Homesick Yankee Ramblings Part 6 - Wright's Farm

 
Wright's Farm is a family-style chicken restaurant in Harrisville, RI. It's owned an operated by the Galleshaw Family. It's located near the border of central Massachusetts. Going to Wright's Farm is a local Blackstone Valley tradition. Here's how it works:

1. You drive to Wright's Farm. This involves some stress, because unless you're with 10 people, you can't make a reservation. You discuss how long the wait will be on your ride.
2. Arrive at Wright's Farm. Despair upon viewing that the front parking lot and most of the back lot are full.
3. Go inside anyways and wait in a long line to get a number. It takes two teenage girls to give you this number, one to talk to you and one to scrawl feverishly in a planner. They hand you a wooden coin with a number on it and tell you how long the wait will be. Despair again.
4. Find out your wait is 2+ hours. Now it's time to drink at the bar and buy Rhode Island lottery scratch tickets. Many people also go outside to smoke butts, though this is not recommended as A. smoking is gross and B. you might miss hearing your name called. Miracles happen a Wright's Farm, so you might get called early.
4. Size up the other people waiting for tables. Listen to other people have their numbers called over a loudspeaker. Get hungrier. (I should note here that pre-starving yourself to consume as much food as possible is part of the Wright's Farm ritual, but it makes waiting worse).
5. Lose on all the scratch tickets. Lose at Keno. Get hungrier. You will feel your soul begin to slip from your body as hunger becomes unbearable.
6. They call your number. Rush to the counter. Follow a teenager into a banquet hall and be seated. Wait for your waitress. This waitress will be a gruff, middle-aged Swamp Yankee who will ultimately be dissatisfied with her tip. However, she is still awesome and you wouldn't want a nice waitress.
7. You do not have options at Wright's Farm. They bring the following items, family-style, to your table - oddly gray, but tasty, chicken, mushy shells and sauce, hard rolls with frozen butter, the hard bits of iceberg lettuce covered in the tastiest salad dressing, over-fried french fries. If you order a Coke, your glass will be small and you will need many. That's because the rest of the food costs a flat rate per person, but drinks all cost something. Stick with water.
8. Eat until you get sick. Then eat part of your ice cream dessert.

As you can see, eating at Wright's Farm is a ritual. As vegans in the Southwest, Wright's Farm seems very far away indeed, but my in-laws are thoughtful enough to keep we prodigal Yankees stocked with southern New England essentials. For our anniversary, they sent a six pack of individually wrapped Narragansett beers. I saved the box. Then, the other day, we got some Red Rose tea, Autocrat coffee milk syrup, and Wright's Farm Salad dressing!

Red Rose tea is the brand that comes with the Noah's Ark figurines. It's just regular black tea, but it's better than Lipton. Their website says it's available out west, but I haven't seen it and believe me, I looked.

Even some New Englanders look at me a bit sideways when I talk about Autocrat coffee milk, but I love the stuff. Other kids called me Autocrat in middle school because it was all I drank.

In honor of these New England items in our kitchen, we prepared faux-Wright's Farm for dinner last night. Everything came out very similarly to Wright's Farm - soggy salad, over-fried fries - absolutely delicious. Except the tofu, which was still delicious, but quite inauthentic.

Blacktone River Valley

Reverse Reads: "New Blackstone River Dam on South Main St., at Globe Bridge Woonsocket, R.I."

From the National Parks Service site:

"The Blackstone River runs from Worcester, MA to Providence, RI. Its waters powered the Slater Mill in Pawtucket, RI, America's first successful textile mill. This creative spark began the nation's transformation from Farm to Factory. Today, the Blackstone River Valley is a special type of National Park - a living landscape containing thousands of natural and historic treasures."

I grew up on the Massachusetts/Rhode Island border in a town called Uxbridge. I taught at the high school there for several years too. The Blackstone Valley National Heritage Corridor runs through Uxbridge. When I was young the river and canal were in the woods and full of garbage, but then they made it a National Heritage Corridor, cleaned it up, and made it a park.

The old tow path where the mules walked to pull barges down the canal is now a footpath. It's really pretty. I used to take my creative writing classes down there and we'd sit in a meadow between the Blackstone River and Blackstone Canal and work on sensory writing.

Here are some photos I took there several years back.



This is the Stanley Woolen Mill, one of many mills that got power from the Blackstone.

St. Peter at the Gate by William Schaff

St. Peter at the gate, originally uploaded by william schaff.

You may recognize William Schaff's art from the album covers of bands like Songs:Ohia, Godspeed! You Black Emperor, and Okkervil River. Schaff, an artist from Rhode Island, presents a style that is instantly recognizable, provocative, and always intriguing. His Flickr page contains over 1000 images and it's worth spending some time exploring his work.

Picture Day July 19, 1913

I don't remember where I found this photograph, but I'm willing to be it was the swap meet. The series is interesting. It tells a story of this boys experience. First, he's just sitting there, waiting for instructions. Then someone tells him to smile. Someone to his right gets his attention, perhaps mentioning that they should put the hat on him. In the next frame he's wearing this floppy white hat and being very good sport about it. Finally, he's looking over to someone with an expression that says, "Ok...enough is enough."



The back is stamped "The Ernst Studio." I can't make out everything that the stamp says, nor can I make out the name in pencil. The last name appears to be Garber. The Ernst Studio was open in Newport, Rhode Island from 1906-1965. You can read more about The Ernst Studio here. Was this photograph taken at that Ernst Studio? Of course, I can't be certain, but it's possible.