Ogunquit - it's not summer YET.

"What happened to my jet pack?"

CNN.COm had an article today about science-fiction technology. It asked why we never got what was predicted, and outlined the view by author Daniel Wilson that, in many case, the overall prediction was correct, but that those predictions tend not to take into account the practicality of usage of that technology within society.

The funniest comment within the article, however, was in Wilson's example of this:

"The jet pack is a perfect example of predicting the future, Wilson says. He says the jet pack first appeared in 1928 in an Amazing Stories comic book, which featured the hero Buck Rogers zooming though the sky in a jet pack.
The jet pack was actually developed by 1961, Wilson says. An inventor mounted a rocket onto a backpack and called it a rocket belt. A variation of the rocket belt even appeared in the 1965 James Bond movie, "Thunderball."
Today, the jet pack continues to grab inventors' imaginations.
A daredevil wearing a jet pack flew across a 1,500-foot-wide canyon in Colorado in November. A Swiss pilot, dubbed "Fusion Man," flew across the English Channel last year using a single jet-propelled wing. And a New Zealand inventor recently invented a jet pack, which weighs about 250 pounds, that reportedly can run for 30 minutes.
The jet pack, though, has never really taken off, Wilson says.
The problem is its practical application.
While a rocket belt could propel a screaming human to 60 mph in seconds, its fuel lasted for only about half a minute, "which led to more screaming," Wilson says.

Hee. An hysterical mental image, there....

Feeding the Monster

Standing room ticket on the Green Monster for a Labor Day weekend game: $35

Share of the hotel room: $43

An evening out with old friends: Priceless

The Red Sox losing to the Mets in the 9th, when your friend is a diehard Mets fan? Fucking Brutal.

Stupid City

OK, so here is a picture of the side street outside my place of work in the old "jewelry district" of downtown Providence. There are health care -related buildings and offices all around the area, not too mention parts of a college and other assorted businesses. This picture was taken on a week day, at about 1:30 PM.

And here's the deal. Up until about a year ago, there were no parking meters on the street. There were simply signs that said "2 Hour Parking". they also have (and had) a "Parking Control Officer" who patrolled the neighborhood and ticketed any cars that were there longer than the allotted time.

This side street had EVERY SPACE taken every single weekday all year long.

THEN, in it's brilliance, the city decided to put in new, expensive, digital, 2-hour parking meters. The idea, I presume, was to collect cash for all the time that people were parked there, AND from the tickets that were issued to people still parked there after the meter expired.

These meters must cost a TON. Then there's the cost of drilling the sidewalk holes and installing the meters. There is STILL the cost of the Parking Control Officer - that hasn't changed.

Actually, all that HAS changed is that NO ONE PARKS THERE AT ALL. Nor do the park anywhere ELSE in the neighborhood where the new meters were installed. Any street that has the meters is basically vacant all day long now. And has been for a year plus.

WAY. TO. GO.

Thanks for inconveniencing people AND losing the city money. Excellent planning.

go 'BIG PAPI' !!!

David Ortiz just hit his first home run of the season ... on MAY 20th!!!!

The sound from the crowd at Fenway was as if they'd just won the World Series....

After doing so many great things for the team these past 7 years, it's great to see the fans be so supportive.  

Hope it's just the beginning, Big Guy....   !!!!  

Run, Forest, Run...

To BEE or Not to BEE

Remember Bee Girl?

By DOUG IRVING - the Orange County Register

She was a little bit chubby and a whole lot dweeby, a freckled, bespectacled little girl who didn't seem to care what other people thought. She was, let's not forget, dressed in a bee suit.

It took her exactly 4 minutes and 7 seconds to become one of the defining images of mid-1990s pop culture. That's how long she was on screen, dancing her giddy, silly bee dance, in a music video for a lesser-known rock group called Blind Melon.

The Bee Girl, as she came to be known by just about everyone, rubbed elbows with Madonna and brought down the house at the MTV Video Music Awards. She traded jokes with Jay Leno, filmed interviews with Inside Edition, and quickly became far more popular than Blind Melon itself.

