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Living Madly: Saudade

Photo courtesy of Polverini Lian

Living Madly: Saudade

By Emilie-Noelle Provost

I’ve always believed that written or spoken words, with their ability to communicate our thoughts, wishes, discoveries, joys, and sorrows — sometimes across time and space — carry with them a bit of magic. On the printed page, whispered into a waiting ear, or shouted from the rooftops, language forms the bedrock upon which society and culture are built.

I’m particularly captivated by words from other languages that cannot be easily translated into English. These often convey ideas and situations we’re all familiar with, but for some reason, when it came to creating English words to describe them, they never quite made the cut.

For example, ya’arburnee, an Arabic word, expresses the hope that you will die before someone you love because you wouldn’t be able to bear living without them. Literally, it means “may you bury me.” The Japanese have boketto, which describes the act of staring blankly into the distance. From Yiddish there is luftmensch, which refers to someone who is not successful in life or business due to his or her unrealistic ideas and goals. The French have voisinages, a word that refers to the relationships among or between neighbors. And in Brazilian Portuguese, there’s cafuné, a word that describes the motion one makes when running their fingers through a lover’s hair. (Leave it to the Brazilians to require a word just for this.)

Perhaps one of my favorite, and I think one of the most beautiful “untranslatable” words, is saudade, a Portuguese term that conveys a longing for a person, place or time you recollect fondly but know you will very likely never be able to experience again. Derived from the Latin solitate, or “solitude,” saudade acknowledges, mourns, even celebrates the discarded bits of ourselves that lie scattered across the landscape of our lives.

Saudade also implies a feeling of gratefulness, the glow we feel in our hearts when we remember how lucky we are to have had particular experiences and people in our lives. Like an empty chair at the family dinner table that reminds us of the person who once filled it, the empty spaces within us take on the silhouettes of those who left them behind.

Saudade is different than nostalgia or reminiscences, which are often about remembering with a sort of affection occurrences and relationships no longer relevant in our lives. Even if it’s rooted in the past, saudade lives in the present.

Portuguese art, literature and traditional fado music, which literally means “fate” or “destiny,” are all heavily informed by the concept of saudade. The Portuguese, along with the people living in Portugal’s former colonies, such as Cape Verde and Brazil, have built an entire culture around their unapologetic, deep and passionate feelings about just about everything, from romantic love to sports teams. They approach life with the notion that all emotions, happy or sad, are worth experiencing because collectively they are what make us human.

Since my daughter moved into her own condo, I’ve come to know saudade well. Madelaine’s absence from our house has often been difficult, as her absence is often a presence all its own. I sometimes find myself thinking about the days before she started kindergarten, when I was a stay-at-home mom. Back then, we were together all the time, sometimes 24 hours a day for weeks on end when my husband was traveling for work. We ate all our meals together. I helped her get dressed every morning. We shopped together and went for walks around the neighborhood. In the wintertime, we snuggled on the couch under a blanket while we watched her favorite show, “Arthur,” on TV. Some days I longed to get away, to have another adult to talk to. There were times when I lost my patience and did things I now regret.

I grieve the loss of the baby that Madelaine was, and the loss of myself as a young mother. But these memories also bring with them a powerful and bittersweet happiness. I’m grateful I was able to spend so much time with her when she was young, and I believe the time we spent together helped her become the intelligent, thoughtful, successful young woman she is today. The sadness my memories bring helps me better appreciate the time she and I spend together now. Because I know someday I’ll look back at these moments with longing, too.

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Emilie-Noelle Provost (she/her) – Author of The River Is Everywhere, a National Indie Excellence Award, American Fiction Award, and American Legacy Award finalist, and The Blue Bottle, a middle-grade adventure with sea monsters. Visit her at emilienoelleprovost.com.

