Author Archive

The VA celebrates Womens History Month

The United States Veterans Administration (VA) celebrated Women’s History Month with a blog post highlighting women who led the fight for better health care for women veterans. One of those recognized was Edith Nourse Rogers, who represented Lowell in Congress for 35 years until her death in 1960. Below is…

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Lowell History by Artificial Intelligence

History has always been my favorite subject and, since I’ve lived in Lowell most of my life, I’m especially interested in the history of the city. But the history of technology also fascinates me, particularly how it changes the way people live. Because of that, I’ve closely followed recent developments…

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Reviving my interest in baseball

A few years ago an otherwise forgettable newspaper sports columnist wrote that baseball was going the way of boxing and horse racing in our culture. Both were once major attractions but faded from popular interest. The same seemed to be happening with baseball. To paraphrase a remark often used in…

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Review of “False Prophet” by Simon Warner

Simon Warner, our occasional contributor from England, wrote this review of the book, False Prophet: Field Notes from the Punk Underground by Steven Taylor (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2003) when the book was first published. The review first appeared in the journal Ethnomusicology Forum, Vol. 13, No. 2, November…

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Lowell Water Supply: Exploding Toilets

Who dropped a whole truckload of fizzies into the varsity swim meet? Who delivered the medical school cadavers to the alumni dinner? Every Halloween, the trees are filled with underwear. Every spring, the toilets explode. Dean Wormer Animal House Back in 1978 when I first saw the movie Animal House,…

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“The Paper Chase” by Tim Trask

In 1969, Tim Trask returned from the Vietnam War and took a job as a guard at Massachusetts Correctional Institute (MCI) Concord. The following is taken from his memoir about that experience. Other parts of that work, West of Walden, appeared on this site as Odysseus Wandering (on Oct. 4,…

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Mahoney Family Fund event on March 31

Mahoney Family Fund presents: Reducing Child Abuse by Rethinking Discipline Breakfast & Program Friday, March 31, 2023 Complimentary Breakfast Buffet 8:00am, Program 8:30am-10:00am Long Meadow Golf Club,165 Havilah Street, Lowell, MA 01852 RSVP Being a parent is a job that doesn’t come with a handbook. As wonderful as it can…

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A Review of “The River Is Everywhere”

In her newly released second novel, The River is Everywhere, Lowell writer-editor-author Emilie-Noelle Provost takes readers on a roller-coaster coming of age ride that is immersed in the Franco-American culture of the northeast. Ernest Benoit, the 16-year old protagonist, is shattered by the accidental drowning death of his best friend…

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