But that was a long time ago. These days, the Bee Girl goes by her real name, Heather DeLoach. She's 26 years old, a bartender and aspiring actress with dog named Hemi and a condo in Laguna Niguel. And, in recent years, she's come to understand something very important about her alter ego.

The world needed a Bee Girl.

•••

The Bee Girl wore dark-rimmed glasses, crooked antennae and a black-and-yellow tutu that didn't quite fit right. She tap-danced, she waved her arms, she spun around – and, in her first moments of fame, she got laughed offstage.

That's how the video to Blind Melon's sleepy hit, "No Rain," begins. The rest of the video follows the Bee Girl as she skips across the grimy streets of Los Angeles, doing her dance for the perplexed strangers she meets along the way.

It ends with her pushing open a gate and discovering a green field crowded with happy, dancing bee people just like her.

Heather DeLoach was 9 years old when she landed the gig, mostly because she looked like the drummer's nerdy sister. She didn't know much about dancing, so she just shimmied from side to side and let her arms go wild.

They filmed the video in 1992. Parts of Los Angeles were still smoldering from riots when Heather tap-danced her way through the city as the Bee Girl. Those perplexed strangers in the video? They were just normal people – a homeless man, some customers at a market – that the film crew talked into appearing in the video.

Heather went home exhausted after two days of filming, her underarms rubbed raw from the sequins on her too-tight bee costume. Her mother, Susan, thinks she made a few thousand dollars in her role as the Bee Girl. Soon enough, she was back at school in Lake Forest, just another 9-year-old kid.

And then the video hit MTV.

•••

"I think Jay's going to ask me how I got in the video and if I have any boyfriends and what I want to do with my life." That was Heather in 1993, shortly after the video came out – and just before her appearance on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."

The life of the Bee Girl went from zero to crazy in the time it took that video to air. Suddenly, newspapers and television shows were calling for interviews. MTV made her one of the closing acts of its 1993 video-awards show; she remembers sharing a dressing room with the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

She landed big-screen roles after that – in "A Little Princess" in 1995 and "The Beautician and the Beast" two years later. More recently, she made cameo appearances in "Balls of Fury" (2007) and in the television cops-spoof "Reno 911!"

But as she got older, she decided she didn't want to miss out on growing up. She began canceling auditions and interviews so she could spend time with her friends. She graduated from El Toro High School in Lake Forest, then got a degree in Communications from Cal State Fullerton.

Her current boyfriend didn't even know that she was, in fact, the Bee Girl until they had been dating for a few weeks.

She still has those thick glasses in a keepsake chest in her bedroom, along with those crooked bee antennae. The Bee Girl, she says, "is a part of me now. I am her… I love it."

She wrote on her MySpace page: "Some people call me 'Bummble Bee' (and) if you know me then you know why." And that's how she began to realize just what the Bee Girl had meant to so many people.

•••

The letters come from short people and fat people, people who have been laughed at and hurt – people who didn't fit in. They have seen Heather's name in a news story, and found her on MySpace… was she really the Bee Girl?

One man wrote about how badly he was teased growing up – and how he took comfort in the idea that even a little girl dressed like a bee could find a place to belong. It was the same for a woman who wrote about how other kids always made fun of her for being short; she, too, found inspiration in the Bee Girl.

Heather gets a few letters like those every week. "Have you ever felt like your heart is smiling?" she said. "It makes me feel like a good person." She does her best to answer them all.

The Bee Girl, she says now, "was somebody that had an inner spark. She seemed very introverted on the outside, but on the inside, she had kind of this inner light, to go out and be alive.

"I think she was full of hope. She had the feeling that she could go out and find acceptance, that there are people out there like her."

"It's a story that gets people through," she says. "When I go through tough times, the Bee Girl prevails."

 

TV Happiness for Nerds

They FINALLY renewed Chuck! 

At least they kept SOMETHING I watch... It's been a brutal year for actual TV shows.  The nerd in me rejoices!  Which is to say, I rejoice.  

 

 

The Trouble with the World Today: "ROWDY AMISH YUTES"

HaHa!!!  Love this!
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/buffaloarea_amish_youth_ticket.html

The best comments after:

•  “Guess he’ll be “OFF THE WAGON” for a while…”
  
• The thing is….the HORSE isn’t impaired – so WTH??”
  