Radios & Jukeboxes

Radios and Jukeboxes

By Leo Racicot

When I was a kid, The Golden Age of Radio was coming to its end. Still, we had two radios at home and listened regularly; our mother, aunt and grandmother had come of age during The Great Depression when radio was at its peak as pretty much the only form of entertainment and information available, other than live theater which was financially out-of-their-reach. In the kitchen, on top of the fridge, was a yellow portable number, with handle. Ma always had it playing, especially as wake-up on school mornings. Next to it — Albert the Drinking Duck (a popular toy of the day, a battery-operated plastic bird made to bob up and down into the bowl of water placed at his feet. Sometimes, the radio song that was playing was in sync with his bobbing. I got a kick out of that. In a corner of the living room, stood a large cabinet  radio. It seemed to me this was always there in the corner. I adorned the top with an Infant of Prague statuette. The window displaying the needle indicator, the pointer that  displayed the station frequency, was an eerie alien spaceship orange and I liked looking at it, fiddling with the dial, trying to find a cool song. The cabinet below opened up to a record player which my mother sometimes let me listen to if I was good. She’d put the record on for me and we’d sit there for hours listening, a mostly Sunday activity.

Whenever she took us on excursions, our Aunt Marie would put the radio on. She loved the singers of The Great American Song Book: Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin. Her favorite was Al Martino. She’d sing along and coax Diane and me to join in. Diane never would but I was too afraid not to. This was when I came to love that era of singers myself and later in Life, I was lucky to see Peggy Lee, Rosemary Clooney and Tony Bennett in person. I have three friends for whom the radio is still daily listening. One never would buy a television set and relies to this day on radio for her entertainment. I find something old-fashioned and charming about this. In Lowell, we had two radio stations: WLLH was located on the topmost floor of the old Giant Store at the corner of Dutton and Broadway. WCAP (“The Voice of the Valley”) had its offices down on Central Street. As far as I know, it’s still broadcasting. Our next-door neighbor’s nephew, Henry Achin, had a program on ‘CAP for years. The Achins were big in Lowell (real estate and law). Henry was blind and he and his seeing-eye dog were a familiar sight making their way to-and-from his job. I remember the focus of Henry’s program was Franco-American history and when I went as an undergraduate to Assumption College, Worcester, and was so nervous to be away from home for the first time, finding Henry there as a student was a comfort. I didn’t stay long at Assumption; not only did my scholarship not cover extracurricular expenses but when I was standing in the cafeteria line, the man in front of me gave a sudden shudder and dropped dead right in front of me. I thought, “What the heck kind of a place is this?!!” and hightailed it home as fast as I could. I haven’t seen Henry in ages and ages and thought I read his obituary in The Sun a few years ago but I can’t find information to confirm that on Google. WCAP is still alive and well, with offices on Central Street next to Brew’d Awakenings.

Some of my favorite radio personalities, though not local, were Jess Cain, the “morning drive guy”, Murray the K (known as “The Fifth Beatle”) and Wolfman Jack. Whenever I’m sitting in the barber’s chair, I like looking at a photo my barber has on the wall of him with Wolfman.

A form of entertainment I don’t see anymore is the jukebox. Back in time, every restaurant had either a large one or there were smaller ones found in each dining booth, affixed to the wall right next to the customer. A metal lever allowed the customer to browse through “pages” of song selections to see which ones he/she would like to play. The cost was a dime for one song or a quarter for three “plays”. These jukeboxes were my favorite and our mother always let Diane and me pick a selection or two. The fun of it was waiting for the songs you picked to play when it was their turn in the queue. One special jukebox memory — before George’s Pizza on the corner of Broadway and School Streets closed up shop and moved further down on Broadway, across from Anton’s Cleaners, that location housed “Pete’s, a breakfast diner-type place. One morning, Diane and I were there for breakfast with our mother. I remember the place was redolent with the aroma of French Toast and Petula Clark’s big hit Downtown was blasting on the jukebox. The whole restaurant was vibrating with the sound of Clark’s song. A beatnik couple got up and did a swing dance right in the middle of the floor. To this day, whenever I smell French toast, it gets me singing Downtown and thinking of “Pete’s”.

My friend, Elena, told me yesterday some places (clubs/bars) do still have jukeboxes but that now they’re digital, the way casino slot machines are digital and — “That’s taken all the fun out of them”. She sighed.

