Frank is a local celebrity who grew up on Providence Street in the Riverpoint/Westcott area of West Warwick. His grandparents came to the United States about 1905-1910 and settled in the same neighborhood as others who emigrated from their village in Italy. The COLETTA family owed a five-unit building, across the street from the of high school. It housed three apartments and two little stores fronts. HE remebers that sometime in 1959 or 1960 one of the storefronts was rented by an unknown politician making his first run for office. Claiborne PELL made that his Kent County headquarters.
Frank reminisced of the many changes in the Village. West Warwick has changed from a semi-rural community to the suburban community it is today. The old Senior High School is now housing for the elderly. The Royal Mill was a landmark, bustling with activity, today it is a landmark but for other reasons. He watched the hills behind Newell Street in Westcott develop. When he was a boy the family would walk there to pick blueberries, fish and go boating in the Pawtuxet River (no swimming and they didn't eat the fish). The River was sometimes red, sometimes, blue, and sometimes it looked like a giant bubble bath. In the winter there was sledding and skiing down the hills at the site of today's Ledgemont Highlands development. In the 60s he attended the new high school on Factory Street and walked through the fields to get there. Now single family homes and apartments cover the landscape.
One of the nice things that he found about living in a village is the familiarity shown to family and frfiends through the use of colorful nicknames. Frank mentioned friends that were dubbed Scrappy, Skinny, Jeep, Jumbo, Small-fry…are all familiar monickers that were accepted good-naturedly by the recipients. Closer to home he mentioned names that his grandparents gave people such as the old couple who lived down the street…she was Mariooch and he was Caplarooch. The meaning escapes him.
Part of Frank's Sunrise Show is the Village Salute, which identifies the 500 or more villages nestled within Rhode Island's thirty-nine cities and towns. He was always interested in learning about different historical events in the state and one day it occurred to him that there are so many villages in the State that are unknown to most Rhode Islanders, why not profile them and talk about them on the air. That segment of the program became so popular that people are now doing the research for him. At various social and business functions people try to stump him on the names of little known villages and he claims that he guesses right every time. At our meeting one of our guest succeeded in stumping him with the village of Jamesville, in North Kingstown. Our guest grew up there and said that it is near the railroad where the station once stood. Wal-Mart, looking for a name that more readily distinguishes the area, renamed it Wickford Junction. The old timers were upset and still call it Jamesville or Jimmieville. Frank admitted that it was a new one to him and promised to mention it on his program.
Last June Frank celebrated his 30th year in the business of broadcasting, a career that he said his grandparents could only dream of. He expressed his appreciation to them and to their generation for leaving their homeland and facing the unknown in order to fulfill the American dream for themselves and their descendants. He said that he cherishes the values that they instilled in him and he is passing them down to yet another generation.