- (indistinct) - Hi, how are you?

- Hi, auntie, you look beautiful.

- Hi.

- You look gorgeous You look gorgeous.

- Oh, my.

- It's been really interesting to see the reaction, people being like, "What is this?

People in Rhode Island talk like this?"

- We did a podcast where I had a speech expert come on and basically, I said, "Why don't I talk like this?"

you know, and- - Please analyze me.

(all laugh) They're gonna take a tour of the armory and try to get this effort to redevelop that property going again.

We'll see what happens, but it could have a future.

(upbeat music) - And welcome in to this episode of "Lively."

We appreciate you joining us.

This week, we have Boston Globe reporter, Ed Fitzpatrick, and Providence Journal reporter, Antonia Noori Farzan.

The Cranston Street Armory is back in the news.

Three years after a disastrous trip by two state officials to Philadelphia, to meet with an urban development firm about revitalizing the iconic building, some are hoping to resurrect a renovation plan.

Ed, you had a great story this week, and actually, it came out of, it was... The guy who was on that trip, Jim Thorsen, got jammed up with an ethics complaint.

He wound up beating the rap, as we like to say.

They found that it was not a conflict of interest, but you started talking about the armory, so tell me about that.

- Yeah, if you can believe it, it's been three years since that famous trip to- - The Philly fiasco.

- Yeah, the vegan cheese trip, right?

- (laughs) Right.

- So yeah, last week, the Ethics Commission cleared him of three charges of violating the ethics code by taking a free lunch.

So afterwards, you know, I talked to him about how he felt about clearing his name, but then I said, you know, "What about the Cranston Street Armory?

That's what you went down there for, and nothing's been done with it," and he thought something should be done to redevelop that property.

It's huge, it's just sitting there.

It's used for films now and then, but pretty much unused, and it has so much potential he thought, so he said, you know, the community, the city, the state, all deserve to have something done with that property.

So I started asking them, the groups that have been advocating for this over the years, the West Broadway Neighborhood Association and the Providence Preservation Society, and they're having the Scout executives come to speak on May 4th, and they're gonna take a, or May 3rd and May 4th, they're gonna take a tour of the armory and try to get this effort to redevelop that property going again.

They wanna bring people in to have sporting events, and nonprofits, and artists, and make it open to the community again.

- So Scout's still in the mix?

- Well, they said they would be happy to be part of that project again, you know, but the question comes down to, the state has been in discussions with the City of Providence about taking it over, and it seems like they've had a disagreement about money, - Sure.

- it's coming down to money, 'cause I just interviewed the governor the other day about it, and the city was saying, "Yeah, we'll take it over if you give us $40 million for maintenance and renovations," and he said, "We don't have $40 million," but he said they had offered 20, so, I mean, - Maybe- - maybe can they come up with this - Yeah, maybe- - somewhere else.

- Yeah, maybe they'll come up with something.

- Yeah, I thought that was a great story.

- Oh, thank you.

- because it's just such a good reminder of what the stakes were, of this weird saga with the vegan cheese.

I mean, you know, obviously, there's a lot of ethical implications with that, but at the end of the day, what was lost was this plan for this amazing, cavernous building that's been empty for so long, and as you captured, there's so many people in the neighborhood who've wanted something to happen with this for so long, who are so frustrated, because just when it seemed like there was some progress, all of a sudden, there are these shenanigans, and then the whole thing falls apart.

It's gotta be incredibly frustrating for them to look at this every day and know that they came close.

- Yeah, I talked to a neighbor, who said she just hears the lid whacking on in the wind, on a dumpster, - (indistinct).

- and I took a tour of the building that Scout developed in Philadelphia, the Bok building.

It's huge, it's like three times the size of the armory, it used to be a vocational school, and they've turned that into a high, it's got a fancy restaurant, as we know, and a rooftop bar, and all this activity.

