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Kick-off is almost here and I confess to being a bit distracted when it comes to serious blog posting.  I’ll be watching the game (or at least the first half so I’ll be able to function tomorrow).  Feel free to post your comments about the game here.  And if you’re up till the end, please post the final score for those of us who log on first thing in the morning.

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This is a BikeCam of the Riverwalk from Fox Hall to BHP.

This video was originally posted by No Apparent Reason

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This is a great video taken before the start of the City of Lights Parade. The video begins with some nice shots of downtown store fronts decorated for Christmas and shows some of the many floats being readied for the parade. This video was originally posted on YouTube by catapult978.

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In the Boston Uncommon section of today’s Boston Globe Magazine, Charlie Pierce offers us his weekly perspective on life in the Commonwealth. In his lookat the US Senate special election primary Charlie is less than impressed with the race, the candidates and what’s put on-the-line. No one in his view is risking a thing therefore the race is unexciting - lacking the viseral dog-fight of other Democratic primaries - as the article title describes - “the race that snores.” Charlie wants exciting, entertaining, go-for-the-jugular politics. Instead he bemoans the brand being played out in the run-up to December 8th. He pooh-poohs the “the earnest… the decent… the civil… the dedicated… the respectable”  - the no-risk if you lose you go back to the office, the Congress, the games or the do-gooding.  Charlie wants “give-em hell” politicking! He really wants Marty Meehan and his $5 million dollar “war chest” with everything on-the-line - risking his comfy seat at the helm of UMass Lowell. I know Marty Meehan. He picks his spots very carefully, shrewdly and with great forethought. He’ll sit on that bank account, biding his time - doing a good job putting UML on the right track and on the map - all the while being an active partner in his Lowell community. If the right time comes then Charlie you’ll see a feisty, challenging campaign - well-funded and well-run. Stay tuned.

You can find the full article at: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2009/11/29/the_race_that_snores/

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Here’s a video slideshow of the Lowell High Band at yesterday’s Lowell City of Lights Parade.  The slide show’s audio is a loop of the band playing during the parade:

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One of the speakers during the public section of the Lowell City Council meeting last Tuesday brought up the impending 175th anniversary of the 1836 incorporation of Lowell as a city. Mark Goldman - lifelong Lowell resident and community activist - wants the city to celebrate and he has a plan. I haven’t seen it yet - he’s sending it to me in the mail.

Why would I care? Well, back in 1986 - when  Lowell celebrated the 150th of the city’s incorporation, I was the Vice-Chair of the Sesquicentennial Commission. Except for a spectacular Ball held at Ted Larter’s Wannalancit Mill on March 1, 1976 - where 800 people gathered many in period dress, the 150th anniversary of the founding of the town of Lowell was lost in the nation’s Bicentennial festivities. So ten years later with Bobby Kennedy as Mayor - the city was really ready to celebrate this significant milestone! There was both precedent and tradition for the Mayor to appoint a Commission to plan and execute a public commemoration of the event. The “Proceedings in the City of Lowell at the Semi-Centennial of the Incorporation of the Town of Lowell” stands as the official record of the who, what, where, when, why and how of the events of the March 1, 1876 celebration. A similar publication documents the same for the March 1, 1926 proceedings in celebration of the “Centennial Observance of the Incorporaton of the Town of Lowell, Massachusetts.” Both also include speeches, letters, dedications and poems along with lists of the elected officials, photos and the Commission reports.

