Time Out

Birthdays, migration, meanderings and the building of calendars

May 6, 2013

I turned 63 a couple of days ago—or, at least, I hope I did. As is always the case with writing for publications that don’t come out instantaneously, there’s a lag between the time when you pen an article—OK, keyboard one—and it sees print—assuming, of course, that it ever sees print—and in the case of the Journal, I typically produce the article and the pictures on the Sunday or Monday before the publication date on Thursday or Friday. So, often enough, I’m engaged in the prediction business, and when I write about an event that hasn’t quite happened, I’m taking a risk and hoping I’ll be more or less correct.
I worked on this edition of the Journal on both April 28 and 29. My birthday was May 1. I hope that I was still around to celebrate the event, and, I hope that we are all around to read about it a couple of days later.

Perhaps the wisest story ever told

March 29, 2013

A master storyteller is remembered

One of the most frustrating parts of my summer as a high school student was having to do required reading for the upcoming school year. I figured it was fair that I was forced to read whatever teachers demanded during the school year, but the summer? No, that was too much. The summer before my senior year, however, the one in which I would be more challenged in my writing capabilities than I ever had been before, I read one book that has made an indelible impact upon my life; Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart.”

Gaining altitude at Rock Spot Climbing

March 22, 2013

By MARIA SHANAHAN

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – After my trip to Hawaii, and Chris’ multiple trips to Hawaii (I think he’s up to six now), we have an insatiable desire to gain altitude on the weekends.
In Hawaii we hiked nearly every day, sometimes gaining more than 2,000 or 3,000 feet in elevation on a single hike.
It was a workout that I sorely miss and upon returning to Rhode Island we were faced with the reality that our little state is very, very flat.

Satire of 1960s Catholic school life to open Friday at Granite Theatre

March 8, 2013

WESTERLY – The Granite Theatre is beginning its 13th season Friday with a production of “Catholic School Girls.”
According to David Jepson, producer and artistic director, “Catholic School Girls” is a memory play about four women in their 30s who are remembering their Catholic school upbringing.

Enter this Ear Bliss at your own risk, discover two fiesty acts

March 1, 2013

Risk taking? That’s what Ear Bliss is all about from week to week and this week we dare you to discover two acts, one a feisty and barely five-foot edgy Americana singer and songwriter from Oklahoma named Samantha Crain who charms all who see and hear her play (and she touches down in our capital city on Sunday night!) and another with an unusual name and a sound lineage that traces back to the beauty of Big Star. Enter at your own risk.

First class dining for students at URI last week

February 22, 2013

SOUTH KINGSTOWN - As students entered the University of Rhode Island’s Hope Commons for dinner last week, they were greeted not by a cacophony of cell phone talk and clanging plastic dinner trays, but with a first class ticket onto the H.M.S Titanic. The ship’s sinking on April 15, 1912, was not the focus of this affair, however, but a chance for students to dine in another time period and enjoy a break from their course work.