- I think if you talk to most Rhode Islanders, my brother ran indoor track there - Yeah, yeah.

- In the '70s.

He used to go around.

And then I remember, the fire marshal's office was there at one point.

When Jesse Owens was the fire marshal, I went to interview him, and the National Guard was there, and then they just abandoned it at some point.

- Yeah.

- But I think if you talk to most Rhode Islanders, I mean, that, on the top 10 list of buildings that you know, the armory would be one of them.

- Totally, it is so iconic, it's so recognizable, and I mean, there's so many different stories, like the stuff that's happened there.

Like, they used to have like dances and balls, right, - Yeah, yeah, yeah, - I think, at one point.

- Yeah, inaugural balls, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

- So, and then they used it, you know, during COVID, they used it, or more recently, as a shelter that kind of turned into a disaster.

They spent a lot of money on bringing in some homeless people, but the setup wasn't good.

So I wonder, the detail always is in money.

Hey, if you had a quick 40 million to spend.

What kills me is we had a billion dollars in AARPA money, and I know that got dedicated, some to housing, some here, it evaporates pretty quickly, but talk about a great one-time use if we could've used it.

- Oh, yeah.

- That's the exact use that that money would've been good for.

- Yeah, if the difference is between 20 and 40, you know, you could find something in the middle, and we did have that pot of money there, and, you know, the debate has gotten down to whether it's got statewide value, statewide benefit, and the advocates say it does, you know, that this could be a draw for tourism, it could be used for big events in downtown Providence if you couldn't get anything downtown.

So yeah, it's got a fascinating history.

I didn't know it used to be called the Civic Center, and they used to have- - Before the Civic Center, right?

- Yeah, before the civic center that I think of, yeah.

So yeah, we'll see what happens, but that idea is alive again.

- I wonder also, with the money standpoint, you would think there would be grants out there for historic buildings.

I don't know if they've been down that road, but that would be one area maybe.

- [Antonia] Yeah, yeah.

- Has anybody talked about that, tapping into private?

'Cause we always think of the public sector, and then everybody cries poverty, "Oh, we don't have any money."

- Right?

- Yeah, it is on the National Registry of Historic Places, right, it's the People's Palace, they call it, and the advocates said it has been kept up pretty good, the state has done a good job, but, you know, it does cost something every year that they put into it just to keep it from falling apart, so, you know, it could have a future.

- Okay.

- I was just gonna say the part that's so frustrating is they're paying all this money to heat it so the pipes don't freeze, and no one's in there.

- Right, well, at least a couple of million dollars, right, to keep it up - A place that big!

- from year to year, - Yeah, yeah.

- money that's just going right down the tubes.

Okay, we will keep an eye on that.

What seemed like a politically innocuous project, a mural in Providence to honor a Ukrainian refugee stabbed on a train in Charlotte last year, has turned into a full fledged frittata, prompting the artist to pick up his paintbrush and move across the city.

Antonia, you've been following this, and who would've thought, whatever it was, six weeks ago, that we would be where we would be, so set the table for people who have not been following this.

- Totally, yeah.

So last year, there was this tragedy in North Carolina where a young woman, a Ukrainian refugee, was stabbed on the train.

I remember hearing about this at the time, definitely didn't think it would be a big political issue in Providence, months later, but basically, what's happened is there's been this campaign to get murals of her across the country, and it's funded by people, including Elon Musk, who are kind of maybe looking to make more of a statement, more of a political statement, about, you know, Democrats being soft on crime, so it's taken on much larger political symbolism beyond just being a memorial of this particular tragedy.

- And so they're gonna do it at the Dark Lady downtown and- - Well, that's what they started to do.

- And it starts, - Yeah.

- and then what happened?

- I mean, as soon as it started going up, people knew it was part of this national campaign and got really upset.

I think, in particular, having it be on a gay bar, people, you know, people who are the clientele, honestly, really reacted negatively to them for a little while.

