Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: The Second Season – On The Fly

Episode 3 – Fly-Tying For Retired Tie-Dyers

"I think I fish, in part, because it's an anti-social, bohemian business that, when gone about properly, puts you forever outside the mainstream culture without actually landing you in an institution."   -  John Gierach

By Robert Yarnall

In case you didn't know, may have forgotten, or just really don’t care, be advised that Whiskey Tango Foxtrot was spawned in 2012 as a serialized account of a small boatload of perpetually perturbed neighbors who set out to harpoon a wind energy project known as “Whalerock.”

The Big Whalerock Circus has pretty much packed up and left town, leaving behind just a small group of clowns who seem to believe they still have some mileage left on them thar shoes. So Whiskey Tango Foxtrot continues into a second season, following their goofy footprints even as they try to cover them up, recalcitrant doggies pooping their way across neighborhood yards.

Sure, our aging Whalerockers and Whalerockettes will cleverly (they think) say, “So whaddya expect, the guy’s tellin’ fish stories!!!...” But serious anglers know it is not about  fish, it’s about fishing: who knows what lurks in the shadowy depths of The Moraine Zone?

Abandon All Common Sense, Ye Who Enter There…

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: The Second Season – On The Fly

Episode 2 – Go Hook Yourself

"I think I fish, in part, because it's an anti-social, bohemian business that, when gone about properly, puts you forever outside the mainstream culture without actually landing you in an institution."   -  John Gierach

By Robert Yarnall

Editor’s Note: Progressive Charlestown’s 2012 ten-part miniseries, “Whiskey Tango Foxtrot” (derived from the military phonetic alphabet for WTF and artfully interpreted as “What The F**k”) was created by the author in 2012 as a serialized account of the efforts of a core group of neighborhood activists who banded together to contest developer Lawrence LeBlanc’s (DBA Whalerock LLC) proposal to impale a pair of 460’ industrial wind generators atop a terminal glacial moraine abutting several distinctly residential neighborhoods.

Set against the motif of freshwater bass fishing, the series focused on the ringmaster antics of a coffee-hour cabal of neighbors living within a muffin toss of each other on Partridge Run in the Charlestown neighborhood known as Sachem Passage. 

The quasi-retired senior citizen foursome of Ronald & Maureen Areglado, Michael & Donna Chambers, and forty-something sometimes-banker Kristan O’Connor, bonded together as an excitable quintet of prickly anti-wind protagonists and hopped onto the no-turbine bandwagon, pimping it out with its very own political boom box, pumping out the now-familiar, holier-than-thou Partridgesque bird call, “…what’s good for Charlestown...”

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: The Second Season – On The Fly

Episode 1 – The Bucket List

By Robert Yarnall

Robert Yarnall, aka Bob aka a variety of other more colorful, not necessarily family-friendly descriptors, is a native Rhode Islander (shudder) who landed in Charlestown with his wife Pat circa 1984. 

They have two wonderful daughters, Kristen and Kathryn, who reaped the benefits of growing up in Charlestown when it was a predominately family-oriented community, as opposed to the looming retirement villa motif that seems to be the preferred default outcome of certain political entities we all know & love.

Yarnall Jr. was born at Quonset Point NAS in 1950, the first of two sons of Robert J. Sr. and Jean M. Yarnall, both military veterans of the United States Navy who met while assigned to Quonset during the post-war 1940s. 

During the ’60s, career Navy Chief Aviation Machinist Mate Yarnall was assigned to aircraft carrier antisubmarine warfare squadrons based primarily at Quonset and was a member of several aircrews who utilized the Charlestown Auxiliary Air Field landing strip to practice carrier landings. Jean was also a USN Chief Petty Officer (CPO) who operated a LINC Trainer (flight simulator) to teach instrument flying skills to naval aviators. 

The 2012 Charlestown Memorial Day Parade marked the first time that both Chief Yarnalls were unable to participate in the event atop the official Veteran’s Float due to health issues. Bob Sr. is still with us, but Jean joined her shipmates on the Perpetual Sea this past April. Their complete military records, from recruitment through retirement, including duty stations, campaign medals and meritorious service commendations, are archived at the Newport Naval War College History Museum, permanently available for research by military historians and other interested parties.