Gaspee Run - 6:00AM

You're Gonna Make it After All...!!!

Two things about the developments in other parts of the world. This image is from Pakistan this past weekend.... and an obvious place of disruption and disarray right now.

There have been many comments about the US having it's first Black president, and what a groundbreaking accomplishment it has been here. But the truth is, you haven't really MADE it as a US president, with FULL acknowledgement of what you are...until you've been burned in effigy. At last, Mr. Obama can say he's made it ~ though t be perfectly honest, I don't really see ANY resemblance whatsoever.

=====

Additionally, over the past few days, I've seen the above-pictured "chest emblems" all over the news from that country. All I can say is that they TOTALLY need a new translator. Not that it's WRONG, but "Go America Go" doesn't REALLY have the negative connotations that they intend. Plus, I have to ask .... like, really? They're wearing BUMPER STICKERS??!!

Well, I guess - if you can't afford a car, this is the next best thing...but it's kinda weird if you ask me.

SIGH...

From Bill Simmons' ESPN.COM article on May 7, 2009 ... after Manny is banned for 50 games.

..... "We look at the 2004 banner again. I always thought that, for the rest of my life, I would look at that banner and think only good thoughts. Now, there's a mental asterisk that won't go away. I wish I could take a pill to shake it from my brain. I see 2004 and 2007, and think of Manny and Papi first and foremost. The modern-day Ruth and Gehrig. One of the great one-two punches in sports history. Were they cheating the whole time? Was Pedro cheating, too? That 2004 banner makes me think of these things now. I wish it didn't, but it does. This makes me sad. This makes me profoundly sad." .....