The bar owners doubled down, and a lot of people are kind of saying, you know, this really isn't representative of the Providence community and what people here want, and then Mayor Smiley essentially said the same thing, and that kind of inflamed the situation further, because then it kind of became a national story, and, you know, people kind of were reacting to that, you know, saying that that was a form of censorship.

I will say I did ask the ACLU about this, Steve Brown, the ACLU of Rhode Island, and he does not feel that it was a First Amendment issue, 'cause the bar did eventually decide to stop the project, but their explanation, they really pointed to all the community pushback they were getting, not political pressure, and the mayor didn't order them.

- Yeah, I thought Antonia had a really fascinating story, and what stuck with me was, you know, that we have murals all over the city, and they are often political and advocating for one thing or another, but they often represent the local community.

You know, there's that question, is it representative?

And, you know, I was just tuning into that we have a new mural for Cornel Young Jr., the Black Providence police officer shot by two white colleagues - 25 years ago.

- 25 year ago.

I covered the trial in US Federal court and US District Court, and you know, that's a local mural.

So this one's got these national implications, it is kind of different.

But, you know, this is a battle we're seeing all the time.

Like, I was just writing about this statue of Cesar Chavez that's over there across from the Veterans Hospital, and there's a, you know, after all the allegations of sexual abuse by him, there's a movement, some people say that should come down, and we should take the name off the streets that are named for him in Providence.

So it hasn't happened yet, but that's gonna be a debate coming up.

So, yeah, yeah, I thought it was fascinating.

- And that's a great example.

I mean, the Cesar Chavez example is a great example of why the city now is pretty cautious about putting in any new memorials, because when you do that, even after someone's dead, as you see in that example, stuff can come out after their death, when then you revisit that and have the question of do we wanna have a memorial to this person?

- And so then the artist decided... How did that come about?

Now he decided to do it over on Federal Hill, on another building.

Did they approach him?

Were the feelers- - Yes.

- How did that work?

- They approached him.

So I did interview one of the restaurant owners there, that's over on Federal Hill, and they, so one of the co-owners of that restaurant had actually bought a piece of art from this artist before, had a relationship with him, and kind of saw this whole controversy in the news and reached out, and in that case, he basically said, "I'm gonna give you a token payment of a dollar to do this," so then, you know, it's not outside money, it's not anything like that.

So since it's gone up on Federal Hill, you know, obviously there's some backlash, but I think there's been, it's really calmed down.

I mean, the mural's up now, nobody's vandalized it, as far as I know.

- It's interesting how some murals or statues are okay in certain parts of the state, and not others.

Like we had the Columbus statue, it was vandalized in Providence, now it's in Johnston, has a new home.

So yeah, these debates are going on, and it makes you think about who gets remembered and how.

- It also makes you wonder, if Elon Musk's name had not been attached to this, would any of this been a big deal?

- [Antonia] Yeah.

- That was really it, what was driving it, right?

Because, I mean, he's been such a lightning rod.

- I mean, in general the whole, this really horrible tragedy that happened has been very politicized across the board, not just by him, so I think there still would've been some of that resonance out there, but yeah, I mean, to Ed's point, I think a lot of people also were looking at it as like, this is a tragedy, yes, but it's a tragedy that didn't happen in North Carolina, did not happen here, is not a Rhode Island person, is not really about Rhode Island, so memorializing someone like Cornel Young Jr.

totally makes sense, but people are saying there's so many people in this community who we could be recognizing in this very prominent space downtown.

- We could probably do a whole show about, you know, you'd have portraits at the State House.

Ed Dupree went to jail for racketeering, Buddy Cianci, all of his criminal history, so does that wipe out what they did while they were in office?

I guess, I mean, it's a little bit of apples and oranges, but that's the discussion a lot of people are having.

Does the current cancel out the past?