Just around the beginning of our seventh decade on the planet, those of us who have not yet left the building to join Elvis realize that the clock is indeed ticking. If there’s any special place we want to visit, any unique activity we want to pursue, any blaze-of-glory moment we would like to experience, now is the time.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Episode 10

Snagged on the Epilog Epic-Log

By Robert Yarnall

Read the rest of the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series:
Episode 1 – Getting Ready To Fish
Episode 2 – Watchaug Bites
Episode 3 – Avoiding Car Sickness
Episode 4 – Bait & Switch (Not!)
Episode 5 – Still Baiting, Still Switching…
Episode 6 – Mother Gooser & Friends
Episode 7 – Under the Radar with L-T
Episode 8 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Prelude
Episode 9 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Kiss
Episode 10 – Snagged on the Epilog Epic-Log

"I think I fish, in part, because it's an anti-social, bohemian business that, when gone about properly, puts you forever outside the mainstream culture without actually landing you in an institution."   -  John Gierach

I had hoped to be done with Whiskey Tango Foxtrot by now, planned to wrap up the entrails of the Whalerock blowfish in last month’s cyber-newspaper and bury the remains in the compost partition of my aging Macbook hard drive. 

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Episode 9

Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Kiss 

By Robert Yarnall

Read the rest of the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series:
Episode 1 – Getting Ready To Fish
Episode 2 – Watchaug Bites
Episode 3 – Avoiding Car Sickness
Episode 4 – Bait & Switch (Not!)
Episode 5 – Still Baiting, Still Switching…
Episode 6 – Mother Gooser & Friends
Episode 7 – Under the Radar with L-T
Episode 8 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Prelude
Episode 9 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Kiss
Episode 10 – Snagged on the Epilog Epic-Log
There it is.

Judge Judith Savage slaps the proverbial  “Return To Sender” rubber stamp on the Whalerock All-You-Can-Eat Lawsuit Buffet, and drives assorted piggies digging deep for any truffle of a rationale, snorting analytical snippets that have all the style and substance of toddler mucus.

Speaking as a check-writing, check-writing, check-writing (check three, I’m outta’ here) Illwinder, I could see this coming from Day One when Whalerock Abutters & Beyond, LLC, first met as a group of stakeholders, or maybe vampires, depending on your point of view.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Episode 8

Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Prelude  

By Robert Yarnall

Read the rest of the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series:
Episode 1 – Getting Ready To Fish
Episode 2 – Watchaug Bites
Episode 3 – Avoiding Car Sickness
Episode 4 – Bait & Switch (Not!)
Episode 5 – Still Baiting, Still Switching…
Episode 6 – Mother Gooser & Friends
Episode 7 – Under the Radar with L-T
Episode 8 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Prelude
Episode 9 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Kiss
Episode 10 – Snagged on the Epilog Epic-Log

Out of respect for the timely release of the Dolock Decision, wherein Superior Court Associate Justice Judith C. Savage sent the ill-farted Whalerock wind farm proposal back to the compost heap of local government for a thorough destinkification, all fishing is hereby suspended until further notice, or Veterans’ Day, whichever occurs first. This is about as close to a deadline as I ever want to be. Don’t like it. Choppy water.

From last week’s episode of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, you may recall that the Illwind activist group, fronted by a core quintet conveniently dubbed  “The Partridge Family” because they live within a three-home cluster of not-so-affordable housing on Partridge Run, gave Joe Dolock’s business-based turbine-fighting strategy a politely dismissive “Thanks, but no thanks” seal of disapproval.

Remember, it wasn’t so much that the PF-er’s had dismissed Dolock’s comprehensive anthology of All Things Whalerock that bothered him. After all, Joe was a veteran of the cutthroat battles of Wall Street, not to mention the jungles of Southeast Asia. In either environment, the battle was as much about survival as victory.

What really galled Joe was that The Partridge Family knew damn well that he was actively running for Charlestown Town Council and that his candidacy was based on his professional assessment of the Whalerock Wind Energy project and its associated partnership deal with the town.

Simply stated, Joe felt betrayed that PF-ers had unilaterally donated his Whalerock expertise, a chronology compiled single-handedly over a six-month period, to his cross-town political rivals, the CCA-endorsed trio of Dan Slattery, Tom Gentz, and Cliff Vanover.  

