Good Gourd!

The Ocean State confuses residents and visitors alike with similar names for places widely separated. Don’t even start with roads and streets with identical uncommon names in cities or towns that don’t share a border, as opposed to Central, Church, Main, Maple, Oak, Park you’d find anywhere. Consider for examples: Cranston Street in both Cranston and Woonsocket, Laurel Hill Avenue in both Pascoag and Providence, Tidewater Drives or Streets in 5 communities from Pawtucket to South Kingstown. By old road customs highways, not modern interstates, carry names of destinations or origins, such as Hartford Avenue, New London Turnpike, Plainfield Pike, and Putnam Pike, cities and towns in neighboring Connecticut, or Taunton Avenue and West Wrentham Road toward Massachusetts. Makes sense to direct traffic efficiently. However, these hamlets, places and villages push reasonable limits by seemingly mimicking one other as if alternate aliases, bizarre buddies, dizzy dopplegangers.

Allendale (North Providence) vs. Allen Harbor and Allenton (North Kingstown) vs. Allins Cove (Barrington); there are also Alan Avenue (Cumberland, Narragansett, Portsmouth), Alan Drive (Bristol), Alan Street (Tiverton), Allan Court (Newport), Allan Drive (Lincoln), Allen Avenue (Cranston, East Providence, North Providence, Warwick), Allens Avenue (Providence), and Allen Street (Riverside) not connected to places. This alone is remarkably strange, but read on...
Alton (Richmond) vs. Ashton (Lincoln)
Annaquatucket (North Kingstown) vs. Annawomscutt (Barrington)
Apponaug (Warwick) vs. Quonochontaug (Charlestown)
Aquidneck (Island) vs. Quidnick (Coventry)
Arlington (Cranston) vs. Darlington (Pawtucket)
Ashaway (Hopkington) vs. Ashton (Lincoln)
Avondale (Westerly) vs. Adamsdale (Cumberland) vs. Adamsville (Little Compton)
Barberville (Hopkinton) vs. Burrillville
Blackrock (Coventry) vs. Blackstone vs. Greystone (North Providence) - a shade different?
Burr Hill (Warren) vs. Burdickville (Hopkinton) vs. Burrillville
Canonchet (Hopkinton) vs. Chepacet (Glocester)
Canonchet Farm (Narragansett) vs. Canonchet (Hopkinton)
Centerdale (North Providence) vs. Centerville (West Warwick)
Charlestown vs. Charles (Providence)
Clayville (Scituate) vs. Dayville (nearby Connecticut) vs. Davisville (North Kingstown)
Crompton (Warwick) vs. Little Compton
Dunn’s Corner (Westerly), Dunn Park (Woonsocket)
Esmond (North Providence) vs. Richmond
Fairbanks (Coventry) vs. Fairlawn (Pawtucket)
Foster Center being 3.3 miles southeast of North Foster and 4 miles southwest of South Foster; take your cartography and geometry lessons in Glocester to be safe.
Georgiaville (Smithfield) vs. Graniteville (Burrillville) vs. Graniteville (Johnston)
Glendale (Burrillville) vs. Glen Meadow (Warwick) vs. Glen Park (Portsmouth)
Gordon Street (Cranston), Gordon Avenue (Providence), Gordon Avenue (Warwick), Gorton Pond Warwick
Great Island vs. Great Swamp
Greene (Coventry) vs. Green’s End vs. Greenville (Smithfield)
Harris (formerly Harrisville, Coventry) vs. Harrisville (Burrillville)
Hillsdale (Richmond) vs. Hillsgrove (Warwick)

Hillsdale vs. Mountaindale; one-upsmanship?
Hope (Scituate) vs. Hope Valley (Richmond)
Hopkins Hollow (Coventry) vs. Hopkinton
Indian Lake (South Kingstown) vs. India Point (Providence)
Jackson (Coventry) vs. Johnston vs. Jamestown
Manville (Lincoln) vs. Melville (Middletown)
Maryville vs. Mapleville
Mapleville vs. Maple Valley
Meshanticut (Cranston) vs. Moon's Cut vs. Metacomet (East Providence)

