There were these people everywhere in RI that, in my opinion of course, should have been on all the wanted posters used by the Sierra Club. These people had no environmental awareness and frankly, crapped in their own beds. They had every vehicle and household appliance they ever purchased piled around their property, old tires, batteries and piles of piles. They were also known for dumping whatever they wanted, whereever they wanted I guess. I asked a co-worker about the strange habits and was told "Oh, those are the swamp yankees, that's what they do." No further explination given.

We purchased property on the side of a valley a mile or so from I-95 outside of Newport, had a nice home built. Shortly after we moved in a stranger came up to me in the little liquor store in the nearby town and said "you need to go back to F__ing California where you came from." I looked at him and said "I don't even know you!" He said "I know you and you don't belong here". Our land line would ring all day and night, with hang ups. It got so bad I would take a pistol with me down to the road to check the mail. My wife who was a stay at home mom at the time carried her own pistol around the house while I was at work. The last straw was when the little girl from two houses away who babysat for us said "we wondered who built a house on the dump". The builder had bulldozed a swamp yankee illegal dumping site, sold us the property and then built our house on it. We ended up with farm chemicals in the well water and radon gas in the basement. We wondered why there were no bugs around. It was probab ly a sign when we signed the papers and had to buy "indian insurance" on the house. We were told that the Naragansette Indians had a very had habit of coming up with old documents showing that new homes were built on indian land and confiscating them. The bank wanted indian insurance to protect the investment.

I resigned from Electric Boat and we moved back to Erie where we are now the snowiest city in the country. Who knew??