Commentary on Manny

Forget Manny, Don't Forgive Him
By Jayson Stark~ESPN.com. Thursday, May 7, 2009

We live in a land that loves to forgive, that wants to forgive. And I couldn't be more proud to live in a land like that.
But what are the odds that the citizens of this great land will have any interest in forgiving a scoundrel like Manny Ramirez?
And even if they do, why should they?
Why should they forgive a man who was willing to do something this stupid, and then tried to spin his crime away with a statement saying, essentially, that it was all his dopey doctor's fault?
Why should they forgive a man who just personally sabotaged the magical season of a team like the Dodgers, the only franchise on earth that was willing to overlook his potholed past, work with him to reshape his sullied image and even build its whole franchise around his sweet swing, his flowing locks and his endearing smile?
Why?
Why would the fans of any team, let alone this team, ever believe in Manny again?
We've learned over the years that it IS possible for drug-stained players to get a second chance. But Manny has already seriously endangered any shot he might have had that he could be one of those players. Let's explain why.
The players who found forgiveness weren't players who asked for forgiveness. They were players who earned that forgiveness.
They were guys like Andy Pettitte, whose prior reputations were pristine to begin with. Who then stepped forward and told their story in a way that people could relate to.
They told you what they did. They told you why they did it. They didn't toss out half-baked explanations that were shot down by the fact checkers 20 minutes later.
Most important, they took responsibility -- ALL the responsibility. They didn't try to drag their doctors or their teammates or their knucklehead cousins into the line of fire. They said, "I'M the one who did this. Blame me."
And when they were through telling their stories, they seemed genuine. Believable. Human. Those are the kinds of people we forgive in this country -- people who give us reason to forgive.
But now let's look at Manny, and how he compares with members of that group.
What word would we use to assess his prior reputation? Hmmm, "pristine" is probably out, right?
The non-New Englanders out there might describe that reputation as, um, checkered. Or complicated. Or confusing.
Red Sox fans, on the other hand, would clearly have some other words in mind. Words we shouldn't be using in casual family conversation. Words that certainly won't be uttered on any episodes of "Teletubbies."
But those words don't matter now. All that matters is that Manny had built up a dubious amount of trust and faith to begin with -- except with the segment of the population known as "Dodgers fans."
So there aren't many folks out there who were predisposed to give him the benefit of any sort of doubt here. That's the point. And why would they?
But now let's look at how Manny has chosen to explain away how he happened to get himself in this mess:
"Recently, I saw a physician for a personal health issue. He gave me a medication, not a steroid, which he thought was okay to give me. Unfortunately … "
All right, enough of that carefully crafted public statement. We get the picture.
Our first inclination, on first glance, is to feel a pang of sympathy here. After all, who among us hasn't had a personal health issue? Who among us hasn't seen a physician for that issue? Who among us hasn't been given a medication to treat that issue?
It sounds so innocent … so downright normal.
But hold on.
Turns out that this physician he saw wasn't the team doctor -- the physician that 99 percent of all players see when they have a "personal health issue" during spring training or the season.
Turns out that this physician wasn't even located in the state of Arizona, where the Dodgers happened to be holding spring training at the time this "personal health issue" cropped up. He was actually located 2,000 miles away, in Florida.
Oh. OK.
Also turns out that the "personal health issue" was, well, what exactly? It was an issue that caused this physician to prescribe a female fertility drug, obviously. And already, you can feel Manny's seemingly innocent story crumbling like ancient Rome.
It wasn't as if he had a toothache here, and he needed a prescription for a painkiller. It wasn't as if he had a sinus infection, and he needed a prescription for an antibiotic.
He was taking a -- what? -- a female fertility drug? Why? Maybe he just wanted to marry the octo-mom. Ya got me.
I've read through all the prescribed uses I could find online for human chorionic gonadotropin (similar to Clomid), which ESPN.com is reporting is the drug in question. And let me tell you -- I'm almost 100 percent certain that Manny wasn't suffering from an inability to ovulate. Or polycystic ovarian syndrome. And if he was, there's a lot more he hasn't been telling us than what really went on in those bizarre final days in Boston.
If you read more extensively about this drug, though, you'll learn that it IS occasionally used to address male infertility. Except if you read the small print, you'll also learn that, according to sharedjourney.com:
"The FDA has not approved the use of Clomid in men, nor has it been found to be especially effective."
Great. So why would a doctor be prescribing it for a guy like Manny, then?
Good question, huh?
A truly upstanding male-fertility doctor wouldn't be likely to do that, right? And a truly upstanding doctor treating a professional athlete would also be likely to know it could cause him to set off a major drug-testing alarm, right?
So where's the logical explanation here? That's a question all rational Americans should be asking right now.
We'd all love to believe that Manny's intent, in taking this drug, was pure and well-intentioned. We'd all love to believe that his "personal health issue" was serious enough to require unorthodox treatment that isn't even approved by the FDA.
But face it, friends, if all the reporting is accurate, that would take the sort of leap of faith only Robbie Knievel ought to attempt.
We also need to recognize something important about baseball's testing program: Its intent is not to catch innocent people who are using run-of-the-mill prescription medications because of pesky "personal health issues."
Basically, the list of substances that can get you flagged fall into three categories:
1. Stuff you'd use to cheat.
2. Stuff you'd use to push the envelope as far as possible in the hope of legally enhancing performance.
3. Stuff you'd use to treat a condition that falls under baseball's limited list of "Therapeutic Medical Exemptions," such as ADD.
But there are no indications that either Manny or his doctors ever contacted the union or MLB seeking any type of Therapeutic Medical Exemption. So there goes that potential for an innocent mistake. And if that's out, what does that leave?
He was using whatever he was using to enhance performance. That's what.
I'd honestly like to believe I'm wrong about that. Honestly. I admire great athletes, and I enjoy watching Manny hit. Honestly.
So I hope there's some more sensible explanation coming. Really. I hope there's a happy ending to this story. I mean it.
I don't like watching anyone's life free-fall to the bottom of the same canyon where, say, Roger Clemens has been booted over the past year and a half. I'm not sure anybody deserves that treatment just for allegedly taking the wrong substance at the wrong time.
As a friend of mine once said, no matter what these guys did, they don't deserve to get treated as if they're worse than O.J.
But after the sad events of this memorable Thursday in May, it's tough to like the odds of Manny Ramirez escaping that fate.
This time -- unlike those euphoric Manny-mania days of last summer -- it's going to take more than just his magic bat and those flowing dreadlocks to win over his no-longer-adoring public.