While no official book or report documents the 1986 Sesquicentennial, there are newspaper stories, photographs, a tv video, programs and memorabilia that tell the tale. The celebration opened on April 11th with a birthday party complete with the state delegation led by Senator Sheehy, the LHS-ROTC color guard as official escorts, a 2000 ballon salute, first graders singing a song “Lowell” written for the occasion by their teacher Monique Healey, a countdown with a ball dropping from the top of the Civic Center and a giant birthday cake - baked and decorated by the Greater Lowell Voke students - all at the JFK CC and Plaza.  The Massachusetts Secretary of State Michael Connolly was our special guest. In a ceremony at JFK he presented the city a special proclamation and joined other dignitaries in speeches for the day. It should come as no surprise that a young poet - now my fellow blogger - Paul Marion offered a Lowell poem especially written for the celebration. The VFW-Walker Rogers Post 662 working with the Sesquicentennial Commission got the Annual State Loyalty Day Parade designated for Lowell that year on April 7th. It was a three-mile long parade with music, ethnic floats, community groups and contingents of veterans and military. School children distributed 12,000 flags provided by the Exchange club to spectators along the parade route. During the months of April and May many civic organizations and institutions held events - including the Highland Players, the  SPEBQSA -Barbershop Quartet group, ULowell’s Art Department, the Brush, the International Institute, the LNHP, the hospitals, the Lowell Girls Club, the city schools and the Lowell Historical Society whose annual meeting featured a film on Kerouac. The Society in partnership with the Pollard Memorial Library also mounted a wonderful clothing exhibit in Memorial Hall called “Dressed for the Ball; 1826 - 1936.”  Later in the year  - festivities culiminated with The Lowell Historical Society Sesquicentennial Ball - formal wear & costumes suggested - held on October 25th at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium. There was a Grand March, another 150th birthday cake and  a special toast from Mayor Kennedy. The music provided by The Angie Bergamini Orchestra ranged from Victorian and Edwardian, to sentimental songs and serenades, roaring twenties to the big band sounds culminating with Auld Lang Syne. A funny thing happened that night at the Ball - mini-televisions (an innovation)  were seen throughout the LMA with knots of men and some ladies gathered around. I remember particularly Atty. Victor Forsley outstanding in a group attired in vintage baseball regalia - so appropropriate - because the Red Sox were playing in the World Series that night! What competition! (Was that when that other ball was dropped?)

Let me cite a few members of that 1986 Commission: Mayor Bobby Kennedy, Mary Bacigalupo, Walter Bayliss, Bud Caulfield, Kevin Coughlin, Gus Coutu, Lew Karabatsos, Bob Malavich, Florence Marion, Jim Milinazzo, Armand Mercier, George Tsapatsaris,  Sandi Walter and Marie Sweeney. There’s more to tell from both the 1976 and 1986 celebrations - but I hope I’ve whet your appetite for yet another celebration - the City of Lowell’s 175th birthday anniversary in 2011. Stay tuned for more stories from the past and an update for the future celebration.

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If you were at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City this past week, or if you perhaps visited the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., or the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art earlier this year, you might have seen a major exhibition of the photography of Robert Frank from his classic, now-50-year-old book The Americans. In the exhibition you would have read the words from “the famous introduction to the book,” to quote Mark Feeney from a long review of the photography exhibition in today’s Boston Globe. Read the review here. In 1959, Kerouac was a hot writer in America. His pairing with Frank was a smart move.  Here’s how Feeney opens his review:

So what’s the big deal: It’s just a book, right?

Well, yes and no. Robert Frank’s “The Americans’’ certainly is a book, one that consists of 83 photographs taken during 1955 and 1956. But to say it’s “just’’ a book is like saying the same thing about “Moby-Dick.’’ Both works are central, defining documents of American culture. What the white whale was for Ahab, a red, white, and blue nation was for Frank. Ahab employed a harpoon. Frank used a camera. Unlike Ahab, he not only managed to capture his prey, he survived. Frank turned 85 on Nov. 9.

The Americans is 50 years old. Kerouac died 40 years ago. The art endures. The words live.

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The Fall 2009 issue of “National Parks: The Magazine of the National Parks Conservation Association” contains a report on the work of the parks’ Second Century Commission which spent the past twelve months “analyzing the condition and function of our national parks and chart a vision for the parks for the next century of service to the American people.”  The article was written by former US Senators Howard Baker of Tennessee and Bennett Johnston of Louisiana who were also the co-chairs of the commission.  The following paragraphs mid-way through the article were of particular interest, so I have included them in their entirety below:

The gold of a late New England autumn greeted us in Lowell.  It seemed a jarring contrast to southern California; America’s first planned industrial city, founded in 1826, had by the mid 20^th Century seen much of its textile industry leave town.  Some city visionaries saw these abandoned buildings as an opportunity, and considered historic preservation a key to city’s renewal.  The programs of the National Park Service were lever and anchor for a rebirth that is now studied worldwide.  In fact, in 1978, the two of us worked closely with Sen. Paul Tsongas to pass legislation establishing the complex relationship of city, state, local and private interests that has driven Lowell’s success.

