NARRAGANSETT RACE TRACK

PAWTUCKET'S  LOST ASSETS --NARRAGANSETT RACE TRACK


The recent essay in the Providence Journal by columnist Mark Patinkin in which he speculated that the PAWSOX are probably headed for Worcestor really struck me as unbearably sad.

Why must Pawtucket lose another one of its precious assets?
We have lost so many.  In this blog I often lament the end of such delights as  Dunnel's Pond, The Blue Pond,  Novelty Park Pool and playground, Sacred Heart High School, The Leroy Theater, the Strand Theater, the Darlton Theater,

I don't even  bother to  mention the terrible  closings of all the mills that employed all the people I knew--The Coats Mill,  Lebanon Mill, Darlington Fabrics, Collyer Wire, Glencairn, Corning Glass Works. Just naming the ones where either my mother or my  aunts worked  or myself worked  during summer breaks. 
No, I mostly salute places where I loved to play during my childhood here in the 40s and 50s

But what amazes me is that the corrupt politicians in this state are  determined to make  this little city more desolate,
Just in the past year alone we have suffered the loss of  several major assets and institutions:
The Pawtucket Memorial Hospital
The Gamm Theater
and the threatened move of
 the PAWSOX from McCoy Stadium

And today in conversation with my good friend Maureen another  place that delighted many came up in conversation. We happened to mention that we have been watching the Races at Saratoga that have been televised each day during their meet. We both laughed to think that we both independently had been watching  the races. AND Maureen said:: I love to watch them race.
 I do too, I replied.
AND then she said : My father often took me to the track. 
AND so did my father.
I suddenly laughed because we  had been  on the outskirts of each other's lives since childhood. 
Of course, we were talking about the 
NARRAGANSETT PARK RACE TRACK.  

We speculated that maybe we were side by side watching the races at the rail and drinking large cold drinks lavishly laid on.
We did not know each other  but our families knew of each  other.
That Irish and Valley Falls connection, I guess.
We sometimes joke when our stories  overlap that we were probably at the Darlton, or at McCoy or surely downtown in front of the White Tower and on the same bus--what are the odds?
I often say that in Pawtucket the "six degrees of separation" have been whittled down to "two degrees"