Refreshing editorial from last week's Narragansett Times:
As Ma would say, 'Sufferin' Succotash!'
By: Marcia Grann O'Brien 09/16/2006
The two-lane road that leads from Route 1 to East Matunuck State Beach and dead-ends in Jerusalem has been getting a lot of attention lately.
Succotash Road is known to locals and tourists mainly because it's the only way in and out of one of the most popular South County areas for boaters, swimmers, fishermen and nature lovers.
This week the South Kingstown Town Council voted 3-2 to ban jumping or diving off Succotash Bridge, persuaded by a nearby marina owner that the practice - engaged in by youth and adults alike - has become too dangerous, given the number of boaters who pass under the span and into Potter Pond. Mary Polly Eddy and Kathleen Fogarty were persuaded by their colleague, Paul Tasich that this is true, even though no one apparently made any effort to prove or disprove the information. Tasich keeps his boat at Lockwood Marina; the owner made the request; he agreed; that was that. Council members Cynthia Gleason and Jim O'Neill were, sensibly, less than convinced and voted against the measure - particularly after listening to the poetically eloquent Richard Lefrond plead to keep innocent freedoms legal.
Meantime, over in Narragansett, that Town Council was also taking action without much information. (Jerusalem is actually in that town, though it's patrolled by South Kingstown police, cut off as it is from Narragansett by the harbor breachway.)
The Pier council, with only T. Brian Handrigan dissenting, voted to request that the state Department of Transportation ban parking along portions of Succotash Road from 11 p.m. until 5 a.m. The request came from members of the Kenyon Association Condominiums, who have been fighting for years, with increasing fervor, to keep "outsiders" away - even though the state pier on Succotash is a public fishing spot, and so are the breakwater that juts out from Jerusalem and the nearby marsh where people seasonally dig clams or go hunting.
Not everyone who lives in the village is a member of the association, and a bitter fissure divides those who appreciate the 80-year heritage of the unpretentious hamlet, and those who've erected McMansions that, they believe, entitle them to the privacy of a Kennedy compound.
In our old-timer, old-fashioned opinion, both town councils acted hastily and without considering the ground on which they tred.
It's Swamp Yankee ground, where folks just like to do their thing without being bothered...whether that's jumping off a bridge or parking under a full Wolf moon for the night.
If the South Kingstown Town Council must focus on Succotash Road, they should consider a real and very present danger: Speed. Year-round, it's a magnet for maniacs behind the wheel. How about some speeding tickets, folks?
As for the Narragansett Town Council, Jerusalem needs more parking, not less - as you very well know.
Maybe what all of you need is a good, old-fashioned bowl of hot succotash to warm your innards, soothe your anxieties and calm your knee-jerk reactions to the perils of modern living.
Give us a call if you want the recipe.
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