The Diary of A Simple Man

Our water has been coming in dark brown today. There's no smell, but what appears to be silt is settling in the toilet.

Maybe they're cleaning out the pipes, which has happened before - although it has never made the water quite as brown as this. Or, it's possible that a water line has burst under our foundation. In which case, we're probably in a lot of trouble.

The water - ah, I just spoke to someone at the Water Department. There's a huge fire nearby, another old mill complex burning down. So it's not our pipes after all. What a relief!

A couple of days ago the town shut off all the street lights down the middle of our street. The two ends of the street are still lit, but the middle portion is not. I assume it's a cost-saving measure.

It's pretty dark out there. I have to wonder if this increases the chances that we'll be burgled (which isn't something I stay up nights worrying about, by the way).

There's a full moon tonight. It made a ghostly glow on the driveway when I took out the trash. Kind of pretty...it almost looked like snow on the ground. Normally the street light washes out the moonlight.

I wonder if the lights will ever go back on again?

As I've mentioned before, Rhode Island has one of the few remaining unexploited regional cuisines in the US. The city of Woonsocket has its own unique cuisine as well. I'm a transplant to Woonsocket, but since I've been living here for more than ten years now, I thought I'd take a stab at a Woonsocket dish.

I must admit that I was inspired by something I had at the Great Pumpkin Festival over in North Smithfield (which adjoins Woonsocket) on Saturday.

It was a dynamite, made by the North Smithfield firefighters. Very spicy, but very good. I looked up a few recipes online, and then went and basically winged my own version. It came out pretty good!

• 2.5 lbs 80% lean ground beef


• 2 medium yellow onions, coarsely chopped


• 1 large red pepper, coarsely chopped (green is traditional, but cooked green peppers disagree with Teri)


• 2 celery stalks, coarsely chopped


• 1 16-oz can tomato sauce, Italian style


• 1 8-0z. can tomato paste


• Minced gtarlic (I forgot this, and added dried minced garlic later; at a guess, 3-4 cloves would have been good)


• Sea salt and black pepper (red might have been better) to taste

In a very large frying pan, brown beef with the onions. Once most of the pink is gone from the meat and the onions are starting to turn clear, add the red pepper and celery. Continue to cook at a medium heat until the peppers and celery are soft - the red peppers will start losing their skins. At this point most of the fat should have cooked off (do not cover the pan while cooking!). Add the tomato sauce, tomato paste, plenty of pepper (black and/or red), and salt to taste. Stir and simmer for another 10-20 minutes. Serve sandwich-style in soft, fresh Italian torpedo rolls. Leftovers can be stored or frozen.

I have to say, it was easier to make than I expected! And pretty good, too. It was my idea to not drain the meat before adding the peppers and celery, and it turned out to be a good one. They cooked very nicely in the hot fat.

Of course I have to admit that it's not the healthiest dish in the world...

P.S. - Of course I've had dynamites many times before. Chelos (a small Rhode Island chain of family restaurants) used to make an excellent one, although only at two of their locations. But they changed their recipe a while back, and it's nowhere near as good.

I can't remember what the dynamites were like at The Castle, but either I haven't tried them or they didn't make a big impression on me.

The dynamites at Bellingham Palace didn't work for me. The pieces of vegetable were far too big, and the whole thing didn't taste right. That's the only time I've had anything at Bellingham Palace that wasn't really good, though.

Dynamites are often served at local carnivals and festivals. Woonsocket also has at least one dynamite cook-off each year, and probably more (and no, I will not be entering).

Argh! I'm starving!

Last week I noticed that a Woonsocket restaurant called "Box Seats" was gone. It had been around for a long time, but now it had a banner hanging over the front with a new name. Weird things had happened there over the years; it had been a police hangout, I think, and there had been some fights. I think that a serial murderer (the one who killed prostitutes) used to hang out there.

There had been another Box Seats located over in North Attleboro, I think, and one of the two locations was sold a year or two ago; we were never quite sure what happened with that. But over the years we'd each received a $10 gift certificate in the mail from the restaurant on each of our birthdays. Sebastian loved their free soup.

And now they're gone. I wonder what happened?

Yesterday was Wednesday, and as usual Teri's mother picked up Sebastian from school; that gives Teri and me about two hours together alone. We'd already gone out to eat once this week, but Teri wanted to try a new restaurant downtown: the River Falls restaurant.

I'd looked it up online not long ago, and although some of the menu items were high they had burgers and things for under $10. I was feeling pretty frazzled after the events of the previous day, so I agreed.

It's literally not a five-minute walk from our house (although we drove, since we were coming from the opposite direction), and opened within the last two or three months. It's in an old mill building, right on the river; it overlooks the bridge on the other side from the falls. The river bends right around it.

The inside was very nicely decorated indeed; the music was tasteful and relaxing. I started to worry that the meal might be expensive. But it turned out that they had a special deal on Wednesday nights. Dinner for two, including soup or salad, entrees, a bottle of wine, dessert, and coffee all for $30! And one of the entrees was spaghetti and meatballs, so I was all set.

