I wasn’t born here.
I didn’t grow up here.
I ended up here. But I’m planted in Rhode Island and I’ve put down roots.
We’re the smallest state in the nation, but we’ve got the highest population density. We’re forty miles wide and ninety miles tall, if you include Block Island, which we do, and we’ve got 400 miles of coastline. Do the math on that.
We say we’re 10% larger at low tide, which isn’t true, but we say it anyway.
Rhode Islanders come in every color you can imagine, and we speak a lot of languages. We all know at least a couple of words in a couple of other languages, and we use them. Often.
Food? We’ve got everybody from everywhere. If you want Johnny cakes, bolos, Panang beef, lobster, chick parm, samosas, Rhode Island clam chowder, carnitas, Del’s lemonade, coffee milk, pierogis, or fried dumplings, we’ve got the best. And don’t get us started about calamari ‘cause you will lose that one.
And we’ve got Roger Williams, who was kicked out of Massachusetts for not being orthodox enough, and who thought that people should be able to worship, or not worship, as their conscience dictated. And we’ve got Anne Hutchinson who got kicked out of Massachusetts (what’s up with them?) for holding and teaching dangerous thoughts, and who founded the city of Portsmouth, Rhode Island. And we’ve got George M. Cohan and John Philip Sousa and you’re welcome.
And Kennedys? Covered.
And yes, we’ve had slave traders and rum runners and wise guy headquarters and we treated the First Peoples badly. Not for nothing, we’re a work in progress. We own it, we’re not always happy about all of it, but we own it. Roger Williams used the phrase “a lively experiment”, which is just another reason to love him. That’s what we’re doing, experimenting.
And we sometimes worry about hurricanes, and other times Boston gets two feet of snow while we clean the driveway with a broom. Go figure. It’s all part of living in the Ocean State.
It’s Rhode Island and it’s where I’m planted.