WHY I’M A DIEHARD
EAST BAYER
By Paul E. Kandarian
I
f not for a friend from the East Bay, I would
have died as a kid on the West Bay.
I was born in Providence, raised in Seekonk
hard by East Providence, and we’d go to Bonnet
Shores where an Italian cousin had a summer
cottage. One day at about age eight, while my Non-
nie watched from the beach, I jumped beneath the
waves and sank like a stone. Gulping water, I distinctly
remember looking up to the surface and panicking.
Hands grabbed me and pulled me out: It was Stevie, a
Seekonk friend we’d brought along. He dragged me ashore
and, sputtering and scared, I stumbled into my frantic grand-
mother’s arms to be alternately tearfully hugged and screamed
at in Italian.
East Bay? Yeah, any day.
Virtually my entire family lived in East Providence and, to
them, Seekonk was “the country.” They loved coming to our
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JANUARY 2020
house in the ’burbs, where lawns, crickets and quiet
streets were as common to us as paved yards,
screaming sirens and crowded neighborhoods
were to them. My Auntie Annie, a first-generation
Italian-American and a classic Black Widow for
dressing darkly head to toe after her husband died,
would gleefully dig up our dandelion greens to take
home for salad.
We’d visit East Providence as well, Uncle Joe and Auntie
Alice in Riverside, Uncle Alvie and Aunt Huguette in Rumford
(they met in France in World War II), Auntie Eva, Auntie
Emma…you get the relative picture. Some family lived in
Warwick and Providence, and we’d visit them of course, but
my life was largely confined to the East Bay.
And that was good enough for me.
Being Italian, our go-to place was Asquino’s on North
Broadway. I loved every bite of pasta | | CONTINUED ON PAGE 133