Question

[usregimechange]

Do you guys all know each other? Just kidding. :-) We need your hard work as well!

[strategery blunder]

1. no, out of state

Hi from Missouri!:hi:

[Quahog]

2. It's weird

I am a transplant to RI, from San Diego. RI is a small state in every way. I used to go about my daily life in So Cal without ever running into people I knew. Here, it's a daily occurrance. I've grown to really enjoy it, though... I just have to count on spending more time when I go to the market or whatever, because I know I'll end up in a conversation with someone I run into there!

[stellanoir]

3. Hey Quahog. . .

I experienced more culture shock when I moved from here to Southern California than I did when moving to Europe, the Mid-West, or the Northwest. . .wondering how has it been for you here. . .familiarity aside. . .?

[Quahog]

4. On being transplanted

I really like RI. My wife was born in Johnston (about a half mile from where I now work), but her family moved away when she was little. It's funny, because she has the family connections here, but she is far less patient with RI's idiosyncrasies than I am.

What I love: RI is a bastion of New England liberalism! I am not constantly shadowed by Freepers here as I was in San Diego. Also, lots of Catholics, which is good for us. People seem really tied to their communities, they have roots and histories, and they care very much about their neighborhoods and their state. I like the small-town (or small-state) feel, everyone seems to know everyone, but people also seem very tolerant of individuality (the mayor of Providence, both current and previous, attest to this). People are hard to get to know here, but it's worth the effort; this contrasts with my experience of SoCal, where everyone seemed to be friends with everyone else, but it all felt kind of transient and fleeting. I like the environmentalist approach to preserving forest areas and wetlands, it's an amazing thing that so much of this tiny and densely populated state is off-limits for any kind of development. I can commute to work via back roads through the woods and across the Scituate reservoir, no freeways, little or no traffic... heaven! RI has some of the most beautiful beaches and waterways and harbors and marinas I've ever seen. There is LOTS of great food in this state, Italian, Portuguese, and the seafood just kills, cheap, fresh and delicious (you would think the same would be true in SoCal, but it's not... Pacific mainly supplies tuna, everything else is imported and insanely expensive). I love the changing seasons, but I grew up with that in Michigan, I thrive in the cold. My kids seem to enjoy that as well, they love to play in the snow. Oh, and I really like the fact that people decorate their yards for EVERY holiday here, not just Christmas! Love the plastic Easter eggs hanging in the bare trees!

What I've had to adjust to: The small-state thing sometimes expresses itself in small-mindedness. While I enjoy the cultural history of many ethnicities here, I think that nationalism can get a bit out of hand, although I understand it's much better than it was (my wife's parents caused a scandal because he was Italian and she was HALF Italian and HALF Irish... the shame! The horror!). It's hard to assimilate into a community here, because there's a lack of shared history; having a RI native for a spouse helps here immeasurably, but we are still considered "outsiders" to a palpable degree. For all of the liberalism of the state, there are strong undercurrents of sexism and racism here. The condition of the roads is a total embarrassment - I ride a motorcycle whenever it's not wet and icy, and I swear I'm gonna rupture a kidney one of these days on RI's torn up, potholed, badly repaired excuses for roadways. And there is NO GOOD MEXICAN FOOD ANYWHERE IN THIS STATE!!!! That's been one of the hardest things for me! I spent most of my adult life 20 miles from the Mexican border, I lived on Mexican food, and there's just nothing here.

Overall, it hasn't been that hard for me or my kids to adjust, and a bit more of a challenge for my wife (she HATES the cold). It's a better place to live and raise a family than Southern California, we believe. Things were just getting too weird there for us. My 22-mile commute often took 90 minutes in the evening, prices of everything were spinning out of control, job market went through frequent cycles of panic hiring and massive layoffs, and kids at my children's' school were getting beat up because they were wearing off-brand sneakers, or getting beat up and their sneakers stolen if they were Nike Air Jordans. It seemed we were working more and more and more hours every year, just trying to keep up, and never really getting ahead. One Thanksgiving day, as we were putting out the Christmas decorations while sweating in shorts and t-shirts (it had been in the upper 80's in East County for six months without a single rainfall), we kind of decided we'd had enough. I was living on a severance package after I bailed during my company's third restructuring, we visited RI that January, and by May I had landed a fantastic job and we were set to relocate. I've never looked back, I'm generally very happy here.

[stellanoir]

5. wow!

Thanks for the thoughtful and detailed response to my query.

So Cal sounds as though it's really deteriored since I lived there. The "sneaker wars" sound horrendous. . .what screwy values. The kids at my son's school here thankfully scarcely notice brand names.

But I do remember the traffic. My first exposure was having a 60 mile trip taking 5 hours. After that, I tried to stick to the surface streets whenever possible

That was in the mid 80's, but I was in Santa Monica and had a very easy commute to Century City.

R.I is endearingly quirky in many of the ways you mention. More on that later.

But more to the point, how is it that you came to discover. . .quahogs. . .?

[Quahog]

6. Mmmm, Quahogs!

I love shellfish, so it only took me about a week to figure out the difference between steamers and cherrystones and quahogs and all of their tasty cousins. I consume them all at every opportunity!

Quahogs are just kind of amusing to me, although I'm not sure why. I still can't get a straight story on whether the quahog is really the official RI state animal....

[stellanoir]

7. though I truly believe that quahogs should be our official. . .

state animal. . .or crustacean. . .or whatever. . .I fear that we only have the Rhode Island red rooster. . .they were initially bred in my hometown. . .when I travelled in Europe eons ago, people had two responses upon learning of where I was raised. They would either say, "Is that part of New York. . .?" or "That's where the chickens come from !"