Arrogance Prevails

Manny Ramirez Suspended for Doping - Ex-Sox Slugger Accepts a 50-Game Penalty

Well, well, well... so your petulance was ON TOP of your basic dishonesty.

THIS from “MLBTradeRumors.com”:

12:39am: Tim Brown and Steve Henson of Yahoo say Manny tested positive for...drumroll...a sexual enhancer (not Viagra). Ramirez tested positive in Spring Training, and then again recently. Manny did not test positive for a steroid or human growth hormone.

Ahhhh!!! Funny, you say! So it was a “sexual enhancer” … and that would feed into the “MANNY BEING WEIRD” thing, which they (read: Scott Boras) want you to believe. THEN there's THIS later post:

1:30pm: ESPN's T.J. Quinn and Mark Fainaru-Wada say the drug was HCG - "a women's fertility drug typically used by steroid users to restart their body's natural testosterone production as they come off a steroid cycle. It is similar to Clomid, the drug Bonds, Giambi and others used as clients of BALCO."

Now THAT’S more like what I was expecting to read….

I always disliked the "non-team" attitude that was Manny. I also, of course, loved when he hit. He was an asset to the Red Sox whenever he actually put in the effort. But over the years he seemed to cause more and more strife and exhibited an increasing amount of selfish-ness. He was always a great subject for discussion - in the bar or on sports radio.

Then, last year - it became unbearable for even the Team - and he was gone. He played them in order to get out of his contract - which was disreputable. HE insisted on the 2 year options when he signed the damn thing, so he could have the biggest contrack in sports (those 2 years put him over what Kevin Garnet in the NBA had just signed). And then, at the end, with Scott Boras as his manager, he refused to honor his committment, and was finally delt away for the betterment of the team. All so he could be a free agent and demand MORE money. NOly it didn;t work out. After miraculously performing the best he's EVER performed for the last 1/3 of the season with LA, the economy dumped, and other teams actually took his boorish, unprofessional behavior into account. He finally signed back with the Dodgers - for about what he would have gotten if he'd just played out his options with the Red Sox. I thought that was a pleasure to see. Screw him. I know baseball is a business, but I hated that he wouldn't even fill out his obligations like a stand-up human being.

And then.... THIS.

So let me get this straight. So while you were being an ass-hole, you were ALSO being a cheater? You who had some of the most natural hitting talent EVER?

You piece of shit.

Thanks for letting your arrogance and pure selfishness help to ruin the game, dill weed.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

You Narcissistic Loser...

I repeat ~ Go away. (http://brokensynapseblog.blogspot.com/2009/02/retirement-600-pm-12-off-merchandise.html)



Your yearly "retirement games" have become quite pathetic.

Even MORE sad is the fact that ESPN believes with all their heart that people care - so we are subjected ot the ongoing love affair with him all year. Spare me.






Source: Favre, Vikings to Meet

ESPN.COM: May 6, 2009, 2:13 PM ET

"Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress and quarterback Brett Favre plan to meet at an undisclosed location later this week to discuss the possibility of the former Packers and Jets quarterback renouncing his retirement from the NFL to play the 2009 season with the Vikings, according to a source with direct knowledge of discussions between the two parties...."

"Badges? We Don't Need No Steeenking Badges!"

I totally can't believe that RI hasn't initiated this kind of practice! It's SOOO much better than that stupis "casino" idea ~ and right up their alley, base dont he overall clinate of authoritative & legislative superiority and corruption....

"Operation Dollar Bill", anyone?

Texas Police Shake Down Drivers, Lawsuit Says

From Gary Tuchman and Katherine Wojtecki - CNN.COM

TENEHA, TEXAS (CNN) --Roderick Daniels was traveling through East Texas in October 2007 when, he says, he was the victim of a highway robbery.

The Tennessee man says he was ordered to pull his car over and surrender his jewelry and $8,500 in cash that he had with him to buy a new car.

But Daniels couldn't go to the police to report the incident.

The men who stopped him were the police.