It felt really weird to be ordering wine with dinner. I don't really drink, after all. But we got a...I don't remember. It looked red to me, but Teri and the waitress said that it was white. It was quite mild and pleasant, for wine. We ended up finishing the bottle, I had about 2/3 of it. It didn't affect me at all, of course (except for a touch of heartburn the next day), but it made Teri a little relaxed.

The soup was Italian wedding soup; surprisingly tasty, but a little greasy. It repeated on me for the rest of the evening. For the entree, Teri had pork with apple sauce and mashed potatoes. She became quite rapturous about the potatoes, and made me try them; they were clearly NOT instant, and they were very good. Actually, she really liked the whole meal (except for the rolls, which had an odd bitter/cheese taste).

I had the spaghetti and meatballs, and was very pleasantly surprised. The portion was the perfect size, the sauce was interesting and well done (just a little spicy, slightly sweet and certainly not from a can) and the meatballs (three of them) were very large and quite good.

By dessert time we were both feeling pretty full, and it was getting late. So we got our desserts to go; they weren't large, but not skimpy. We haven't tried them yet, but we'll probably have them tonight.

The meal was just under $40; not something we should do often, but a really nice way to spend our evening together. I saw from posters on the walls that they have live music and comedy nights there, so (as Teri said) we may have a regular Wednesday night place to be. Perhaps if we do that, we'll be able to avoid going out to eat the rest of the week.

Incidentally, the one thing that disappointed me was the view. The windows weren't small, but they were a little too high and not big enough to give any view of the river unless you were standing up. I guess making larger windows through those enormously thick stone walls wasn't an option when they were working on the building.

I'm voting tonight in the local elections, and right now, I'm stumped.

The major contest is between Susan Menard, the current mayor of Woonsocket, and Todd Brien (pronounced "Breen"). Both are Democrats. Both seem to be somewhat corrupt, which isn't surprising given the town and the state - Rhode Island is a pretty crooked state, I'm sorry to say. Lots of Mafia influence, too, or so I'm told.

In Menard's favor is that she has been mayor for ten years, and there haven't been any major disasters. Things have been run tolerably well, for the most part.

Against her is that the school system is still bad.

In her favor - maybe - is that she hasn't raised taxes much in that time. Not that I'm against raising taxes, and I expect that would be necessary to improve the schools. On the other hand, we simply don't have the money to pay much more in taxes.

Against her is that she called her opponent "a tax-and-spend liberal". Democrats have enough trouble, even in Rhode Island; no Democratic official should be using Republican hatespeak against a fellow Democrat.

Also against her is that she has used some of the city's resources to intimidate people working for Brien. And she had city dump trucks moved to block views of Brien's campaign signs during a senior citizen event downtown; the drivers were paid overtime.

Brien is a cop. He's been a cop for nineteen years.

As far as I'm concerned, that's a strike against him. My opinion of most cops is bad, and particularly so when it comes to Woonsocket cops. They've never helped me when I needed it, but they've certainly screwed me over.

Apparently Brien is in tight with the police union. I generally support unions, but in my book police unions are the worst. Some people are saying that his candidacy is a bid by the police union to pretty much control the town.

He has some nice sentiments on his website and in his campaign literature. He wants to improve the schools. He wants to improve the city. But there are no specifics about how he'll do all that, apart from "listening to people" and having an open administration. I asked one of his campaign workers why he'd offered so few specifics, and she told me that it was hard to offer specifics until he got into office and got all the information he needed.

That doesn't cut it with me.

In his favor is that he's against the proposed expansion of Wal-Mart. Although that's yet another situation in which my conscience and my pocketbook are at odds: I strongly oppose Wal-Mart, but we're dirt-poor, and could use a cheap place to shop. But the expansion into a Super Wal-Mart would primarily be in groceries, I think, and the Price Rite across the street from Wal-Mart already offers really cheap groceries. Heck, Price Rite might even go out of business if Wal-Mart became a full service supermarket.

He's against the Med Zone, a low-tax zone that's being pushed by Menard. But that seems to be getting killed off on the state level anyway, so it may not matter. It does seem like an abuse of a law that was intended to help seriously run-down areas, though. Woonsocket has plenty of slums (I live in one), but the area that Menard is pushing for the Med Zone is anything but depressed. It's actually mostly woodlands, in a nice part of town.

It's a tough call.

Basically, though, I'm leaning towards Menard. She hasn't screwed things up in ten years, and although she's abusing her power, that hasn't affected me personally. And Brien would almost certainly be just as corrupt.

The thing is that Menard has a solid track record. Brien is an unknown, and that means that he REALLY should have made his positions clear. By offering mostly nice-sounding nostrums, he's asking the electorate to buy a pig in a poke...to gamble on the devil we don't know.

I think that was Brien's mistake.

But I wish I had another choice.

For the past nine days or so it rained. Pretty much non-stop. The last two or three days it rained heavily. Sometime last night, or early this morning, it stopped raining.