But our Lowell experience caused vigorous debate among the commissioners.  National Geographic President John Fahey asked if urban renewal was the mission of the National Park Service.  Through discussion with community leaders, we came to see that the park was only part of the larger effort to revitalize the city.  Today the agency operates museums and visitor centers.  The Tsongas Industrial History Center is a cooperative venture with the University of Massachusetts Lowell and hosts students from all over the country.  Innovative tax credits developed in concert with the Park Service spurred private developers to convert historic mills into offices and residences, breathing new life into the city.

When we were working on the legislation, Senator Tsongas explained why he wanted the Park Service to manage these components rather than simply setting up a grant program.  He wanted a resident in his city that was committed to its success.  He was right.

After visiting places like Lowell, the commission concluded that the Park Service has a vitally important mission for its next century.

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I recently finished reading “The Good Soldiers” by David Finkel, a Washington Post editor who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2006 for his reporting from Yemen.  In this book, Finkel spends fifteen months with a US Army infantry battalion that was deployed to Iraq in January 2007 as part of “The Surge.”

The 2-16 Infantry Battalion was formed in 2006 specifically to deploy to Iraq and was made a part of the First Infantry Division.  The unit was initially intended to do convoy security duty in western Iraq but, shortly after President Bush announced “The Surge”, the 2-16’s mission changed and they ended up in one of the toughest, most dangerous areas of Bagdad.

Accompanied by the Army’s just-released counterinsurgency manual, the battalion arrived in Bagdad with high hopes that it would safeguard the citizens and thereby win their hearts and minds.  Their area of operations was so overrun with hostile militia that the mission of protecting the people, the key element in a successful counterinsurgency operation, was never able to gain any momentum.  In fact, the 700-man battalion sustained heavy casualties with 14 soldiers killed in action during the fifteen month deployment. 

Most of the deaths occurred inside armored Humvees and were caused by weapons called EFPs.  This device – an explosively formed penetrator – resembled the bottom 18 inches of a 55-gallon drum that was packed with explosives and turned on its side.  A concave (curved inward) lid made of copper completed the weapon.  When the explosives were detonated, the powerful gas jet of the explosion both propelled the copper cover outward and radically changing its shape, transforming it into a bullet-like projectile that would punch completely through the armored Humvee and destroy everything in its path including the troops inside.  Neither technology nor tactics would come to the rescue of the soldiers; they just kept going out on their missions and sustaining casualties.  Those who weren’t wounded physically were deeply wounded mentally.   

“The Good Soldiers” is an unforgettable book that will be seen as one of the great pieces of combat literature.

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Still searching this website for more Lowell photos especially those like this one by Lewis Wikes Hine. I couldn’t resist this image - if these aren’t the faces of The Acre in the early 1900’s then I’ll get a new Twitter name! Enlarge the image here: http://www.shorpy.com/node/3304

The Lineup - 1911

The photo was taken in October, 1911 “in the vicinity of Lowell and South Framingham Mass  Merrimac Mill Boys. Front row: Smallest, Robert Magee, 270 Suffolk Street; John Neary, 211 Lakeview Avenue; Michael Keefe, 32 Marion Street. Back row: Edward Foster, 40 Fulton Street; John Risheck, 391 Adams Street; Cornelius Hurley, 68 Adams Street, No. 1 mill room.”  The boys are obviously young but the faces show the wear and tear of life in the mills and on the street. Note the clothes - the knickers, the caps, the jackets, the missing buttons, the tears and the repairs. Can you identify the families these boys belong to?

In another time but in a very familiar and “timely” place in Lowell is this 1941 image. Thanks to Bill Lipchitz for the heads-up on this photo. This area is currently a hot bed of activity.

Lowell Massachusetts 1941

 ”January 1941. Middlesex Street in the textile mill center of Lowell, Massachusetts. 35mm Kodachrome transparency by Jack Delano.” Enlarge photo here: http://www.shorpy.com/node/1705

Note the signs: Moxie, Lowell Glass Company, Coca Cola, Cigars on the awning, Chet’s Lunch (a site commenter puts Chet’s at 279 Middlesex Street). The cars are memorable. Do I see an ice cream truck in the line-up? The stacks are imposing and the largest appears to have a design in the brick along with a series of rings. The green commercial build is gone now as is much else from those 1941 days. This site is part of the overall Appleton/Jackson/Hamilton area currently undergoing a transformation! What are your comments about Lowell then in 1911, later in 1941 and now as 2009 nears its end.

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