The 2024 Little Compton Financial Town Meeting is now history. Once everyone had checked in, it was called to order at 7:22 p.m. To include extensive instructions from our Town Moderator, it lasted not even 20 minutes. This had me reminiscing about old Town meetings.

Abe Quick was the Town Moderator for years. He lived over in the "Quickdom"  part of Pottersville. He knew or knew of virtually everyone in town. His knowledge was such that he would help with the mailing of the Town Meeting warrant. Rather than send six copies to a household with six voters that he knew lived therein, he would help slap six labels on one warrant to that household. Probably saved the Town $75.12 in postage. Yankee frugality, but it set the tone for our municipal spending.

Abe would start out most mornings by visiting Phil Wilbur and his sister Louis Wilbur Sylvia in the clerk's office. They were the Town Clerk and Deputy Town Clerk, respectively. It was only natural that he would help with these mailings.

Phil would of course attend the Town Meetings. He would sit at a card table smoking cigarettes. He was a die-hard New York Yankees fan ... I would take him up to Fenway occasionally when they were in town. He passed away on Election Day in 1986.

The meeting themselves could be spirited affairs. There was a lot more discourse, almost always civil, then voters would think nothing of debating at length a stroke entailing the spending of $1,000. Sometimes meetings went so long that they were continued to another night.

There seemed to be more characters in town at that time. Many of them would stand along the walls in the gymnasium. Miss Ruth Parks and her sister Amy,  two then probably octogenarians and definitely staunch Democrats, always sat on aisle seats in the front row. Despite being in a distinct political minority, they were not at all hesitant to speak their mind. I remember Ruth once addressing the meeting on an issue she thought might adversely affect summer people and referring to them as "our industry.” She was right, you know.

Occasionally there was a real hot button issue such as a proposed new breakwater at Sakonnet Harbor. Although it was to be largely financed by the Army Corps of Engineers, don't think that Little Compton voters shied from looking that gift horse in the mouth. It was contentious! At that meeting, I remember my late brother (actually a half brother but that term was foreign to us) Mike Harrington shuffling up to the microphone. He stated that we were all swimming in circles as he raised his right arm to mimic a crawl stroke motion. As he had but one arm and might only swim in circles, that brought the house down in laughter. He definitely lightened things up.

An old New England Town Meeting was Democracy in action right out of a Norman Rockwell painting. Having said this, the 2024 meeting was very efficiently run and Little Compton (or maybe Block Island) will likely again have the lowest tax rate in the state. I was home in time to take in the Celtics and Red Sox games (both teams won) but, as you can likely tell, I am a bit nostalgic for the way things were.

Stetson (Tack) Eddy

Little Compton