And the Woonsocket waterfall...you should have seen it. There were an amazing number of people downtown, just staring at it and taking photos. But photos don't do it justice, so I'm including, for the first time, a video clip. You have to see it to believe it.

Before you do, though, you might want to take a look at some photos of the waterfall as it normally is, here, in one of my earliest entries: Images of Woonsocket Falls. There are a bunch of photos in that entry, but they're all fairly low-res.

Go on, I'll wait.

And now take a look at this clip. It's short, only 7 seconds, and only 2.3 MB, so it won't take too long to load.

Woonsocket Falls, 10/16/2005

Pretty cool, huh? The water was churning and blasting so hard that it was as if it was still raining in the entire area; there was that much spray in the air. I was interested to see a large "Department of Public Safety" vehicle near the falls; later I heard that the flood gates of the falls had been opened three times during the night.

I don't know if you can tell in the video, but the water that was blasting against the large rock island under and next to the middle of the bridge (visible during seconds 3 & 4) was shooting about 20 feet up into the air.

Sebastian fussed a bit because he was afraid that the falls would be too loud, but we managed to get through without him getting too upset.

This evening was lovely; temperate and sunny, with gentle breezes. I was pushing Sebastian in his swing when I noticed something odd: a stranger was walking around in our neighbor's yard. He was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, had a red shirt hanging out of the back of his jeans, and had black hair and a black mustache. He looked to be about thirty years old.

He was looking around our neighbor's yard in an odd way, as if he were nervous and looking for something. Then he went to their driveway and seemed to be looking in their car. And then, to my amazement, he vaulted the fence and came into OUR yard.

Again, he seemed to be looking around nervously. "Loking for something?" I said to him. Teri came out from the house at the same moment, less than ten feet from him, and said the same thing. She didn't quite make out his answer, but he crossed our yard and climbed over the high fence to our neighbors' parking lot on the other side.

Then he jogged across that lot, and climbed over the NEXT fence. We heard him fall and crash into the trees on the other side; he left his red shirt stuck on the top of that fence.

And then he was gone.

My guess (and Teri's, too) is that he was either being chased by someone, or had stolen something and thought the cops were after him. We never heard or saw any pursuit, though.

Weird!

Oh yes - Sebastian was quite aware and interested in the whole thing. Later, he volunteered his opinion: the "strange man" had lost his home, and was looking for it.

Last night, Teri and I were sitting in the living room watching season premiere of The West Wing. Sebastian had just fallen asleep on his little swing.

Suddenly we heard a loud "BANG" from outside. It was a sound I've heard before: the sound of a car plowing into another car. We looked out the window and sure enough, a white pickup had plowed into the back of my old Honda.

The truck was just sitting there, rammed into the rear bumper. We couldn't see if anyone was in the driver's seat. I went to get my shoes and Teri called the police while watching the pickup. Before I could get my shoes on, though, the pickup suddenly started up again and went backwards up the street. It backed into a side lot and began to turn around, obviously preparing to leave the scene.

In a flash I was out the door and pounding down the street after it, barefoot. Behind me, Teri was shouting "Get the license plate!". I was afraid that the pickup would get away before I could get the plate, but it was moving slowly; I got within a few feet of it and nailed the number cleanly. Then I headed back to the house to wait for the police.

As I was on the front walk to the door the pickup came back. Lumbering up over the curb, it came after me, smashing through our white picket fence, the horn blaring as it raced towards me. The engine hit a high note as the pickup accellerated towards me and the front door. Death was only an instant away.

Okay, sorry. I often fear that my blog is too boring. It needs to be punched up a little, but I guess veering into fiction isn't the answer. Let's get back to reality:

As I was on the front walk to the door the pickup came back. The driver seemed kind of sprawled in the middle of the front seat as he called out "What's the problem?"

He had some sort of accent, and sounded a bit slurred; I couldn't tell if he was drunk. "You hit my car!" I answered, angrily. Long-time Chatter readers may remember that my Honda was also hit-and-run a few years ago, and that the perpetrator was never caught. I was sort of flashing back.

"No I didn't!" He sounded sort of confused, possibly under the influence.

"We saw you!"

"So what (mumble)?"

"I got your plate and we've called the police."

Silence. I went back into the house, and the pickup slowly drove down the street and turned right at the end.

Less than five minutes later the police came down the street. They took the information, looked at the damage (the rear bumper had been disconnected from the car on the left side), and asked if I wanted to file a report. They also told me that the car's registration had expired in August, which wasn't surprising since I'd stopped driving it before then. I had planned to junk it a while ago, but never got around to it.

I talked it over quickly with Teri, and we decided not to press charges; it wasn't worth it. The cops were okay with that, and suggested that I get the car off the street, if I could.

And that was pretty much it. It might all seem like a tempest in a teapot, and perhaps we shouldn't have called the police (not true, always call the police when there has been an accident - and wait until they arrive). But there was one good thing about the situation: parked directly in front of my old Honda was Teri's new (used) van. If the Honda hadn't been there, the van would have been hit instead. Funny, huh?