Daniels was stopped on U.S. Highway 59 outside Tenaha, near the Louisiana state line. Police said he was driving 37 mph in a 35 mph zone. They hauled him off to jail and threatened him with money-laundering charges -- but offered to release him if he signed papers forfeiting his property.

"I actually thought this was a joke," Daniels told CNN.

But he signed.

"To be honest, I was five, six hundred miles from home," he said. "I was petrified."

Now Daniels and other motorists who have been stopped by Tenaha police are part of a lawsuit seeking to end what plaintiff's lawyer David Guillory calls a systematic fleecing of drivers passing through the town of about 1,000.

"I believe it is a shakedown. I believe it's a piracy operation," Guillory said.

George Bowers, Tenaha's longtime mayor, says his police follow the law. And through her lawyers, Shelby County District Attorney Lynda Russell denied any impropriety.

Texas law allows police to confiscate drug money and other personal property they believe are used in the commission of a crime. If no charges are filed or the person is acquitted, the property has to be returned. But Guillory's lawsuit states that Tenaha and surrounding Shelby County don't bother to return much of what they confiscate.

Jennifer Boatright and Ron Henderson said they agreed to forfeit their property after Russell threatened to have their children taken away.

Like Daniels, the couple says they were carrying a large amount of cash --- about $6,000 -- to buy a car. When they were stopped in Tenaha in 2007, Boatright said, Russell came to the Tenaha police station to berate her and threaten to separate the family.

"I said, 'If it's the money you want, you can take it, if that's what it takes to keep my children with me and not separate them from us. Take the money,' " she said.

The document Henderson signed, which bears Russell's signature, states that in exchange for forfeiting the cash, "no criminal charges shall be filed ... and our children shall not be turned over" to the state's child protective services agency.

Maryland resident Amanee Busbee said she also was threatened with losing custody of her child after being stopped in Tenaha with her fiancé and his business partner. They were headed to Houston with $50,000 to complete the purchase of a restaurant, she said.

"The police officer would say things to me like, 'Your son is going to child protective services because you are not saying what we need to hear,' " Busbee said.

Guillory, who practices in nearby Nacogdoches, Texas, estimates authorities in Tenaha seized $3 million between 2006 and 2008, and in about 150 cases -- virtually all of which involved African-American or Latino motorists -- the seizures were improper.

"They are disproportionately going after racial minorities," he said. "My take on the matter is that the police in Tenaha, Texas, were picking on and preying on people that were least likely to fight back."

Daniels told CNN that one of the officers who stopped him tried on some of his jewelry in front of him.

"They asked me, 'What you are doing with this ring on?' I said I had bought that ring. I paid good money for that ring," Daniels said. "He took the ring off my finger and put it on his finger and told me how did it look. He put on my jewelry."

Texas law states that the proceeds of any seizures can be used only for "official purposes" of district attorney offices and "for law-enforcement purposes" by police departments. According to public records obtained by CNN using open-records laws, an account funded by property forfeitures in Russell's office included $524 for a popcorn machine, $195 for candy for a poultry festival, and $400 for catering.

In addition, Russell donated money to the local chamber of commerce and a youth baseball league. A local Baptist church received two checks totaling $6,000.

And one check for $10,000 went to Barry Washington, a Tenaha police officer whose name has come up in several complaints by stopped motorists. The money was paid for "investigative costs," the records state.

Washington would not comment for this report but has denied all allegations in his answer to Guillory's lawsuit.

"This is under litigation. This is a lawsuit," he told CNN.

Russell refused requests for interviews at her office and at a fundraiser for a volunteer fire department in a nearby town, where she also sang. But in a written statement, her lawyers said she "has denied and continues to deny all substantive allegations set forth."

Russell "has used and continues to use prosecutorial discretion ... and is in compliance with Texas law, the Texas constitution, and the United States Constitution," the statement said.

Bowers, who has been Tenaha's mayor for 54 years, is also named in the lawsuit. But he said his employees "will follow the law."

"We try to hire the very best, best-trained, and we keep them up to date on the training," he said.

