☕ Burn, Baby, Burn

Monday, June 8, 2026 | Edition #41

GOOD MORNING, WARWICK. This week marks one of Rhode Island's proudest and least-acknowledged contributions to American history: the time we set a British warship on fire and basically started the Revolution.

In June of 1772, a crew of fed-up locals rowed out to the HMS Gaspee after it ran aground chasing a smuggler near Warwick, removed the British sailors, and torched the whole thing. This was a year and a half before the Boston Tea Party, which somehow gets all the textbook notoriety and the gift shop fame.

The festivities all go down this weekend. Saturday is the 5K and the parade, Sunday they reenact the burning at the cove. A few days of cardio, colonial cosplay, and ceremonial arson, and we wouldn't change a thing.

Here's what's goin' ahn.

⏱️ Sunset Time: 8:20PM

🌔 Moon Phase: Last Quarter

⛽ Avg. Gas Price: $4.15 (click here to find the cheapest gas near you)

💧 Chance of Rain: 0%

Getting fired is rough. Getting fired from the family business is worse. Getting fired from the family business twice, the second time by your own sisters, is a level of holiday-table awkwardness most of us will thankfully never know. That is roughly where Market Basket's saga landed this week, and since there's a location out on Route 2, the drama is more local than you'd think.

Arthur T. Demoulas, the ousted CEO, says he won't appeal the ruling that upheld his firing. Back in April, a Delaware judge sided with the board and called Demoulas a gifted operator but a domineering leader who figured he didn't need anyone's permission to run things. His camp insists he still disagrees and will keep fighting "to set right what has gone so wrong here," which is the corporate way of saying he lost and isn't thrilled about it.

For context: in 2014, his cousin pushed him out, workers walked off the job for six weeks, customers revolted, and he came back a legend. This round, the people who ousted him are his own three sisters, who together control 61% of the company to his 28%.

Meanwhile, the company handed one of its top jobs to a guy who started there as a bagger, which is either a great American success story or the board's idea of a mic drop.

Read the full story here

Most of us spent age 10 attempting to dig to China or negotiating bedtime. Luke Cook, a Warwick fourth grader, spent his building a community institution. His "Warwick Curiosity Cubby," a take-a-toy, leave-a-toy box he put up with his grandfather near Kenneth Avenue, got so popular it's now expanding.

This week, Justin Czar of Liberty Fence Company saw the story, rounded up his crew, and built and installed a brand new, bigger Cubby. Coventry Glass donated the glass for the door. The Warwick Police have been backing the whole thing. The original box, meanwhile, is being promoted to a dedicated "Quack Shack" for all rubber duck-related donations, because of course it is.

If you're keeping score: Luke is 10 and already has a flagship location, an expansion, corporate sponsors, and Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook accounts his mom helps run. His first video reached 11,000 people. That is a better-performing brand than half the businesses in this city. His mom Amanda put it best: "We've literally cried from the outpour, I am so proud of this boy."

At this rate he's running for mayor by sixth grade, and he'd have my vote.

Read the full story here

Kent Hospital’s parent company, Care New England, announced it's cutting more than 30 leadership and non-clinical jobs to help close an estimated $20 million budget gap for this fiscal year.

CNE, the state's second-largest hospital system, points to the usual suspects: low Medicaid reimbursement rates, rising costs, and federal cuts tied to the cheerfully named One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is set to squeeze hospital funding statewide. They are far from alone. More than 70% of Rhode Island hospitals lost money in 2025.

Here’s the part that makes your head spin. While trimming jobs to save $20 million, CNE is simultaneously pouring $215.5 million into renovating Kent Hospital to expand care. So Warwick's hospital is getting bigger while its staffing gets leaner, all at the same time.

Hospital leaders are now asking the state for another $70 million in Medicaid funding. So far, the governor and legislative leaders have offered a polite shrug.

Read the full story here

Summer's here, which means the pavement is quietly turning into a griddle. At 77 degrees out, asphalt can hit 125, and per the Journal of the American Medical Association, that's hot enough to start burning skin in about 60 seconds. At 87 out, it climbs to 143. Easy test before a walk: hold the back of your hand to the pavement for seven seconds. If you can't keep it there, neither can your dog's paws. Walk early, walk late, or stick to the grass.

Wednesday, June 10: 🍽️ Taste of Rhode Island | More Info | Crowne Plaza Hotel, 801 Greenwich Ave | 6PM-9PM | The best restaurants, caterers, bakers, wineries, and local breweries in Rhode Island all under one roof for a single night. Live music, surprise entertainment, and enough food to justify skipping dinner beforehand. Held at the Outdoor Pavilion at the Crowne Plaza right here in Warwick. Come hungry. Leave happy.