- Yeah, that's a great point, 'cause I've seen in other contexts where, there's a museum in Philadelphia that has kind of, it's kind of freaks and oddities of medical science, and, you know, there were a lot of ethical questions raised about will these people, you know, give permission to allow their bodies to be exhibited like this, so now, rather than just shutting it down and boarding it up, what they've done is create displays that talk about those issues, and say, well, you know, what was the context for when this person had their, you know, their child taken away for having a deformity of some sort.

So you can put it in some historical context and make it educational.

- All right, and it's down on Federal Hill if people wanna go see it, right?

- Yep, it's on Atwells.

- Okay, great!

After months of discussion and speculation, the real housewives of Rhode Island made their debut on Bravo last month, resulting in a lot of discussion about those accents and whether they are Rhodie authentic.

Let's go to the expert here.

Now, you have both talked about the Rhode Island accent.

Let's start with the housewives first.

Was it the train wreck that we all expected?

- I mean, I have never seen one of these shows before.

I don't know what to expect.

- You have no, you have nothing to compare it to.

- I have no context, yeah.

I don't think it's really embarrassed.

I mean, the one thing that stuck me that they got really wrong was the first episode, they go to Goddard Beach, which is actually Goddard State Park, and they're wearing gowns and heels, and having this fake picnic - At Goddard Park, come on!

- at Goddard Park, so that, but since then, there has not really been as much depth that really seemed totally off-base.

- And as far as the accents that you've heard, I heard a lot of people say, "Well, they may be embellished," I didn't hear anything that I haven't heard in Rhode Island at some point during the course of my life.

- Totally, yeah, and the characters themselves, or whatever you wanna call them, I know they're real people, but they don't, the housewives, with one exception, do not have super strong accents, in my opinion, but what's fun is there's these cast of the aunties who are all her aunts and they'd be sharing a strong accent, and they're what anybody's Rhode Island auntie sounds like, - She has a very big fear of frogs.

- so they're great.

- Now you fit into the category of I haven't watched, don't plan to watch, my life will go on without watching, but as to the accent, you're good to have on, because I think, among the three of us, you may stand out a little bit with your own accent.

- (laughs) Well, I think it's sad that these regional accents are fading away.

My kids don't have accents.

Like, they make fun of me when I can't say the difference between a beer and a beer, a crisp beer and a Budweiser, and, you know, we did a podcast where I had a speech expert come on, and basically, I said, "Why don't I talk like this," (Jim laughs) you know, and- - Please analyze me.

(all laugh) - And he gave the history of the influences from England, and Ireland, and Italy, and it's somewhere between Boston, which is different, you know, Boston's different, I'm not from Boston, and New York, Brooklyn, and so I found it fascinating, and that's the most listened-to podcast we've ever had.

- Is it really?

- And we had people- - We've done like 500 podcasts, right?

- Yeah, it's been five years.

- Yeah.

- And the, you know, we had people call in, and one of my favorites was former state representative Joanne Giannini called in, and she said, "I'm Joanne," you know, "I care," and you know, she has the best Rhode Island accent right up there, with, I'd say, the Mount Rushmores, like Arlene Violet, - I'm incorrigible!

(both laugh) - And then the other day, when Ben Affleck was reading the names of the cities and towns in Massachusetts, I went and I asked Charlie Lombardi, the mayor of North Providence, to read the Rhode Island cities and towns with me, and that was- - You had a little fun.

- Yeah, that was fantastic.

- That's online if you wanna see it.

- Yeah.

- The dialect, what do you make of it?

- It is so interesting to hear what linguist pick up and how they can kind of pick up on those subtle things that we don't, but I'm so happy it's getting on a national stage and people are learning it's not just a Boston accent, that we do sound different.

It's been really interesting to see the reaction, people being like, "What is this?

People in Rhode Island talk like this?"

Like, it's a bit of Boston, a bit of New Jersey, which is exactly right.

