Rhode Island just had another “blizzard.” It was a scrawny little blizzard, let me tell you. We had maybe ten inches of powdery snow, although it looked ferocious, what with all the blustery wind and such.
You must understand that Rhode Island has a thing about snow. Back in early 1978, there was a big unexpected snowfall that brought the state to a halt for several days. People were stranded everywhere – at their offices, in their cars, in their homes. I arrived in the state six months later, and everyone was still nattering about it. Now, thirty-two years later, they're still nattering about it.
To this day, when there's snow in the forecast, people go mental. “Milk and bread” is the catchphrase. The supermarkets are insane asylums; I went into the local market on the day before this year's “blizzard,” and it looked like a riot scene. There was broccoli on the floor in the produce department. People were fighting over broccoli!
So we're crazy. Okay. We're a small state, we exaggerate things. A few years ago, there was an early-December snowstorm that turned out a little worse than expected, and hit slightly earlier in the day than predicted. People got stuck in their evening commutes, and a couple of school buses were delayed. It was the Rhode Island version of the Apocalypse. It is still referred to, several years later, as the “December debacle.” I'm not kidding. People blamed this, if you can believe it, on the mayor of Providence. (That mayor, David Cicilline, a very nice openly-gay fellow, is Rhode Island's new First Congressional District Representative in the U.S. House of Representatives as of 2011, by the way.)
Actually, there was one particular local personality who kept yapping about it: ex-Mayor Vincent “Buddy” Cianci.
More about Buddy tomorrow. Stay tuned.
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