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Methuen author and journalist Jay Atkinson has a provocative Op-Ed in the Boston Globe today — “Where Have All the ‘Real’ Men Gone?” Considering next week is Women’s Week in Lowell, his timing should bring a few responses. Go to www.boston.com and select Today’s Paper and then Opinion.

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The once highly touted and nearly mythical Celtic Tiger - the land of my ancestry and many who came to Lowell - Ireland - is reeling from the global financial crisis. U.S. companies that flocked to Erie over the last decade or so to take advantage of the favorable tax laws and highly educated labor force are now doing the reverse – economic exodus. The latest such company – Dell – Ireland’s second largest corporate employer and largest exporter - is moving their entire Irish laptop and desktop operation to Poland. This move and others around the country have been in the works for a least a year as the flying tiger economy was in the midst of tanking. What’s best for Dell corporate is hurting nearly 2000 employees in the Limerick and west of Ireland area. Just a few days ago upwards of 120,000 people protested in Dublin over a pension levy on over 350,000 public sector workers. With familiar echoes, union workers protest:

I’ve worked all my life, I’ve never broke the law, never walked out on strike. Instead I’ve went to work and done my job.” And… “I’ve a mortgage to pay, I’ve children to put through school, and now I’m being told I have to take cutback, after cutback, after cutback.”

They blame government ineptness for the crisis. This latest event follows a worker protest and sit-in of 200 workers at the fabled Waterford Crystal factory a few weeks ago in January.The Irish Congress of Trade Unions that organized the march wants “a fairer and better way to deal with the economic crisis” – obviously not off the economic back of these workers. The Irish government stated that while recognizing that “the measures were difficult and in some cases painful” nonetheless the levy was reasonable. According a BBC report the month of January 2009 saw the numbers in Ireland claiming unemployment benefits reach 326,00 – the highest monthly level since 1967.  The upcoming St. Patrick’s Day Parade annually held on this same famed O’Connell Street - the scene of many the protest and promenade in Dublin - may turn out to be more than the traditional “wearin’ of the green” in 2009. Stay tuned.

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After writing about the Owl Diner on Appleton Street yesterday, I thought again about Appleton, that is, Nathan Appleton (1779-1861), one of the early makers of our city who doesn’t make a lot of news these days. It’s fair to say that many people in our community believe that Lowell is “exceptional,” maybe not in as elevated a way as commentators talk about America being an “exceptional” nation. This sense of America was first raised by Alexis de Tocqueville in his classic of political and sociological travel writing, Democracy in America (1835 and 1840, two volumes). He was fascinated by the new civic system and culture, standing alone as a world experiment at the time. Lowell was meant to be something new when it was established. The city holds a special place in history. For 30 years, we have enjoyed the status of being a national park.

Lowell was its own kind of experiment in the 1820’s, and Nathan Appleton had his mind and hands on that effort. Appleton ”died as one of the ten richest men in Boston” in 1861, according to Lynn Gordon Hughes, writing for the Unitarian Universalist Historical Society. But it is worth recalling that  Appleton and his relative Francis Cabot Lowell while in their early 30’s visited the experimental factory village of New Lanark in Scotland. That “utopian” venture had been organized by the idealistic entrepreneur and social reformer Robert Owen. I don’t usually equate Lowell and Utopia, the fictional perfect society imagined by Sir Thomas More in the early 1500’s (the term in Latin means “no place”).  What Appleton and Lowell saw in Scotland was a place and a plan that contrasted sharply with the poet William Blake’s “dark Satanic mills” of industrial England, a dream-in-progress of a working community with no child labor, education from early childhood to evening adult classes, a health-care fund, a savings bank for employees, and reasonable work schedules. Appleton had aspirations for a humane and profitable manufacturing industry in America. The mills on the Merrimack didn’t produce social perfection. Competition drove the economic contest to rough practices. As for human rights, Appleton became a fierce critic of the abolitionists even though he was related by marriage to the abolitionist Charles Sumner, who accused the “lords of the loom” of being in bed with the “lords of the lash.” In her biographical sketch, Lynne Gordon Hughes notes that Appleton spent 12 years as a state legislator and one term in Congress on top of his business dealings. She also credits him for his philanthropic efforts in Boston. Too bad Lowell residents didn’t get the Lowell Foundation way back instead of those Lowell mill profits funding the charities and endowments in Boston. Appleton’s daughter Fanny married the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

What if every street sign in Lowell had a virtual pull-down menu that would give passers-by a quick history lesson? Dick Howe has done something similar with veterans’ street markers and Google maps. Maybe a Lowell inventor can devise an ingenious Global Positioning System program linked to street signs that would call up the story behind the sign. That would really be taking history to the streets.

