Rhode Islanders now

We've had brutally cold weather over the past several days. Light snow fell this past weekend but only half or less than what they got in southeastern Massachusetts, just thirty minutes north of Providence.

By Monday the sky had clear and the day dawned clear and very cold. But the DMC beckoned and so off I went. Now most of us have an inordinate fear of auto registries -- well-found to be sure. But Monday the gods were smiling -- and so were the folks on the other side of the counter. I waited maybe 15 minutes before they called my number (0574) and 5 minutes later I walked out the door with brand-new RI license plates. (photo: brother and sister resting together in Swan Point cemetery.)

So I have RI license, a car with RI plates and a home in RI. I guess that makes it about as official as it gets: we are Rhode Islanders now.

It's funny in a way I suppose.

For the better part of the past dozen years or so the places we have moved to have become progressively smaller: Michigan to Vermont and now to Rhode Island, the smallest state in the Union (what's next the US Virgin Islands, I wonder?) At the same time, we have moved to increasingly larger cities: Chittenden, Vermont (pop 785) to Rutland, Vermont (barely 19,000) to Siena, Italy (55,000) to Florence (450,000) to Paris (over 1 million). Now to Providence (175,000), which may indicate a gradual backwards to ever smaller places again.

Then again it may mean nothing at all except we like the places we have lived but only up to the point where we decided it was time to move somewhere else, to do something else.

Wish you were here,

Steve