Mount Hope (Bristol) vs. Mount Hope (Providence); Hope is the state motto.
North Kingstown vs. West Kingston (South Kingstown) with neither an East Kingston nor North Kingston
Oakland vs. Oaklawn vs. Oak Valley
Oaklawn vs. Woodlawn; okay, enough with the oaks and their copper/russet leaves denoting end of autumn and start of winter.
Park Square (Cranston) vs. Park Square (East Providence)
Paucatuck (Westerly) vs. Pawtucket vs. Pawtuxet (Cranston)
River Point (West Warwick) vs. Riverside (East Providence) vs. Riverview (Warwick)
Sandy Point Beach (Warwick) vs. Sandy Point Beach (Portsmouth)
Sayles Hill (North Smithfield) vs. Saylesville (Lincoln) vs. Slatersville (Burrillville)
Slater Park (Pawtucket) vs. Slatersville (Burrillville)
Saundersville (Scituate) vs. Saunderstown (North Kingstown)
Slate Hill Park (Cranston) vs. Slater Park (Pawtucket)
Smithfield vs. Smith Hill (Providence) vs. Smithville (Scituate)
South County with no North County
Tucker Hollow (North Scituate) vs. Tug Hollow (Richmond)
Valley Falls (Cumberland) vs. Valley (Providence)
Washington Park (Providence) vs. Washington (Coventry)
Warren vs. Warwick
Warren's Point Beach (Warren) vs. Warren Town Beach (Little Compton)
Warwick’s Buttonwood, Edgewood (Cranston, but bordering), Greenwood, Lakewood, and Norwood - except Buttonwood, none especially wooded, thought there’s a Wood Lake Park in Johnston.
Woodlawn (Pawtucket) vs. Woodville (North Providence) vs. Woodville (Richmond)
Woody Hill (Exeter) vs. Woody Hill (Westerly)

Sunflowers in Saunderstown

Coincidence could account for some repetition, or envy, or laziness, or terrain (hills, lakes, woods). You’d think residents would want unique names to avoid having mail or visitors misdirected. Post office mostly goes by zip code precisely because of this. Kudos to forebears for using Native American names so often, thus preserving what locales were called for millennia. Narragansett literally means Narrow River, town’s chief topographical feature. Ninigret, Pettaquamscutt, Ponagansett, Pottowomut, Quidnessett, Saugatucket and Westconnnaugh roll delightfully over your tongue, and to those to whom they hold meaning a hearth and hovel in which to huddle. Majority of names, however, hark back in time to important statesmen or port towns in Britain from which first settlers embarked.

Tourists visit state's coastal hamlets and villages for general ambiance and quaint architecture. They weigh in record gourds (490 pounds) and pumpkins in Warren. Rhode Island was really about mills along its 13 steady rivers churning wheels of productivity before water power was replaced by electricity. Mill villages still have businesses and residences without charming presences. You're more likely to encounter entrepreneurial gnomes and nursing homes than family domiciles and specialty shop miles. If you make an effort to follow rivers and see, you’ll get a lesson in history.

It’s well known that residents ignore official labels, prefer to give directions in terms of landmarks that used to exist. “Hang a left where Almacs used to be,” stupidly assumes you once knew of such a supermarket. Why even ask for directions? State is so small, you can bumble around a bit and still find it. Well, maybe not Antushantuck Neck Necropolis on Pocasset River where many end up anyway.

A disturbed mind finds everything disturbing; why bring up anything that demands thinking? All these places were once collectively called Providence Plantations; these days they want to remove that phrase from state's name (longest in America) because of some false associations to southern farms with captive labor. Rhode Island was the first state in nation to abolish slavery, but nobody remembers early innovation. 

Boomers in baseball caps only offer a lifetime of experiences during wild times. Somehow they managed to keep vicious megalomaniacs with shiny new nuclear weapons from destroying all life on planet. They deserve a bit of credit. Some issues do bear mentioning after all. In an election year like none since nation began, petty concerns of political divide can be taken in stride.