I mean, when I wrote about the disappearing Rhode Island accent, what linguists told me is it's kind of exactly a mix of Boston and New York, you've got a little bit of elements of both.

- So you've written about this extensively, and then you resurrected that piece as a, the news peg was the Rhode, was the Rhode Island housewives, "The Real Housewives of Rhode Island."

When you were putting it together, what was your thought?

Did you just, was this anecdotal, you're thinking, "I'm not hearing this as much anymore," or did somebody talk to you about this?

Or how did that come about?

- Oh, yeah, it was totally anecdotal.

You know, I moved back here after a few years away, and I just started noticing this real generation gap, like Ed was saying, where people my age, people younger, you know, I was just not hearing accents the way I was in the older generation, and when I'd mentioned this to people, they would say, "Oh, that's a class thing," And it is, it is true, accents have locked you with class, but even in the younger generation, across class, you don't hear it as much, so I just really was thinking about this.

I mean, I pitched this story when I applied to work at the Pro Jo five years ago, so I- - Wow!

- And I basically just waited until I could get enough evidence (chuckles) on this scholar.

- But I also wonder, you were saying the generational gap, like, your kids don't have your accent, - Not at all.

- but did your parents- have an accent?

- Oh, they had wicked accents, yeah, they- - So how did it, so how did it get... You know, you picked it up from them.

My parents, although I moved to Rhode Island when I was five, largely, my speech patterns had been formed already, we lived in the Midwest, my parents had no accents at all, but my wife, who's lived in Rhode Island, she doesn't really have an accent unless she gets tired.

What do you make of that with the generational skip now?

- Yeah, yeah, when I'm- - Because you would think if your parents talk that way, like a Southern accent, you would talk that way, right?

- Right, right, 'cause it is going away 'cause, like, I see, Emily Sweeney is a reporter from the Boston Globe, - Oh, she's got a quirky accent.

- from Dorchester, and she's, the New York Times just wrote about her 'cause she's started to do TikToks, and read the news, and she's got the greatest accent, but we can compare it, like, you know, she's soccer and hockey, and I'm soccer and hockey.

- Right.

- And, you know, there's a big difference between the two, but it is going away, and I don't know what it is, whether it's because kids are on social media so much, everybody's got the same accent.

I don't know, I don't know, it just seems to be going, or that people move around more and just get the kind of generic dialect.

But I love it, I think it's something that makes this place unique, but it is going away.

- I remember when Arlene Violet did an interview with Morley Safer, for "60 Minutes," back in the mid-'60s.

- Yeah.

- No, mid-'80s, and it was titled "Atilla the Nun," and she said, you know, he said, "Now, Sister Violet, I understand you're a sister of mercy.

Now, did you pray this morning?"

She says, "I prayed before this interview, Morley."

(all laugh) And then, the look on his face!

And I had people, now I was a couple years out of college, they called me and they said, "Does everybody in Rhode Island talk like that?"

(all laugh) - Morley.

- And he said "Arlene is unique and probably proud of it."

- Yeah.

- So as for the "Real Housewives," are you're gonna continue to watch, do you watch it?

- I have a professional duty to watch it.

- (indistinct).

- I'll be honest, I just space out with all the drama.

I'm just there to see when they're going down Reservoir Ave, or whatever.

That's all I'm aiming to do.

- The boom shots are beautiful though, I gotta tell you, when you look.

- All right.

- That's what I'm there for.

- And you're not gonna watch at all?

- I think I have to now.

(speakers drown each other out) - Okay.

Proponents of changes to the Access to Public Records Act are back at the State House this year.

Will they have success?

You're a member of the First Amendment Coalition.

This seems to be the annual, basically, more transparency, and there's been a big resistance from the McKee administration.

- Oh, yeah.

- Is that continuing?

- You wanna share?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Senator Lou de Palmer has been proposing this bill to overhaul the access to Public Records Act in 48 ways but now it's 49 ways, they just added one more, for four years now.