The attention paid to Tenaha has led to an effort by Texas lawmakers to tighten the state's forfeiture laws. A bill sponsored by state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, would bar authorities from using the kind of waivers Daniels, Henderson and Busbee were told to sign.

"To have law enforcement and the district attorney essentially be crooks, in my judgment, should infuriate and does infuriate everyone," Whitmire said. His bill has passed the Senate, where he is the longest-serving member, and is currently before the House of Representatives.

Busbee, Boatright and Henderson were able to reclaim their property after hiring lawyers. But Daniels is still out his $8,500.

"To this day, I don't understand why they took my belongings off me," he said.

Army of None...

Very simply put, this is a bullshit maneuver by The RI Salvation Army.

SALVATION ARMY CUTS TIES WITH CANTEEN VOLUNTEER GROUP

PROJO 12:20 PM Tue, May 05, 2009 Thomas J. Morgan

CRANSTON, R.I. -- The Salvation Army on Tuesday severed its ties with the Special Signal Association, a group of volunteers who for decades had driven canteen trucks to fires and other disasters to provide food and drink for firefighters. It was a development that riled the volunteers.

The trucks may have been familiar to bystanders at fires and other public safety emergencies around Rhode Island, but it was not widely recognized that the trucks, one painted red, the other white, equipped with emergency lights and carrying Fire Department logos, actually were not official vehicles.

Maj. Doug Burr, the Salvation Army's state coordinator, said in a news release that because of a budget squeeze, the organization had decided to sell the building at 34 Commercial St. in Pawtuxet Village, where the two canteen trucks are housed.

Burr said the trucks would be shifted to another garage and would be staffed by Salvation Army volunteers. "It is the Salvation Army's desire that no break in service be noticeable," he said.

That statement did not sit well with Paul J. O'Rourke, president of the Special Signal Fire Association, who has been running the trucks for 17 years when he is not on duty with the Providence Police Department. He said that Burr told him the Salvation Army was changing the locks on the building housing the trucks.

After meeting with Burr Tuesday morning, O'Rourke said, "Burr says he is going to use his own people to man the truck, but they're not going do it like we did it. They are only going out on something real big. When a house fire comes, they ain't gonna show up."

O'Rourke, who has been a police officer for 38 years, said he averaged 25 to 30 hours a week with the canteen trucks. "When I wasn't doing police, I was doing canteen," he said.

"They threw us out," was the reaction of Raymond Hull, a Providence police sergeant and treasurer of the Special Signal Association, who also met with Burr Tuesday.

"Paul [O'Rourke] got me on board a good seven years ago," Hull said. "I only went on board because I realized what Paul did for the police and fire. As a cop, you need an outlet. Here, you drive a big truck and help somebody."

Hull paid tribute to "the many men and women who gave their time and effort for free."
"They didn't ask for anything. We didn't get paid. We just enjoyed it for what we did," he said.

Hull said that after hearing the news, "a lot of guys are hurting. The meeting with the Salvation Army could have happened on a better note. They gave us no notice: 'You're done.' That's what really hurts. I can understand the Salvation Army's reasoning. They want to do it differently? Fine. It's their equipment, their trucks. I don't fault the Salvation Army in any way. I'm just hurt with how we were treated."

Hull vowed that this would not be the end of the Special Signal Association. He said members would continue to provide a service even if they had to use their own vehicles. "There is a need for service out there for police and fire, and for anyone who asks for us and needs help," he said.

O'Rourke said the Special Signal Association has been associated with the Salvation Army since 1969.

He said that when he joined in 1992 or 1993, the trucks were averaging 12 runs a year. He said he reorganized the system and lately had been tallying 500 runs a year. "A fire, a disaster, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut -- we always responded," O'Rourke said.

He said the organization has about 70 members, of whom 25 to 30 work the trucks. "Everyone signs up for a day or night, and the trucks were managed 24 hours, 7 days a week," he said.

O'Rourke said the white truck was donated by the state Emergency Management Agency. The red truck was donated by civic organizations and foundations. The garage where they were housed was donated for $1 by the Pawtuxet Volunteer Fire Department, he said, many of whose volunteers also were members of the Special Signal Association.