We Tivertonians are a diverse lot. We worship at many different altars on a Sunday morning, but it seems like we all go to our sundry shrines in our cars.
As I drove south along Main Road this Sunday morning there were cars parked solidly along both sides. The first crowd clearly belonged to the Catholics who were all safely inside St. Christopher's Church for their 9:30 Mass as I drove by their empty cars. There sure were a lot of them. It's a little known fact that there are only two US states where more than 50% of the population claim adherence to the same religious denomination. One is Utah (Mormons); the other is Rhode Island (Catholics).
A little further along, the main cause of congestion was the cars of the coffee addicts getting their fix at our local coffee shop, Coastal Roasters. They have an outside seating area where you can sip your morning joe and watch the boats on the Sakonnet River. I drove carefully past here. You never know when one of the worshipers of the bean, all juiced up with java, will jump out between the parked cars into the traffic.
The congestion eased just south of the old Stone Bridge. The Episcopalians were at worship too but they do not seem to be as numerous as the Catholics. Or perhaps they just have a larger off-the-road car park.
I turned right into Nannaquaket Road and parked by the bridge. Time for my own personal addiction, my worship at the shrine of the cardio. A gentle four mile run around the back of Nannaquaket Pond and further down Main Road to Seapowet Avenue. Getting my running fix.
I drove north again after my run. As I carefully negotiated my way through the two lines of parked cars outside Coastal Roasters an elderly couple started wandering across the road in front of me. They weren't looking my way. They didn't seem to hear me. I stopped to let them cross. The woman must have sensed my presence and turned her head and saw me just before she completed her crossing. But the old dude kept ambling along at a snail's pace completely oblivious to the fact that he was stopping all the traffic. I gave him a cheery wave as I (eventually) drove past him. Honest. All five fingers.
We Tivertonians are a diverse lot. We respect each other's different forms of Sunday morning worship. The bread and the wine. The roasted bean. Bashing the pavement. Though if that old dude had actually been imbibing in Coastal Roasters I don't think much of the stimulative effects of their coffee.
6 comments:
Be easy on him. He might have recently been hit by a boom and even now is wandering around in a slight daze.
Of course the coffee helps - and if you have the papers to read at the table you can sit around longer watching the water, enjoying a great Sunday.
(word veri: "readat", so felt had to include that phrase)
Who knows what was wrong with the old dude. There are a lot of old people wandering around here.
About a mile south of us is one of those "active adult communities" that Tillerwoman and I might move to in a decade or two in an ironical move when we feel less active than we do now.
Then a bit further along the road is what is euphemistically described as a Retirement Living Community which has a bewildering range of options such as "independent living", "assisted living" and "memory care". It sounds like it is for people who aren't active enough for the relaxed pace of the Active Adult place. I suspect Tillerwoman will probably put me in there when I can't remember to look both ways before crossing the road.
So we are all set. There's even a cemetery just up the road. This is a great town for old geezers.
I suspect Maryland may be 2nd to RI in proportion of Catholics, since it's the only one of the original 13 colonies to be settled by English-speaking Catholics.
Since Tillerwoman won't sail with you, she won't have this dilemma: http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f80/alzheimers-dilemma-44152.html
Finally, we have had our summer cruise, but the closest we were to RI was NY Harbor.
Steve in Baltimore
Hi Steve, well of course I just had to look up the numbers of Catholics in Maryland and found an interesting table for all states on Wikipedia.
I'm sure I read somewhere that only two states, Utah and Rhode Island, had 50% or more of one denomination but according to Wikipedia, we should also count Pennsylvania with 52% of Catholics, second to Rhode Island's 63%.
Maryland, it turns out, is only 23% Catholic and is 27th in that category among all states. I suspect later waves of immigration have changed these figures a lot in many states since the early colonial days.
Isn't it amazing what you learn on Proper Course?
You could start a local geriatric Laser Fleet.
No rabbit starts, no banging the corners too loudly.
And at the starts, over-early bird specials.
Thanks for the suggestion O Docker. But there is no need. The Atlantic Coast Geriatric Laser Championships will be held just down the road in a couple of weeks. Watch this space for full reports.
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