It's gone nowhere.

Governor McKee's administration and every state agency you can imagine has fought it tooth and nail, and the house speaker has said, you know, "We don't hear about that during election season," so he's not excited about it, so it hasn't gone anywhere.

Someone needs to say, "Well, all right, here's the things in that list of 48 items that we can pass, and find some middle ground, but no one's been motivated enough up there on Smith Hill to do that, but there's a lot of things that would make it, that would serve the public's interest to do, just in terms of updating the law to, you know, take into account new technology, like the body cameras, to, you know, lower the cost of getting public records, 'cause these are like, you know, these are public records, they belong to the public, and I think, you know, I don't think it'll pass this year, but I think it'll pass soon.

- Yeah, and I think that's such a great point about finding the middle ground and seeing which pieces of this you can do, 'cause there are a lot of pieces you could do, just individually, that would... I mean, I think the new piece this year, right, is the draft.

So currently, there's this big loophole that if something is in draft form, it doesn't have to be released.

- It could be in draft form for 20 years, right?

- Exactly, yeah.

I mean, who's to say, what's a draft?

You can just say, "This is a draft, I don't wanna hand it over," - Yeah.

- so tackling that, for instance, wouldn't be great.

- And that was a response to what happened with the Washington Bridge.

They had a draft audit report- - That was the Liz Cheney report - that just - that eventually got leaked, right?

- Yeah, it got leaked.

It ended up on the Attorney General's website, but, you know, DiPalma has said, "Well, you know, that could have remained a draft forever.

We need to change the law so this can't remain secret, as it did.

- I have said the last couple of years, it's too, it's just too much, 'cause, you know, at the end of the session, when you get into crunch time, we got 48 things, pick out one or two.

If you could pick out one or two that you would concentrate on?

- [Antonia] Oh, that's so hard.

- Oh, yeah.

- What do you think?

- Well, I think that- - What would be at the top of your list?

- Well, the one that has been plucked out this year, the Providence Streets Coalition and other advocates of getting the data on where the most dangerous intersections in our state is.

The Department of Transportation has the information.

They claim that federal law prevents them from giving it out, but other states do it all the time.

- They're worried about legal liability.

- Yeah, they're absolutely worried about lawsuits saying, you know, "I'm suing you 'cause you didn't fix that intersection," but Massachusetts puts it up on a portal, it makes it easy, not only makes it public, it makes it easy for the UC, where the dangerous intersections are, and that makes sense.

I mean, if we don't know where the dangerous, if we don't have the data, how can advocates push for changes, how can the pressure be applied to government to make those changes that keep us safer?

- You don't pronounce it datter?

- Datter, yeah (laughs).

- What would you like?

- You know, that is a great one, 'cause that is so crazy.

When I was a reporter in Arizona, I did a whole story getting that data based on it, and nobody said it was against federal law.

I mean, that is news to me.

I think one thing that bothers me is there is, I don't know if this is even part of the law to reform this, or part of the bill, but there is currently the exemption where basically, a mayor is exempt, so kind of the chief executive is exempt from APRA, in a lot of cases, versus staff or not, and that all just seems very backwards - to me.

- Here's what it is.

If you're an elected official.

- Yeah.

- So we asked, when Sarah Palin was, remember that with her emails all those years ago - Yeah, yeah.

- Whoever the governor was at the time, we said, can we get his emails?

"Oh, it's restricted under APRA," which makes no sense at all to me, but if you were a staff member- - Yeah, so why is staff being held accountable but the elected official isn't?

I mean that's just, - It's the way the law has been written.

- (indistinct).

- The one thing that bothers me is just the approach and the mindset of public officials, because, 20 years ago, I used to be able to call, they'd know, you know, the journal reporters, and we were covering, hey, no problem.

Now everything has to go by a lawyer.

- Oh, yeah.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And then it's 10 days, and usually- - And the lawyer says no.