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Episode 7

Under the Radar with L-T

By Robert Yarnall

Read the rest of the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series:
Episode 1 – Getting Ready To Fish
Episode 2 – Watchaug Bites
Episode 3 – Avoiding Car Sickness
Episode 4 – Bait & Switch (Not!)
Episode 5 – Still Baiting, Still Switching…
Episode 6 – Mother Gooser & Friends
Episode 7 – Under the Radar with L-T
Episode 8 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Prelude
Episode 9 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Kiss
Episode 10 – Snagged on the Epilog Epic-Log
Time to stow the fishing gear this week while area ponds are restocked with hungry trout for the autumn season, courtesy of our friends at the Division of Fish & Wildlife. We bass anglers usually take a hiatus as well, stocking up on 2012 Patriots jerseys and wiping down crusty boat hulls with otherwise useless 2012 Red Sox non-memorabilia.

Unbeknown to most folks in Charlestown, neighborhood resistance to developer Larry LeBlanc’s industrial wind energy proposal began a good six months before a pair of congenial front men began pulling fire alarms in the neighborhoods abutting Whalerock.

Soft-spoken former U.S. Army 1st Lt. Joseph S. Dolock, a Vietnam veteran of an actual yearlong live-fire combat tour of duty, had caught wind of a pending town council agenda item that roused his considerable business instincts.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Episode 6

Mother Gooser & Friends

By Robert Yarnall

Read the rest of the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series:
Episode 1 – Getting Ready To Fish
Episode 2 – Watchaug Bites
Episode 3 – Avoiding Car Sickness
Episode 4 – Bait & Switch (Not!)
Episode 5 – Still Baiting, Still Switching…
Episode 6 – Mother Gooser & Friends
Episode 7 – Under the Radar with L-T
Episode 8 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Prelude
Episode 9 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Kiss
Episode 10 – Snagged on the Epilog Epic-Log
Once upon a time, in a quaint New England town, a few dozen citizens gathered to enjoy a late afternoon presentation by a wind energy company spokesperson. He was preaching the benefits of wind turbines, introducing his product as the safest, most practical, most cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels currently available on the planet.

The concept of wind energy is immediately grasped by virtually everybody. The idea of producing electricity by spinning coils of tightly wound copper wires within a magnetic field is one of the first science demonstrations school children experience. Fifth graders get it and from that point on, most people are pretty comfortable with the topic.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot - Episode 5

Still Baiting, Still Switching…

By Robert Yarnall

The Tribe's original deed

Read the rest of the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series:
Episode 1 – Getting Ready To Fish
Episode 2 – Watchaug Bites
Episode 3 – Avoiding Car Sickness
Episode 4 – Bait & Switch (Not!)
Episode 5 – Still Baiting, Still Switching…
Episode 6 – Mother Gooser & Friends
Episode 7 – Under the Radar with L-T
Episode 8 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Prelude
Episode 9 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Kiss
Episode 10 – Snagged on the Epilog Epic-Log

It’s just too damn hot to fish today.  It’s too humid, too dead of summer, too easy to remand myself to a subterranean dehumidified basement and reflect on the topical item for this week’s blog submission - an eighty-one acre chunk of terminal glacial moraine well known to ancestors of the Narragansett Indian Tribe living in the area about 7,000 years ago. 

I wonder about the daily routines of those early indigenous people, the array of tasks – fishing, hunting, food gathering – that they practiced right here, not as diversions, hobbies or recreational adventures, but as daily struggles for survival.  It occurs to me as I overturn rotting logs and small rocks in a pretty pathetic search for a couple of grubs or crickets to dress out my lures for yet another Watchaug Pond fishing visit, that the earliest Narragansetts probably caught a lot more fish with much more efficiency because they were highly motivated by their will to live, as opposed to my will to escape home maintenance tasks.

Time also to escape hazy, hot, and humid early August, kick back and reflect on Tax Assessor’s Map 17, Lot 186, site of the Whalerock Twin Tax Credit Turbine Proposal.  

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, Episode 4

Bait & Switch (Not!)

By Robert Yarnall

Read the rest of the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series:
Episode 1 – Getting Ready To Fish
Episode 2 – Watchaug Bites
Episode 3 – Avoiding Car Sickness
Episode 4 – Bait & Switch (Not!)
Episode 5 – Still Baiting, Still Switching…
Episode 6 – Mother Gooser & Friends
Episode 7 – Under the Radar with L-T
Episode 8 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Prelude
Episode 9 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Kiss
Episode 10 – Snagged on the Epilog Epic-Log

Salt water fishing enthusiasts are only too happy to divulge the GPS coordinates of angling hot spots and the kinds of bait needed to bring home some heart-healthy, omega-3 infused bacon of the sea. For those of us lucky enough to live in and around Charlestown, the staff at Breachway Bait & Tackle will set you up and ship you out, optimally equipped to bring Jaws home to dinner.

