Land Conservation

Hi everyone!  My name is Reginald Van Williams, and my great-great-great grandfather once sold Roger Williams a crippled mule and then took part of his last name.  Nobody knows why he did that—took the name, not sold the mule—but I like to think it was because my great-great-great grandfather knew something about perception.  All these years later, here I am, talking to all of you, and that’s what I’m here to tell you.  Perception is reality and reality is money and money is time and time is precious and precious is—you.  You are precious.  I’m not sure where I was going with that, but let’s cut to the chase.

It’s all about how you sell it.

That’s the title of my new book, available next week from Van Williams Press and online www.rvwitsallaboutperception.com.

The book is about how you can take any topic and make it approachable, accessible, and available to the public at large.

So today we’re talking about land conservation.  That's because I answered the ad you all posted on Craig's List.  Plus, the New Hampshire Land Conservation Conference couldn't afford me.

Now, I had a really interesting power point presentation to go with this talk, but I dropped my laptop in one of your beautiful rivers while I was doing research for this, so unfortunately you’re just going to have to use your imagination, or I could make shadow puppets while I—

You know what?  Never mind.

Now let’s talk about the first and most obvious problem with most of your bodies of water:  Spelling.  Every river and lake you have has about sixteen letters in its name.  Do you know why the Great Lakes are so great?  Because their names are short and easy to spell.  Huron, Eerie, Michigan, Super Duper, and Olive Town.  Easy peezy.  Y’all need to take a tip from them and do some renaming.  And, while you’re at it, take this opportunity to give them some more marketing-friendly names.  Instead of the Sakonnet River, what about Sexy Waterway or Happy Beach?  Woonasquatucket?  I’m bored by the time I get to ‘tucket.’  Sooo what about Hottie River?  Or Cool Hip River?  Or Madonna River?  I’m just tossing some ideas out here, but feel free to use any of them—provided I get half gross on any products that may appear with those names.

I mean, you've got Pewcatuck, Meshashick, Indian Lake--I mean, did you run out of names by the time you got to Indian Lake?  Oh, and the Great Swamp--I mean, have you been there?  The word 'great' doesn't really apply.

And all these acronyms!  OSHA and MOSHA and DTBCSEDWQ!  If the acronym takes an hour to say it kind of defeats the purpose.

               

Another thing to think about is that magic box we call “television.”  There are a hundred billion channels out there and none of you are on any of them!  Now, my first thought would be to start your own network, but that could take years, so instead I’m just going to recommend that you take over another network.  One nobody watches like the Discovery Channel or the Rugby Network.  Once you’re in the building, those Discovery geeks won’t have the nerve to kick you out again.  That’s when you unveil your programming line-up:

At eight o’clock:  CSI:  Narragansett Bay.  Over twelve million people visit Narragansett Bay each year, and one of them is getting murdered every week!

At nine o’clock:  Blackstone River Matchmaker!  Two people get set up on a blind date, where they take a trip down the Blackstone River.  If they’re in love by the time they get to Seekonk, there’s a Justice of the Peace waiting to marry them at the Seekonk Speedway.

Finally, at ten o’clock, it’s The Real Housewives of West Sneech Brook.  I have no idea where West Sneech Brook is, but I found three women who live near there and hate each other, and I can only assume that’ll make for some good television.

Let’s talk about the Blackstone River for a second:  It was once called "the most polluted river in the country with respect to toxic sediments."  I don’t know why we’re respecting toxic sediments, because they sound pretty nasty to me, but I’m not up all on your river jargon.

Let’s think of ways we can reverse this negative reputation.  I like to use t-shirts.  For example, we could have t-shirts that say “Blackstone River:  We’re Not Polluted Anymore!” or “Blackstone River:  Swimming Won’t Kill You…Anymore!” or “Blackstone River:  That’s Just a Pile of Leaves It Isn’t a Floating Shopping Cart—Anymore!”  Pretty soon, nobody will even remember that at one time that water had more junk in it than a Hoarder’s tool shed.  AND where else can you find a trendy pair of vintage red sneakers--or a red and a green sneaker--or a green and a blue--well, you get the point.