- And the lawyer says no, and then you have to fight it, and then, because it's complex, the extra 20 days kicks in.

- We see that in Pawtucket.

All the records requests have to go to some, you know, contracted attorney, and yeah, it really is a backlog now.

But yeah, one of the items that is in it, I think came from one of your stories about license plates.

- Oh, yeah.

- Tell tell us about that.

- Yeah, so right now there is a, basically, you don't have to reveal who license plates belong to, and I kinda got into this when I got a tip about maybe somebody getting a low number license plate as a favor, so I tried to figure out, well who owns that license plate?

That's question number one, right, - They won't tell you.

- and you can't find that out, but you used to be able to.

- Yeah, oh, years ago.

All right, let's go to outrages and/or kudos.

Ed, what have you have this week?

- Well, in the most Catholic state in the country, I think there was a lot of outrage this week when the president and the vice president were criticizing the pope for being for peace, for advocating for peace, and- - It's a controversial position.

- Yeah, a tough position, and he was out on a limb, and yeah, I mean, you had the vice president saying, you know, he should stick to matters of morality, which seems exactly what he was doing, and the president was saying that, you know, he was weak on crime, like as if he was his opponent in a mayoral race, or something.

So yeah, I think there was probably a lot of outrage about that.

And, you know, I'm not a theologian, I'm a journalist, but I remember from Mount Saint Charles that, you know, blessed are the peacemakers was one of the key points.

- Yeah, and I also wonder whether a lot of the evangelical base, it's not just the Catholics, but some of the memes that have been going on, that Trump's losing even that.

A lot of people have said, okay, that line, I mean, he's done enough that you would've thought they would've already, but who knows?

Outrage or kudo this week?

- Yeah, I'm just gonna do a kudos to the fact that we've had 80 degree weather this week, - How about that?

- that the potholes are mostly filled, the flowers are out, as kudos to spring.

(Ed laughs) - Do you have a memory of this big snowstorm that we had?

- I'm trying to forget.

- Did that happen this winter?

- [Ed] I hadn't heard about that.

- You can tell you kids about the blizzard of '20 to '26.

Now we can't talk about the blizzard of '78.

- Oh, I know, - like we used to, right?

(speakers drown each other out) - [Ed] We surpassed that, yeah.

- Where were you?

You were in middle school?

- I was in Greenville, and my neighbors, we tried to build the biggest snow fort, we thought we were gonna be in the Guinness Book of World Records We didn't make it, but it was quite a storm.

(all laugh) - The difference, I was a senior in high school, and I lived in Central Mass, where we got 46 inches, so it was a little bit more.

The difference was the weather forecasting wasn't as good.

My mom was like, didn't... They let her out an hour early.

It took her like seven hours to get home, a 10-mile drive, and nobody had front-wheel-drive back then, - Yeah, yeah.

- Right?

So you think of our '74 Chevy Malibu, it was not the- - Yeah, my father worked on Promenade Street at the phone company, and his epic journey from Providence to Greenville, he barely made it home.

- Oh, did he, he was driving though, right?

- He was driving the back roads, and it was, he had to drop off a coworker, and it was in Johnston or something, and it was epic, it (indistinct).

- And people forget, I mean, people died in their cars on the 120-A, - Oh, yeah!

- Didn't make it, yeah.

and I don't remember losing power, but I mean, I think we were pretty much up and running if you could get outta your driveway in two or three days with this blizzard.

- First time around, oh, yeah, absolutely - Yeah, first time.

- I mean, it was more snow, but absolutely less catastrophic, like, in every measure.

- All right, Ed, Antonia, thanks for dropping by, we appreciate it.

- Thank you.

- And thank you for joining us.

Be sure and check us out on Facebook, X, Instagram, and on the Ocean State Media YouTube channel.

We'll see you next time, right here on "Lively."

(upbeat music) Lively is generously supported in part by John Hazen White's Lookout.