all remnants of villages that have been lost to time, whose only residents are ghosts and memory.  

World's Largest Shore Dinner...To Go!

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I'm sure that these bags were used for many things at Rocky Point Park over the years.  Maybe someone ran a box of them over to the gift shop when they ran out of their own bags.  Maybe a thrifty employee wrote on the back of one to inform park guests that the snack bar was out of popcorn or that the soda machine was out of order.  Maybe the operator of the Tilt-a-Whirl had the forethought to hand these out to riders as they boarded the egg-shaped carts, hoping they would catch as much vomit as possible.  

If you are a true Rhode Islander (even if you never went to Rocky Point), you know what these bags were actually made for.  They held that delicious, savory, golden brown, fried Rhode Island delicacy that is a must-have at least once every summer.  Yes, I am talking about clam cakes.  The perfect accessory for dipping into chowder, their sponge-like structure soaking up every bit of briny goodness.  To Rhode Islanders, “clam cakes and chowder” is religion, and the Shore Dinner Hall at Rocky Point was its cathedral.  

Unfortunately, Rocky Point is long gone, and the Shore Dinners have left with it.  All that's left are recollections and relics like this clam cake bag.  It's a piece of waxy paper — trash to most.  But for just under a million people nestled in between Connecticut and Massachusetts, this waxy paper is the remembrance of a summer job, or a summer fling.  It conjures up memories of warm nights by the ocean and the smells of fried dough, quahogs, lobster and salt air.  It brings back thoughts of the long tables in the Shore Dinner Hall, covered in white paper, that seemed to go on forever.  Someone bought a box of these on auction day back in the mid ‘90s after the park had closed for good. They knew that over 100 years of memories were contained in each and every bag. I was lucky enough to get my hands on my very own bag of memories.  

When a Beer Was a Dime

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The Breezy Hill Cafe (now Lucky's Pizza) was the local watering hole for the people of Foster, Rhode Island for generations.  When I was a kid, the bar, known to locals simply as "Breezy," was synonymous with debauchery.  I recall looking out of the back seat window of my family’s Plymouth Voyager and seeing more than one "skirmish" between patrons in the parking lot as we drove by.  We would hear stories of fights getting so out of hand that they would spill out the door into the middle of Rte. 6, a busy highway.  By most accounts, Breezy Hill Cafe was rough around the edges. It was also the kind of place where you could expect to have a few laughs and catch a buzz with your pals.  I suspect that if it had been around when I entered my own hell-raising years, I would have stopped in a time or two to see what all the fuss was about. 

It is hard to say how old this token is.  Trade tokens were popular from the time of the Civil War all the way through the Great Depression and beyond.  Judging by the value and the fact that it is made from aluminum (before 1886, aluminum was one of the most expensive metals in the world but by the 1920s had dropped from $12 per pound to $0.77 per pound), I would say it is at least from the 1930s or ‘40s.  It is very possible that these were still in use during the 1950s and ‘60s, but by then a dime certainly wouldn't get you very much beer!

If anyone has any info about these, feel free to comment!  

"The Bloomingdale's of Discounting"

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Caldor was a discount department store based out of Norwalk, Connecticut.  It was established in 1951 and after growing to over 140 locations, filed for bankruptcy in 1999.  Caldor replaced Woolco as the second generation anchor at the Lincoln Mall in Lincoln, Rhode Island sometime in the early 1980s.  As I remember, it was your typical discount department store.  I have distinct memories of shopping there with my grandmother. They sold a little bit of everything, although I was particularly enamored with their extensive toy section.  In my opinion, the rainbow with the 70s color scheme was their best logo.  These matches must be from a time when you were allowed to smoke in designated areas of the mall.