Now through Sunday, June 21: 🎭 Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Tickets | The Gamm Theatre, 1245 Jefferson Blvd | Tennessee Williams' Pulitzer Prize-winning drama is back at The Gamm. The Pollitt family gathers in the sweltering Mississippi heat for Big Daddy's birthday, and absolutely nobody is being honest about anything. Tickets run $67 to $77 with discounts for students, seniors, and groups of 8 or more.

Saturday, June 13: 🏃🏼‍➡️Gaspee Days 5K | Sign Up Here | Narragansett Parkway, 9:30AM | The oldest road race in Rhode Island sends around 2,000 runners down the Parkway's famous red, white, and blue stripe, with the Gaspee Days Parade rolling in right behind it. Colonial reenactors, fife and drum corps, Shriners in tiny cars, the whole patriotic circus. Run it, watch it, or post up with a coffee and judge everyone's pace from the curb. Either way, it's the correct way to spend a Saturday morning in Warwick. Bib pickup is Thursday at the Aspray Boathouse from 4PM-7PM. See you on the parkway!

Sunday, June 14: 🔥 Gaspee Days Burning Reenactment | Info Link | Pawtuxet Cove, 4PM | The grand finale of Gaspee Days, where Rhode Island reenacts the night colonists rowed out and torched a British warship back in 1772. A replica Gaspee gets set ablaze in the cove while the crowd watches from shore, because nothing caps off a weekend like a ceremonial boat fire. Bring a chair, grab a spot early, and take in the most Rhode Island thing on the whole calendar.

🥬 Conimicut Village Community Market | Info Link | Saturdays, 9AM-12PM (through Sept 26) | Conimicut Village Free admission, local vendors, and a waterfront village to wander on a Saturday morning. Produce, makers, and the occasional homemade something you didn't know you needed.

🌽 Goddard Park Farmers Market | Info Link | Fridays, 9 AM-1 PM (through October) | Goddard Memorial State Park, 1095 Ives Rd | Fresh local produce and vendors. A waterfront park on a Friday morning is genuinely hard to beat, and it doubles as a solid excuse to have been outside before noon.

🏛️ City Council Meetings | Council Calendar | Select Mondays, 6:30PM | City Council Chambers, City Hall The council meets a couple of Mondays a month to handle the business of running Warwick: ordinances, budgets, and the occasional public hearing that gets spicy. Dates and times shift, so check the calendar before you show up. Democracy is a participation sport, and admission is free.

🚗 Oakland Beach Cruise Nights | Info Link | Tuesdays, 4PM–8PM (through Sept 15) | Oakland Beach Classic cars, oldies on the speakers, food trucks, and Narragansett Bay doing its best impression of a backdrop you'd pay for somewhere else. Free if you walk in, $3 if you bring a car worth showing off. A perfect low-key summer Tuesday.

School is almost out. The weather is warm. And our Amazon driver isn't ready for the tidal wave headed his way. Neither am I. This week, my wife bought something she swore would save us money in the long run. Update: the ROI is still $0.

👉 See what showed up here.

Where in Warwick was this photo taken? Answer shown at the end.

Bumfuzzle (verb) | BUM-fuhz-uhl | To confuse, fluster, or thoroughly perplex.

There is no purer demonstration of this word than letting a friend explain crypto to you at a cookout. He starts confident, you start confident, everyone has a beer. Twenty minutes later he is drawing blockchains in the air with a hot dog, you have somehow learned that a cartoon monkey can be worth more than your car, and you understand less than when he started. You nod, you say "dude 100%," and you agree to anything that will make it stop. You have been thoroughly bumfuzzled.

Thanks to Corey L. for submitting today’s word of the day! You can submit a word of the day yourself, here. I’ll be sure to include it in the next edition!

✅ Where in Warwick Answer: If you guessed Oakland Beach, you nailed it. That enormous flag snapping in the wind flies over Top of the Bay, presiding over the same patch of shoreline Rhode Islanders have been flocking to for well over a century.

And they used to flock hard. Back in the late 1800s, Oakland Beach was marketed as "The Eden of Narragansett Bay" and "The Modern Paradise," which tells you the local advertising department was either visionary or operating with zero supervision. The place had a roller coaster, a dance hall, a theater, an arcade, a wax museum, and a grand seaside hotel, until the hotel burned down in 1903 courtesy of a tinner's solder pot, because nothing says paradise like an open flame indoors.

These days it leans more frozen lemonade truck than wax museum, and "Modern Paradise" might be a slight reach. But on a clear evening with that flag going and the bay doing its thing, you can sort of see what the 1890 marketing guy was getting at.

That's it for today. We’ll do it again same time next Monday. Until then, enjoy the weather this week. Go be great.

Thanks for reading. Keep smiling!