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The Guardian online in the U.K. appears to have broken this story about Kerouac’s unpublished sea novel finally going to readers. I included an excerpt from the 1943 novel, The Sea Is My Brother, in the collection of Kerouac’s early writings that I edited about ten years ago (Atop an Underwood: Early Stories and Other Writings by Jack Kerouac).  Kerouac was just turning 21 when he wrote the short novel. As soon as I read the novel I believed it was publication-worthy and would one day be available. Readers will be able to see Kerouac forecasting his famous On the Road in the characters and storyline of the sea novel. Kerouac described the story as “A man’s simple revolt from society as it is, with its inequalities, frustrations, and self-inflicted agonies. Wesley Martin [one of the two main characters] loves the sea with a strange, lonely love; the sea is his brother and sentencer. … The story is also of another man [Bill Everhart] in contrast, who escapes society for the sea, but finds the sea a place of terrible loneliness….” The Kerouac writings continue to flow, thanks to John Sampas and the family estate and literary agent Sterling Lord. See the link below for the full story.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/feb/27/jack-kerouac-lost-novel-sea/print

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The Owl Diner last night was transformed into a combination revival tent and Hollywood after-Oscar party hot spot as Sen. Panagiotakos hosted a community appreciation rally for some of the leading community organizations in Lowell. More than 200 people converged on the popular eating place on Appleton Street at the invitation of the Senator, who called for the local huddle to remind everyone of the contributions made every day by the non-profit groups and neighborhood associations. Community Teamwork Inc., Girls Inc., Alternative House, the Lowell Family Y, the Lowell Parks & Conservation Trust, the Boys & Girls Club,  the House of Hope, the Salvation Army, the Wish Project, the Transitional Living Center (Shelter), Merrimack Valley Housing Project, United Teen Equality Center, all the neighborhood organizations, and a few others got a shout-out and rousing applause as the Senator offered capsule descriptions of their services and gave thanks for their efforts. Waitresses buzzed around with plates of pancakes, scrambled eggs, and ham-steaks. Somebody said, “This is like eating backwards — having dessert first.” Other folks recalled their mothers flipping the menu and making French toast and omelettes for supper. Standing in the middle of the main eating room with the Senator were state Reps. Golden, Murphy, and Nangle, along with Mayor Caulfield and regional school-committeeman Hayden. Many members of the Lowell City Council and School Committee were in the room as were City Manager Lynch and School Supt. Scott. Congresswoman Tsongas flew in from Washington, D.C., and drove straight to the Owl from Logan so that she could express her gratitude to the community heroes and give folks a first-hand report on the atmosphere in Congress, which she said is serious and sobering, but also filled with a sense of possibility and Obama-brand hope. Sen. Panagiotakos told the assembled leaders that the state fiscal situation would have been extremely difficult had the federal recovery act legislation/stimulus money not been approved. He encouraged everyone to stick together and keep the sense of community strong during these challenging economic times. The Lowell SUN is preparing a series of articles on what it was like in Lowell during the Great Depression, which some folks say arrived earlier and left later in Lowell than anywhere else in the U.S. When we look back on the Great Recession of 2009, local historians may point to last night’s town meeting at the Owl Diner as an important gathering that recharged the spirit of the Lowell team and prepared people for difficult months ahead. 

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A prominent story in the Globe earlier this week on the attractiveness of minor league sports during tough economic times that was accompanied in the print edition by a photo of a young, happy family standing in front of LeLacheur Field on their way to a Lowell Spinners game once again reminded us of the incalculable PR benefits that franchise brings to this city.  Regular readers of this site know that I have been pessimistic about the Spinners’ future in Lowell due mainly to a “let them go; we’ll just get someone else” attitude that infects many in this community.  The recent RFP for the lease of the ballpark, the emergence and then disappearance of a second bidder, and the subsequent stalemate between the city and the Spinners over the length of the lease only reinforced my gloominess. 

The recent news that the city will issue a new RFP extending the proposed lease term to the 10 years sought by the Spinners should be cause for optimism but I’m afraid the situation remains perilous.  In replying to the first RFP, the Spinners have disclosed how much they’re willing to pay.  What if that amount does not meet the city’s expectations?  Will the city simply reissue the old RFP with the only change being the term of the lease (10 years instead of 5) or will the city add new requirements to the RFP such as minimum bid amounts or ticket surcharges or any of a host of other revenue producing mechanisms?  Or will the Spinners assume that they have the city in a corner and submit a new bid that is less than the initial one?  Will another bidder emerge?  If any of these things occur, the entire thing could blow up.

In the best case, the new RFP will be exactly the same as the first one except for the increased term and the Spinners will respond with a proposal identical to their initial offering and the deal will be wrapped up quickly.  But with the news from Left-in-Lowell that the former city manager is somehow involved in this process and with the current city manager’s appearances yesterday on WCAP and on LTC’s “City Life” cable TV program during which he exuded pessimism about the outcome of the city’s negotiations with the Spinners, I’d say that this is far from a done deal. 

