the first page of my autobiography assignment. lots of description.
Interstate 95 runs somewhat parallel to US Route 1 from Maine to Florida, sticking close to the coast. This takes it right through the center of Rhode Island, and makes it the only major highway in the state, other than 195, which splits off from it on the southern side of Providence heading east. This split was decidedly not designed for the volume of cars that attempt to pass through it between 8 and 9 in the morning and, well, all afternoon and early evening. As a whole, the efficiency of the highways in the Ocean State deteriorate noticeably the closer one gets to the capitol. One might say that this is true of traffic around all cities of a decent size, but when I drove home from Manchester, Tennessee, through Knoxville, DC, New York and New Haven, I didn’t slow to a teeth-grinding crawl once until I was within 5 miles of Providence. Maybe it was a light day for the other cities, or maybe I passed through at the right time. But the 95 Split, as the grainy voices of the traffic reports refer to it every day, is nearly always backed up.
Just east of the Split the highway was built into the side of a hill, and a retaining wall put in place of the slope. A footbridge like an arching chain-link cage extends from the street on the north side, next to the Fox Point Elementary school, and traverses the brake tapping rush hour, zig-zaging in ramps down to the grass on the other side. Sitting on the rusty steel just after sunset with my fingers between the chain links, a cup of coffee getting cold next to me, a cigarette hanging out of the corner of my mouth, I don’t turn when Ben starts talking. We are in middle of the bridge; the jersey barriers stretch out straight ahead and behind, curving out of sight. The taillights on the right, headlights on the left, break-lights blinking on and off are sort of mesmerizing if you can get past the engine noise. Someone down below us honks his horn at someone else.
“It’s so sad that everyone is always in such a rush.” Yeah, it’s nice to be able to take it slow. But I know when I’m down there on the highway I get just as frustrated as the next person in bumper-to-bumper. I’m just as likely to be in a pointless rush. Ben can say that though, because he probably isn’t. The last time I was around Providence, he gave me a ride home. When he pulled to a four-way stop he always let everyone else go first. If someone was trying to make a left or back out of a driveway, he stopped every time. Whenever I don’t slow down for someone to cross a street, or whenever I speed up so someone can’t change lanes in front of me, I wish I had more of Ben’s patience. At the same time, he was always good for a little cat and mouse between traffic lights on Route 1A when we used to drive back from Edgewood in separate cars, though Nick, in his baby blue pick up truck, was the only one who’d swerve out into the bike lane to try to pass me while we were still in the residential neighborhood near the yacht club.
Just east of where the highways split, the rivers meet. The Seekonk River flows under 195 to meet the Providence River as it trails under I-95. They meet in a sort of flattened point, become much broader and the second, smaller one looses its identity as they continue on towards Narragansett Bay as the Seekonk. The narrow strip of land between the confluence and the highway just east of the Split was full of ships and the point of arrival and departure of all goods between Providence and the rest of the world long before the highway was built. Near the shore the water is pocked by pilings slowly rotting away but still showing the outline of the old wharves. A replica of a traditional ship, the Sloop Providence, still docks here in the summers as a reminder. A little further west, the Providence Community Boating Center deploys fleets of kids in much smaller sailboats, the last two reminders of a history so closely linked with the water. Now the water is treated more as a threat and an obstacle, as the huge concrete hurricane barrier that’s never been closed attests to at the mouth of the Providence River. Sometimes when I was working at the boating center, I’d have the kids sail around the corner near the barrier so they could take a look at the huge black submarine docked next to it. Perhaps just as incongruous as a beautiful park next to a highway, the Cold War era Russian submarine Juliet 484 raises an eyebrow in its position at the mouth of the river, with its backdrop of the industrial park........