Albert the Drinking Duck

Assumption College

Beatnik Couple Dancing

Large restaurant jukebox

Living room radio console with Infant of Prague statue

Marray the K – the Fifth Beatle

Small customer booth jukebox

WCAP logo

WLLH logo

Lowell People, Part II

Lowell People, Part 2 – (PIP # 83)

By Louise Peloquin

     More Lowell people – boxers, museum directors, firefighters and a physician speaker.

L’Étoile – September 10, 1924

HEBERT IS READY

FOR HIS MATCH

WITH WILLIE WOODS

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Manager “Punch” Mailloux declares that his protégé will at least obtain the decision over his opponent. – The two boxers have excellent records.

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      Wee Willie Woods, who is meeting Frankie Hébert at the Moody Club Thursday night, will do everything possible to achieve victory because his ambition is to soon meet flyweight champion Pancho Villa. Woods met Villa a few months ago but since he was not in perfect physical condition, he suffered a defeat. If Hébert wins tomorrow night, he will have, more than anyone else, the right to challenge Villa.

     Woods has an excellent record. In 62 fights, he was victorious 58 times and he lost 4 matches by decision. 48 of the 58 victories to his credit were by knockout.

     One of his latest victories was against Ellky Clarke, official flyweight champion of England. Woods won his title of Scottish champion in four rounds by knocking Jim Blackley out. Woods was also in an interesting no-decision, ten-round fight with Johnny Buff, former American flyweight champion.

     Hébert also has an excellent record. Under the skilful direction of his manager “Punch” Mailloux, he met many strong opponents and came out victoriously in most of his matches. Mailloux has confidence in his protégé and asserts that he will take the decision over Woods.

     One of the main attractions of tomorrow night’s meeting will be the radio transmission of the big Firpo-Wills fight. The radio will be installed for the occasion by Lowell’s John J. Hogan.

     Two Lowell boxers will also make their professional debut: Tommy Leonard and Gus Anderson. Leonard will meet Irish Dan Mahoney of Cambridge in the semi-final and Anderson will meet Jack Dempsey of Lawrence. The other match will be between Tommy Clayton of South Boston and Sailor Manly of Salem.

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L’Étoile – February 16, 1925

FORMER LOWELLIAN

WHO WILL DIRECT

THE BOSTON MUSEUM

_____

Frederick Allen Whiting would become director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

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     It is probable that former Lowellian Frederick Allen Whiting will succeed Arthur Fairbanks as director of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He is presently director of the Cleveland Art Museum. Mr. Whiting arrived in Boston at the beginning of the week but did not want to say that he was there  to confer with Boston Museum representatives.

     For years, Mr. Whiting was secretary-treasurer of the Boston Society of Fine Arts and Trades, the most reputable society of its kind in the Anglo-Saxon world. He directed the 1904 Saint-Louis exposition of applied arts. Several years ago, he was named director of the John Herron Institute in Indianapolis. Mr. Whiting excelled at the Cleveland Museum where he spent seven years, turning its two large buildings into a single institution.

     Mr. Whiting is already president of the American Association of Museum Directors. He is well-known in Lowell among those interested in museums. We remember him well here.

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TWO PROMOTIONS IN THE FIREFIGHTER BRIGADE

     Saturday, on the eve of his departure for Rome, Chief Edward F. Saunders of the firefighters brigade announced the promotion of two members of his department.

     Lieutenant John J. Wholey, was named captain and is transferred from Laurence Street Fire Station Engine 6 to Branch Street Station Engine 2.

     Firefighter R.W. Broadbent is promoted lieutenant and is transferred from Mammoth Road Fire Station Engine 10 to Branch Street Engine 2.

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L’Étoile – March 2, 1925

DOCTOR EMERSON’S CONFERENCE

_____

In a Parker series conference, he describes the work accomplished in the clinics of this country and elsewhere. – The effects of malnutrition.

_____

    Although last night’s Parker series conference did not fill Memorial Auditorium, the audience was quite numerous. The speaker was Dr. Williams P. Emerson who represented the Nutrition Clinics. He spoke about the causes of the curse of badly-nourished children and illustrated his presentation with screen projections. The projections represented the results obtained in the nutrition clinics not only in America but also in Labrador and the Hawaiian Islands.