Hahahaha oooh!  Coffee mugs!  We can have Blackstone coffee mugs that say “Before we cleaned up the river, the water looked like what’s in this mug!”  That might be a little long—we can workshop that.

I’ve also come up with some ways to make the river more appealing to kids.  We’ve come up with a line of Blackstone action figures that I think will be on every tot’s Christmas list this year.  First is the William Blaxton doll.  The river was named after him, so he comes with a little flag that he can put anywhere he wants that says “I’m a River Man” AND a gun, because kids like action figures with guns.  We also have a Samuel Slater doll that comes with a bale full of cotton, a gun, and an army tank.  Again, we’re aiming for a younger demographic here.  And, because we don’t want to leave out the girls, we came up with Bonnie Blackstone, a river doll for little girls who one day dream of riding a boat up and down a river to find a husband on its gorgeous shores!  Some call it sexist, but I call it—American.

Now, the Pawtuxet River also has a less-than-thrilling distinction.  It’s known for its proclivity for flooding.  So we develop—

The Pawtuxet River Water Park!

Amusement parks the best way to endear something to the general public.  I once handled the PR for a toxic waste spill on the shores of California.  Everyone was saying it was an environmental disaster and that the company responsible would be bankrupted by the bad publicity.  You know what I said?

“SUPER TOXIC WASTELAND!”

We had a ‘Don’t Touch the Birds’ Ferris Wheel, a ‘Don’t Go in the Water’ rollercoaster, and a life-sized model of the ship’s Captain, although we downplayed just how intoxicated he was when the oil spill happened.  A little creative license there.

So I say we do the same thing for the Pawtuxet River.  We can make it like The Magic Kingdom!  There’ll be Scituate Reservoir Land, the West Warwick Rapids Ride, and the Cranston Flume!  Pretty soon, people won’t only be over the whole flooding thing, they’ll be looking forward to it!

“Mommy, there’s flooding!  Let’s go to the Pawtuxet River Water Disney Park!”

I threw Disney in there to help it sell, but I’m not entirely sure we’ll get away with that without being sued.  But hey—art means taking risks, right?  Actually, it's been proven that getting sued is one of the most effective ways to gain the public's sympathy.  Four out of ten people who get sued see their approval ratings go through the roof, that is, of the four that end up losing their lawsuit.  The six that win their lawsuits see a drop in approval ratings, unless they're being sued by a company that owns a power plant because people don't like power because they don't have enough of it which is why I'm here to tell you it's okay to embrace your power.

That's why my first book was called 'Embrace Your Power.'

We actually did an experiment down by one of your rivers where we had sad people stand by the river for seventeen days to see if being by a body of water in this great state would improve their mood.  Sure enough, the people felt great--for the first five hours, until they realized we wouldn't be able to feed or shelter them during the duration of the experiment.  The good news is, though the results of that experiment were inconclusive, we did find out that drinking river water probably won't kill you--which is great!

Lastly, I’d like to share a memory with all of you.  You see, I grew up here in Rhode Island, and coming from a historic family wasn’t always easy.  When your ancestors scammed the founder of your state, that’s a lot to live up to, but god knows I’ve tried.  I remember how often my Dad would take me down to Roger Williams Park, and Zoo, and Hospital, and Museum, and Bird Sanctuary, and Wildebeest Habitat, and Zebra Enclosure, and if there’s one thing I learned early on it’s this:

When you’re the founder of a state, you get a lot of stuff named after you.

If there’s two THINGS I learned, it’s the naming thing AND that here in Rhode Island we have a lot of respect for our past.  For where we came from.  For the invisible strings that hold us to each other and to those who came before us.  And that’s why it’s important to keep spreading the word about honoring places like these, because when we do, we’re really honoring people like my Dad, who loved this state so much.

And you like everything I just said, then I encourage you to buy a commemorative plate I’m selling with that entire speech right on it.

It’s also got a handsome photo of yours truly on it, standing by a lake, looking pretty darn happy.  The lake is in Montana, but if you squint and hold the plate upside down, it might as well be the Providence River.  Remember everybody.

It’s all about perception.