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While it is often said that the city of Lowell was originally East Chelmsford, the city’s geographic parentage is a bit more complicated.  Recently I spent some time in front of a 95 year old “annexation map” that shows how Lowell came to be.  Since the map is too brittle to easily scan and put online, I decided to use words to describe how the city came to be.

March 1, 1826 – 2874 acres from Chelmsford.  This was the original town of Lowell grant by the Massachusetts General Court.  This area was bounded to the north by the Merrimack River, the east by the Concord River, the south by the city’s current boundary with East Chelmsford and North Billerica, and the east by a line 100 or so yards west of Stevens Street (near the current Foster, Oakland and Fairfield Streets in the Highlands). 

March 29, 1834 – 384 acres from Tewksbury.  This triangular shaped parcel lies to the east of the Concord River bounded by the Concord and the Merrimack and a line running from the Billerica/Lawrence Street intersection running diagonally across Belvidere to Pentucket and on to the Merrimack.  This includes all of lower Belvidere and landmarks such as Fort Hill and Nesmith Street. 

February 28, 1851 - 580 acres from Dracut.  This triangle-shaped parcel is part of Centralville, with the long part of the triangle running along the northern bank of the Merrimack from Aiken Street to the Dracut line along Route 110, then extending inland almost due north to the vicinity of Methuen Street, then extending due west back to Aiken Street and the river. 

May 18, 1874 - 2168 acres from Dracut and 1129 acres from Chelmsford.  The Dracut annexation included the rest of present-day Centralville plus all of Pawtucketville except for a small portion near the Tyngsborough line.  The Chelmsford annexation included the upper Highlands and Middlesex Village, an area bounded to the north by the Merrimack, to the east by Stevens Street and to the south and west by the Chelmsford line. 

January 5, 1874 - 210 acres from Tewksbury - This was the first of a series of post Civil War annexations from Tewksbury and included landmarks such as Shedd Park, the Lowell Cemetery and the Fairmount Street Reservoir. 

April 1, 1879 - 395 acres from Dracut.  This was the remaining portion of Pawtucketville (the outer parts of Trotting Park Road, Varnum Ave and the Pawtucket Blvd). 

May 17, 1888 – 220 acres from Tewksbury.  This parcel runs from the Billerica line in the vicinity of Boylston Street, across Belvidere along Butman and Pentucket Streets. 

April 30, 1906 – 1087 acres from Tewksbury.  This is the final geographic addition to Lowell and runs from the Concord River to the Merrimack along a line that touches, crosses or encloses the following streets: Woburn, Billerica, Phoenix Ave, Luce, Draper, Clark Road, Holbrook and Harland.

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The most direct driving route from my home in the Highlands to my job at the Superior Courthouse takes me over Hale Street/YMCA Drive and past the Lowell Y to the traffic light at Thorndike Street.  When the inevitable red light turns green, I always remain stopped for several seconds to let the two or three cars barreling down the hill from the direction of Keith Academy zoom through their red light.  This happens so often that I’ve made a study of these other drivers.  It’s not so much a case of them racing to beat the light; I don’t think they even see the light.

This morning there was a particularly egregious episode of red light running with the last driver more focused on his cell phone than the traffic signal.  But today, my brain’s “where are the police” reflex was interrupted by the whoop-whoop-whoop of a big black unmarked police car that tore off after the offender.  I assume the wrong-doer was caught and ticketed.  If the city has a deficit to close, stationing a traffic enforcement team at that intersection a few mornings each week would generate substantial revenue and could quite possibly save someone’s life.   

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Planning for the 2009 Massachusetts Poetry Festival in Lowell began officially yesterday with a meeting at City Hall hosted by the Cultural Organization of Lowell (COOL) and the Mass Poetry Outreach Project (Mass POP). More than 20 activists from the area attended, including representatives from Lowell High School, UMass Lowell, the Lowell Poetry Network, the Urban Village Arts Series,  Audio Park, the Robert Creeley Poetry Award Program in Acton, the Powow River Poets of Newburyport/Amesbury, and other organizations. A planning session with leaders from around the state will take place in March. This year’s festival is set for Friday and Saturday, October 16 and 17, and again will offer readings, workshops, performances, and panel talks, as well as the popular small press fair. Last fall, the first festival brought more than 2,000 people to the activities that showcased writers from cities and towns across the state. Contact Suzz Cromwell at COOL (scromwell@lowellma.gov or 978-446-7162) for more information or to get involved.

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Anyone interested in the NYTimes article about the future of the humanities in higher education will be doubly interested in the comments the article has generated. Here’s the link:

http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/02/25/books/25human.html

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