     Before showing the projections, Dr. Emerson brought a group of young boys on stage. All were underweight for their height. These boys, he said, can all reach a normal weight if given the opportunity. They are in the condition of “a person who needs a friend.”

     When the lights were out, images of children growing normally were contrasted with those who were not. There are five causes for these abnormal conditions, namely – physical failings like inflamed tonsils or adenoids, lack of control at home, overwork, bad eating habits, and bad hygiene. Sometimes growth is impaired because of eating only bouillon with insufficient calories. Sometimes it is caused by eating too many sweets. And sometimes it is due to sleeping with the windows closed.

     To depart from the bleakness of the previous images, closing projections showed many marvelous Hawaiian Island scenes.

     The last projection was that of President Roosevelt who began his life as an insufficiently nourished child who grew in strength to develop a magnificent physique. (1)

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1) Translations by Louise Peloquin.

Lowell Politics: October 12, 2025

In last week’s newsletter, I wrote about the evolution of the news and information ecology in Lowell through my lifetime. My immersion in that system got an early start when my father, Richard P. Howe Sr., was elected to the Lowell City Council in 1965 when I was seven years old. My dad, who went on to serve 40 consecutive years on the council, was just 32 years old when he was first elected. Consequently, many of his colleagues on the council and in local politics were older and had served when Lowell had the Plan B strong mayor form of government that also involved a hybrid city council of at large and district councilors and then the 1945 transition to Plan E and the at large city council that remained until 2021.

Later in my dad’s electoral career when changing demographics and voting patterns meant that residents of the Belvidere neighborhood dominated the nine-member city council, I asked him about the potential benefits of a district councilor system. He acknowledged that a district councilor system could weaken the strangle-hold that one neighborhood had on city government, but he cautioned that the reason the city got rid of its district council system long ago was that councilors became intensely focused on their own districts and lost sight of what was best for the entire city. The resulting council parochialism remained the mindset of councilors after the at large system was adopted and likely delayed the embrace of strategies that helped the city exit the Great Depression, an escape that didn’t occur until the late 1970s.

When I’ve watched city council meetings since the adoption of the current hybrid system of representation in 2021, I see what my dad was talking about. The bulk of each meeting is spent on discrete issues such as the need for this street to be paved or that crosswalk to be repainted. Rarely do councilors venture into broader discussions on the complexities of city government. This council-as-neighborhood-group approach to governance works well for the miniscule segment of the city’s residents who engage directly with councilors but only coincidentally addresses the needs of everyone else.

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Fortunately, the city manager and the planning department understand the need for a comprehensive strategy for the city. That was evident Tuesday night in a discussion of the future of the former UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center.

To review, this Warren Street building was constructed in the 1980s as a 251-room luxury hotel but it immediately struggled when Wang, a global technology company headquartered in Lowell which had promised to provide 60 percent occupancy of the hotel as housing for its visiting employees and clients, fell upon hard times and soon entered bankruptcy. The hotel never recovered from that loss of business and struggled for decades until the building was purchased by the University of Massachusetts Building Authority on behalf of UMass Lowell for use as a dormitory and conference center called the UMass Lowell Inn & Conference Center (ICC).

Viewed externally, the university’s use of the building went well. There was plenty of activity with students coming and going to other campuses for class, and a steady stream of university and community events kept people visiting the facility. Given the rich history in the immediate vicinity of the ICC and the proximity of Middlesex Community College and the Lowell Memorial Auditorium, I observed that the “center of gravity” of downtown Lowell had shifted from Merrimack Street to the ICC.

The ICC turned out to be unsustainable for UMass Lowell, which walked away from the facility several years ago. The Commonwealth took over the building and used it as a shelter for refugees. That use changed within the past year when the state made the building a “rapid transition shelter” which houses displaced families until they find secure housing, usually a month-long process.

Around Labor Day of this year, I was in the vicinity of the ICC on foot several times. I found it depressing. The place looked abandoned, rundown and neglected. Whenever this building has come up at city council meetings, the city manager has been mostly positive about the state’s recent use and occupancy of the building, but everyone in city government understands that the current use should not continue indefinitely.

