One of the hottest days of this chilly summer season claimed the life of a Warwick boy in a tragic accident. This week, his father talks about the loss for the first time.

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I’ve heard the political turmoil in Iran referred to as  a rally. That choice of word reminded  me of a basketball ‘celebration’ at PC a few seasons ago.

The Friars had just won a tournament game. So, some of the overjoyed decided to burn a boat…break a few windows…hoot, holler, etc.  As a student rushed past our live truck, I asked him where he was going.

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There was another tea party on Smith Hill and red ink is flowing from North Providence to East Providence. And yet in East Greenwich, the town council was allowed to pass its budget without a public vote because there weren’t enough taxpayers for a quorum. Then again, EG froze salaries, is spending less on town operations and increased school spending by just over half a percent. Why would anyone vote ‘no’?

This week on Street Stories, John and I will take anyone who’s willing on the road to life.   The story begins with a high school wrestler who’s about to be pinned.

“Come on Andrew!” you hear someone from the crowd scream.

Moments later, Andrew Dunham does a reversal,  tossing his opponent on his back.  Andrew, now a state champion, was close to pinned in life only a few years ago.

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This week on Street Stories, John and I take you inside one of Rhode Island’s most notorious ‘industries’ through the lens of a pair of local filmmakers.

Their first feature length documentary, Happy Endings, captures all the angles of the massage parlour business and the loophole that allows indoor prostitution or what are known as ‘happy endings’.

It’s Not Easy Productions penned its name for a reason. Tracking down every voice and getting them on tape and into production is difficult but these two are part of a growing corp of local fillmmakers.

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Now that I have your attention, did you see this story on 60 minutes?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/25/60minutes/main4752082.shtml

It’s a ‘re-run’ of a piece about a potential drug of the future called Resveratrol. The pill is drawn from the chemistry in red wine and turns on what the drug developers call your survival gene. You could drink red wine instead but as the headline indicates, you might not survive that particular treatment. The pills contain the healthy equivalent of a thousand bottles of wine. The pill version of that could be on the market within five years.

45 year old Gregg Berube is accused of a sixth DUI! Read that again. Sixth DUI!

http://www.wpri.com/dpp/news/local_news/local_wpri_plainville_man_charged_with_his_sixth_DUI_20090525_mla

The only time a defendant seems to do DUI jail time is when someone is killed. You’d think after two or three ‘potentially’ deadly mistakes, the law would allow a judge to lock someone up until they realized they have to stop.  Berube has recieved five chances and now, possibly a sixth.

RI ranks one notch worse than Mass when it comes to bad drivers and both are near the bottom. 46th and 45th.

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/993/where-the-worst-drivers-live/;_ylc=X3oDMTE5ZmdmcGVkBF9TAzI3MTYxNDkEc2VjA2ZwLXRvZGF5BHNsawN3b3JzdC1kcml2ZXJz

I think we all believe we’re better drivers than we really are.  Although, I do have a secret desire…not secret anymore…to ‘track down’ anyone who carelessly pulls out into traffic in front of me. Also –  no patience for drivers who ignore others’  blinkers and never use their own. But that’s only because I’m a better driver than everyone else. (Please check first sentence of this paragraph.)

A Rhode Island farmer who helps abandoned and even tortured animals, continues fighting red tape and foreclosure. John and I head back to North Scituate for this Street Story.

Dan MacKenzie’s foreclosure deadline ended without an extension, leaving Dan and more than a hundred ‘rescued’ animals on the edge of eviction or worse.

“A lot of them were old, crippled, abandoned. Abused. Diseased,” Dan tells us.

“Only one way I’m leaving,” he says to a couple of friends who stopped by the farm.

He says he paid his mortgage on Bonniedale for eight years but when the note was sold, the new bank didn’t get his payments. The foreclosure was underway and unstoppable.

“When the notification went out in the papers, people thought I was out of business.”

His western store that’s attached to the barn suffered. The horse stalls were suddenly empty.

“I can’t rent any stall out until I get it back in my name.”

“And you can’t pay your mortgage until you rent out the stalls?” I asked him.

“Correct.”

He says the only option to stop the spiraling, catch 22 is to buy back the farm that his attorneys claim he should’ve never lost the rights to in the first place.

“A lot of good people in Rhode Island are helping us out. And that’s why I’m doing this. To tell the people exactly what happened.”

He raised almost enough for a down payment on a re-finance but now he needs a new bank or an extension from his old bank.

“We need help. Plain and simple.”

Dan thinks the eviction could come any day and that most if not all the animals would go to slaughter.

You can email Dan directly at snakehill1007@aol.com if you have any questions or can help. Also, take a look at the video version of this story by clicking on this link.

http://www.wpri.com/subindex/on_air/street_stories

As always, comments and ideas are welcome.

Christopher Young’s often-tossed-hat is in the ring for mayor of Providence. His latest run more than likely puts him well into candidacy double digits. I was once criticized by one of his supporters for calling him a ‘perennial’ candidate. . .as if that was an insult. I still think perennial fits but at this rate he’s on his way to becoming an ‘annual’ candidate. Win or lose, he’ll help make the race interesting.