PORTSMOUTH To the east, on one side of Narragansett Bay, in Bristol, a ferry’s engines thrum. To the west, the sun races for treelines over Warwick and East Greenwich.
Nancy Howland is right in the middle of the Bay, on firm soil, behind the wheel of her Ford Ranger.
The 68-year-old is game for sharing a few observations about Prudence Island life during a pandemic year that has brought death, sickness and sweeping change to much of the world.
She is grateful: As far as she knows, she says, no one on Prudence has contracted COVID-19.
Islands have been romanticized in the battle against some of history’s worst plagues, either as dumping grounds for the incurably ill or as havens from diseases rampant on the mainland.