"Red" Engley had South Providence beat

 

In many ways Rhode Island is a great place to live. The dominance of the Democratic Party (the better side of it) goes back to the Great Depression era.

My grandfather, William Engley, back then, was a Providence police officer with the South Providence beat. He was nicknamed "Red" in his obituary, for his red hair not his politics. He told me at a Sunday family dinner: "You'll never get a bone from those Republicans."

I found an unloaded gun in his bedroom and injured my finger trying to pull the trigger. I never did like guns. A more interesting discovery in Grandpa's room was a big old book by H.G. Wells, "The Science of Life."