On Tuesday night, the ICC came up in a response to several past council motions about the building. The memo was brief, but remarks by City Manager Tom Golden provided a richer vision for that part of the city. He said that on October 23, 2025, he will attend a meeting with state officials about the future of the building. He did say that Governor Maura Healey has asked that its current use be extended to December 2026. While Golden hopes that it will end sooner, he seems confident that after that, the building will be available for redevelopment with significant input from the city.

But the encouraging thing about Golden’s comments was how they treated the area comprehensively. For instance, he said the city’s planning department has had ongoing talks with DCAMM (the state agency in charge of state-owned buildings) about the adjacent Lowell District Court site. He then said that he sees the ICC as two development projects: the first being the hotel itself (“ICC-1”) with the second being the surface parking lot adjacent to the hotel (“ICC-2”). Treating that parcel not as a surface parking lot but vacant land ready for construction is an innovative and encouraging approach. After all, the parcel is not needed for parking since there is a city-owned parking lot right alongside it. That’s another ingredient in Golden’s vision. That garage, the Lower Locks Parking Facility, is the “most underutilized in the city” according to Golden. Bringing more customers to the garage will increase the revenue flowing into the city’s parking enterprise fund and reduce the need to subsidize that fund from the city’s general revenue.

Between the District Court, ICC-1, and ICC-2, the city could see 300 new units of housing constructed in that area with everyone parking in the Lower Locks Garage. Golden said that some of this development could be supported by financing from the Urban Economy Forum which the city now has access to thanks to its recent Front Runner City designation. DPD Director Yovanni Baez-Rose added that the Urban Economy Forum “is making a huge difference whenever we talk about development.”

While this is all very encouraging, this vision is not without challenges. The biggest may be how to convert a 251-room hotel to some other use. A typical 350 square foot hotel room with its own bathroom might work as a studio apartment but it would be too small for couples or families. Adjacent rooms could be combined but that would involve demolishing non-load bearing walls, reconfiguring entrances, and repurposing second bathrooms. The lack of kitchens poses a bigger challenge. A kitchen needs new plumbing lines for sinks and dishwashers, higher powered electrical systems to run stoves and microwaves, and ventilation to exhaust cooking fumes to the outside. That kind of work would be hugely expensive and, since the result would likely not fall in the “luxury apartment” range charging pricey rents, the work would require government subsidies to be financially feasible.

Still, the ICC site, if not the building itself, is critical to the economic and social viability of downtown Lowell, so it’s essential that city government stay focused on it in the months to come.

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The Markley Group LLC appeared before the council two weeks ago with a request to increase the amount of diesel fuel it’s allowed to store on site by an existing license granted by the city. My September 28, 2025, newsletter provided a full account of that meeting and background about Markley, but to briefly review, such a request would normally be assigned a date for a public hearing without any comment. However, in the face of considerable opposition to Markley by neighbors, the council held a lengthy discussion and sent the request to a subcommittee for further discussion. That subcommittee meeting was held, and the matter was back on the agenda Tuesday to schedule the public hearing.

Attorney Bill Martin, representing Markley, asked the council to delay the date of the public hearing to permit Markley to complete some of the physical improvements it had promised to perform. But by a 9 to 2 vote (with Mayor Dan Rourke and Councilor Sokhary Chau voting to delay), the council majority rejected Martin’s request and scheduled the public hearing for the earliest possible date, Tuesday, October 21, 2025.

In urging a later public hearing, Mayor Rourke pointed out that Markley can simply withdraw its request with no prejudice and then resubmit it in the future, so that matter may not go forward on October 21st. However, given the sentiments expressed by most of the city councilors on Tuesday and two weeks earlier, if the Markley proposal does go forward on the 21st, my guess is that a majority of councilors will oppose it.

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On Tuesday, councilors also received reports on the city’s “maintenance of effort” agreement with the school department; an update on the 311 system; and a review of the Frontrunner City Initiative, including a city delegation’s recent visit to Geneva. All are deserving of discussion, but I’ll put that off to another day.