Category: ri

Emile Moisson


I tale worth telling. Two men I know, of whom I am very fond, have a tale to tell. They are in their 90’s now. Their father from Pawtucket, RI. evidently was very talented at repairing textile looms. Before WWII he moved to France, to work in Lyon. His two sons attended public school. The war broke out. For those of you who are familiar with the history of that time in France, Phillippe Petain established the Vichy government, and fashioned an agreement with Germany. In exchange for two civilians, a prisoner of war would be released. The two boys were selected despite being american citizens. They were determined not to go. They enlisted in the french resistance, their american passports were destroyed, and they were given the identities of dead frenchmen, one being Emile Moisson.

When the war ended, they went to the American embassy wishing to return to Pawtucket. Naturally they were asked to produced proof of citizenship. It took another five years to get home.

Senator Claiborne Pell

Senator Pell’s funeral was today. He was all the things that everyone said about him. He was of a generation and an upbringing that the world is in desperate need. I am certain that each one of us has met or knows someone of that older generation who by thought, word and deed has quietly set an example, if we are wise enough to follow, makes us a better person and a better citizen of the world. The void left will be hard to fill, and I hope it will not be crowded out by the fast moving pace of today’s society.

First Real Snow


This afternoon the snow started as predicted. Several inches an hour, no wind yet. Not particularly cold. Tomorrow morning will tell the whole story.

Yesterday I spent some time with a group who are trying to leave Newport for Florida. Naturally the suggestion was that they hold off this weekend and start watching the weather forecasts for a window of 48-72 hours; about as much as you might hope for at this time of the year. If they can get to Norfolk, the rest of the trip is easy. It it this first few hundred miles that is trying.

Hanna was a bust

Tropical storm “Hanna” missed Newport; however last week Bunky Helfrich lost his battle with leukemia. I had sailed with Bunky, always on one of Ted Turner’s boats. Bunky was likely Ted’s best friend. Bunky is pictured far right in the crew photo of “Courageous” wearing a Lily Pulitzer bathing suits.

Bunky always had a good story or a joke,an imp of sorts. In 1977 one evening between selection trials, we were in the Paradise Lunch, a bar on Thames Street; where a beer was a dime and on Friday nights there was a strip show. Whoever it was had to perform to the music provided by the juke box and a stage with a plastic palm tree and a chaise long covered with a false leopard skin.  If the music stopped someone ran over and inserted another quarter, allowing three songs in a row.
This was also the season of the syndicate parties, each syndicate in turn would give a rather formal party for the competing syndicates.  Ours was next. With Bunky and a few others we approached the “stripper” who would come as a “date” of a yet to be determined crew. Naturally, at the most awkward moment she was meant to start her show. we negotiated a price, none of us really had the cash and finally the courage. It would have been great, and the end of someone’s sailing season.

Waiting for Tropical Storm Hanna


It is the weekend, and I have no sailing planned. Yesterday I prepared everything I felt needed to be attended to before “Hanna” arrived. As you can see the visibility is nil; any sailing plans would have been canceled. We are in Hurricane season. One’s mind wanders when there is no focus.

One of my longtime dreams has been to visit St. Catherine’s of the Sinai. A Monastery built around the burning bush at the foot of Mt. Sinai.
Sometimes things in life happen for a reason. Last year, we were in Los Angeles and as luck would have it The Getty Museum had an exhibit of the Treasures of the Sinai. My dream had come true.  Accompanying the exhibit were monks from the Monastery assuring the safety of the exhibit, interestingly the monks are all from Crete, the name Lirakis is a name from that same island, so they were very excited to meet me.

The Hermit of Narrow River

When I started school at URI in 1966 the only road to get there was a small winding road. I would pass a falling down house situated on a charming spot. One day I found the courage to knock on the door; thats how I met Bill Lacy, the hermit of Narrow River. He wasn’t really a hermit; he just couldn’t get around very well as he had no car and there certainly was no bus passing by.

The skiffs in the photograph were one of Bill’s only source of income, you could rent one for a quarter a day, to go rowing or fishing on the river.
The photo of Bill sitting on the steps of his house with his cat, tells quite a story.
The man with the rake was Bill’s nearest neighbor, they didn’t speak. His source of income was smoking pogies in his outhouse. I was never certain if he revealed this to his customers.
The day Bill died his house was bulldozed and it was as if he had never existed.


my town

Newport, is a tourist town, even the vikings visited;home to the oldest synagogue in America, designed by the same architect as Trinity church. In Newport the Jews and Christians co-existed harmoniously in colonial times as now George Washington even spoke at Touro.

My Newport is a town with many layers. each intriguing in it’s own right; for me, however, I must have somehow been infected with sea water at a young age, as I keep returning to the ocean



Newport


I live in Newport, RI, The bridge completed in 1969, has become an icon of sorts for Narragansett bay. The center span was being lifted into place as I was leaving for the start of the 1969 trans-atlantic race to Cork, Ireland. The photo of the bridge and the ferry must have been taken that fall.

I returned from my summer of sailing in europe having no idea what Woodstock was; one of the defining events of my generation. For me, the event that I remember was the walk on the moon, the BBC, which normally signed off at midnight, stayed on air to transmit the event, we were mid ocean, cold wet, everything was damp, huddled around the Nav station, listening to a static filled broadcast.
The other photographs show the moods of the bridge and the bay.