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By Tom Letourneau Photos by John DeWaele, Gene Durso, and Dave Pratt The First and Last Annual Rogues Island Misadventure Ramble rallye/tour has been instilled in the annals of AONE history! It still hasn’t been determined whether South Main Street was West Main Street or vice-versa, but, despite the initial mis-fusion on the meeting place’s street name and direction of travel, the participants did all arrive on time to participate in this 80-some-odd-mile, 3-1/2-hour test of men’s and women's patience and endurance. The event had been over two years in the making, allowing the route to be perfected, which was proven with test runs by John DeWaele, along with Dan and Deb Donovan. This resulted in a near-perfect run of the route with absolutely no one getting lost … that is, with the exception of our esteemed Rallyemaster his-self (that being yours truly) who, toward the end of the rallye, became somewhat disoriented and took a short detour (i.e., a wrong turn), necessitating a U-turn to get everyone back on track. [Sure wish I had thought to take a photo of that… — Ed.] Despite some predictions of thunderstorms later in the day, they did not arrive, and from the start the entourage (almost all Alfa Spiders) ran the entire route with tops down and hair blowing in the breeze! [I can’t relate to that… — Ed.] All told, there were about 13 (I forgot to count) AONE diehards, all of whom obviously possess some degree of masochistic tendency to show up and participate in this first-time-ever way of conducting a tour that was rallye but really wasn't a rallye (it was a 'Ramble'). It was also a way of providing everyone with an opportunity to travel some beautiful back roads and farm country in Hopkinton, Upton, Millville, Northbridge, Mendon, Uxbridge, Blackstone, Bellingham, Wrentham, Plainville, North Attleboro, and Cumberland, RI. Whew! A lot of those roads (with lots of curves, uphill and downhill) made for exhilarating G forces on one's body, even at slow speeds. This was especially true where, as promised, participants got to travel Cumberland's infamous Tower Hill Road … and do so in both directions! Along the way, the participants, who were provided with three pages of absolutely dumb, clever, ingenious, ludicrous, tricky, and inane questions (55 in all), had to try to find the answers. Many of these required a high level of concentration, attention, and creativity, while others just required some degree of common sense. A lot of the questions actually got answered! ;-) Depending on the degree of difficulty, different point values were assigned to each question. This created a situation in which the winner could have been the team that answered the fewest questions but answered only those questions with the highest point value.
In Third Place, just one point behind Dan & Deb, came Fred Frey and Beverley Fisher in Fred’s brand spankin’ new white Fiat Abarth! Fred had gone all the way down to Sarasota to pick it up, and then rushed back here to AONE Country to be able to participate in the Ramble. Maintaining the long-held rallye tradition of always giving recognition to those less fortunate than the top finishers, but who in fact did finish, the coveted Broken Spoke Award went to Roger & Karen Carlson. Roger said that they’d have done much better if it weren’t so difficult to keep his pipe lit with the Spider’s top down. While almost every question was answered by at least one team, the very first one was missed by all. And, while there were a lot of guesses, surprisingly no one actually saw Mr. Consigli's 'weathervane', so I am including a picture of it here. And, for those who didn't hear the answer, it was a Triumph Mayflower. All said and done, judging by the comments of all of those who ran the rallye, everyone really enjoyed the event, culminating at the Cumberland House of Pizza, our luncheon and awards finishing location, where real trophies were given out to all of the winners. This is something that I hope will become de rigueur if and when we have a Second and Last Rogues Island Misadventure Ramble if the interest is there (see below).
That's it! A big THANK YOU to all who came and participated — I
really appreciated it. Needless to say, with the time and effort it
takes for anyone to put on an event of this kind, having a good
turnout such as we had for this event is all the “thank you” needed! Ramble Participants
Wendy Stewart & Vern Brown – 1986 GTV6 – 1st Place
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(Click on the thumbnails below for a larger view, and then
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However, despite the possibility of this happening, it did not, as
Wendy Stewart & Vern Brown did a masterful job of answering both the
low-point-value questions and those that required a high level of
attentiveness, thought, and intelligence to take overall First
Place. Vern & Wendy were followed closely by the team of Dan & Deb
Donovan who, based on what was said after the event, never once even
came close to blows. Then again, this was supposed to be a 'tour' …
wasn't it? And husbands and wives never, ever, get into heated
arguments … do they? 