The fish stories change considerably within traditionally secretive freshwater fishing fraternities.  Bassing pros brag about outboard engine turbo-boost. Fly-fishing Zen masters flash merit-badge sashes full of hand-tied trout flies. But when the fish are biting, good luck with the who, what, where, when, and why of bass, trout, and related gill-equipped species. The freshwater brotherhood – and the sisterhood, too – clams up tighter than a Quonnie quahog.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Episode 3 – Avoiding Car Sickness

By Robert Yarnall

Read the rest of the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series:
Episode 1 – Getting Ready To Fish
Episode 2 – Watchaug Bites
Episode 3 – Avoiding Car Sickness
Episode 4 – Bait & Switch (Not!)
Episode 5 – Still Baiting, Still Switching…
Episode 6 – Mother Gooser & Friends
Episode 7 – Under the Radar with L-T
Episode 8 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Prelude
Episode 9 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Kiss
Episode 10 – Snagged on the Epilog Epic-Log

The convenient truth about hauling a bass boat out of Watchaug Pond is that it’s basically clean when winched onto the trailer. No salty brine to topcoat the gunwales or yuck up the seats. Just drag the fish stalker up the ramp and beat a path to Route 1.

The AAA-endorsed triptik says to simply follow Prosser Trail toward the sea, but every once in a while some genius trades in his GPS for an IPA and winds up rampaging through the Sachem Passage neighborhood, where he  unwittingly brushes up against the second largest fluke ever caught in Charlestown, officially recorded as Assessor’s Map 17, Lot 186.

Village folklorists know this place as Whalerock.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Episode 2 – Watchaug Bites

By Robert Yarnall

Read the rest of the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series:
Episode 1 – Getting Ready To Fish
Episode 2 – Watchaug Bites
Episode 3 – Avoiding Car Sickness
Episode 4 – Bait & Switch (Not!)
Episode 5 – Still Baiting, Still Switching…
Episode 6 – Mother Gooser & Friends
Episode 7 – Under the Radar with L-T
Episode 8 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Prelude
Episode 9 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Kiss
Episode 10 – Snagged on the Epilog Epic-Log

Watchaug Pond, a local kettle pond measuring a tad under 600 acres with depths ranging to nearly forty feet, is located pretty much within the confines of Burlingame Park. It is well known to freshwater bass fishing enthusiasts from all over New England, and a mandatory stop on the schedule of the Rhode Island B.A.S.S. Federation.

At least twice each year, typically once in early spring and once in early fall, at precisely 7:00 AM on a Saturday or Sunday morning, a small armada of professionally equipped custom bass-huntin’ boats crank up their no-nonsense outboard engines, presumably arousing anyone in Sachem Passage who still has a pulse, regardless of their REM state of sleep.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

Episode 1 – Getting Ready To Fish

Bob Yarnall

By Robert Yarnall

Read the rest of the Whiskey Tango Foxtrot series:
Episode 2 – Watchaug Bites
Episode 3 – Avoiding Car Sickness
Episode 4 – Bait & Switch (Not!)
Episode 5 – Still Baiting, Still Switching…
Episode 6 – Mother Gooser & Friends
Episode 7 – Under the Radar with L-T
Episode 8 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Prelude
Episode 9 – Steering Committee Syndrome Unleashed, The Kiss
Episode 10 – Snagged on the Epilog Epic-Log


So how does an ex-college journalist get shanghaied by a local political blogging team that has dared to apply the gold standard of investigative journalism, namely the Woodward-Bernstein Watergate timeline storyboard, to good ol’ Charlietown?

Yeah, I know it’s Snarkified Version 2.0 and it makes some folks uncomfortable.

Trying to wriggle away gets complicated. People get their stories twisted up in knots. Eventually the knots fray, then the whole ball of string starts to unravel. Land deals, vendor contracts, personnel hiring & firing schemes, issues common to Anytown USA, are alive & kicking here in Charlestown. Fortunately, they’re not doing so well. The worm turns. The worm always turns.