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Billie Holiday in Lowell
Billie Holiday in Lowell
By Leo Racicot
I never “got” Billie Holiday’s voice; it sounded to me like nails on a chalkboard or a cat in heat. Whenever friends ooh-ed and ah-ed over her, I’d close my ears. After seeing Lady Sings the Blues, my friend, Joe couldn’t stop singing What a Little Moonlight Can Do for weeks and was ga-ga over the fact that Arthur Howe owned an autographed photo of Billie. had met her and kissed her hand backstage after a concert. When the photo disappeared in the aftermath of Arthur’s death, I thought surely his circle of friends was ready to put the F.B.I. on the case. Recently, I learned the last performances Billie gave before she died were right here in Lowell, Massachusetts at The Flamingo Lounge which led to my renewed interest in Billie. I also learned from relatives that my mother and her gal pals had seen Holiday at The Commodore Ballroom on Thorndike Street, billed as an “added attraction” with Artie Shaw and his Orchestra there in April 1938. Even more of an eyepopper was finding out that my parents saw her at one of those last Flamingo performances (May, ’59) along with two other couples, Lillian and Leo Bourassa & Tessie and Louie Proulx. Amazing. None of them are left for me to talk with about these performances. By all accounts, stand-up comic, Norm Crosby aced his set but Billie’s singing was “erratic”. She wasn’t at her best, sick, depleted from years and years of self-abuse. abuse from others. Mary Sampas who, for years wrote a column for The Lowell Sun under the pen name, Pertinax, published what is a-near elegy to Holiday following the Flamingo appearances. Sadly, no photos of these appearances exist. Below is one from a gig at Boston’s Storyville Club a month before in April. She passed away on July 17th, 1959, at the age of 44.
All this delving into Holiday led me to give another listen to her music. A quote I’d come across from jazz great, Miles Davis, woke me up to Billie’s nonesuch artistry. Davis, in response to criticism of the horns section at one of her concerts said, “Billie doesn’t need any horns. Billie’s voice is the horn.” And then I “got” her. I got the voice. Excuse me while I go spend this sultry summer day listening to her sultry summer horn. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.
Billie Holiday. Photo by Oren Levine
The Pride and Fall in Lowell
The Pride and Fall in Lowell
A Homeboy Essay by Ed DeJesus
My wife and I have traveled to dozens of states, countries, and tropical islands for business and holidays. When people hear us speak, they ask us where we are from.
In the Caribbean, Europe, or Sydney, Australia, where our oldest daughter has lived since 2006, we say, “We’re from Boston.”
Traveling around Florida, where we retired, if we’re at a bar watching sports, and I order “Draft beah,” and Janet orders an Espresso martini, then says, “Watah first,” some guy sitting near us will ask, “Where y’all from?”
To inform him that we are not snowbirds, Janet will say, “We’re from Fort Myers, lived here since twenty-fifteen.”
I’ll add, “But originally from Bah stun. Don’t hold that against us. Ha-ha.” Meaning since 2001, our teams have won thirteen championships. And thirty-one total since I was born in 1950, courtesy of the Celtics and Bruins.
We lived fulfilling lives in Massachusetts but don’t miss the cold or snow. We celebrate our white Christmas on our sugar-white sandy beaches. Please don’t hold that against us.
We bought our first home in Maynard, MA, where I was working as a computer board designer for Digital. We also opened a record store in town. During the blizzard of ’78, Digital and the downtown stores were closed for three days. Drifts buried our slab ranch and completely covered our windows. It wasn’t very comforting.
When we weren’t shoveling or listening to albums by the fireplace, I designed a fifty-foot raised ranch so we’d never feel buried in snow again. We built it in Westford, Mass, in ’79.
We’re looking forward to a mid-October trip to Lowell and New Hampshire. We always miss family, friends, foliage, and the fresh autumn air.
In ’83, when mortgage interest rates were 13%, we paid cash for a wooded house lot at the end of a dirt road on Autumn Lane in Chelmsford. I custom-designed a ten-room colonial with four-zone heat and passive solar. I cleared the land, leaving birch, oak, and maple trees whose leaves glistened every fall around the home where we raised our kids for twenty-three years.
We now live in a high-rise condo overlooking Fort Myers’ downtown river district. It’s a ten-minute walk to an array of shops, restaurants, and bars. We’re still drying out from Helene, our third category-four hurricane. Some of us are from the rain and storm surge, others from booze to cope. My wife said it was exhausting. A neighbor said, “We all have a certain amount of PTSD.”
A hundred and fifty Floridians died from Ian, the previous storm; Helene’s death toll is on pace to double that in states north of us. Living in paradise or anywhere is no longer safe with nationwide floods, tornadoes, wildfires, heat waves, and blackouts. I owned a solar business before I retired, so don’t get me started on climate change; it kills. As of this writing, we are bracing for another category-four hurricane to arrive in two days.
When I’m on a beach or poolside wearing a Red Sox, Patriots, or Celtics cap, and a New Englander asks, “Where do you come from?”
I say, “Lowell, Mass, twenty-five miles northwest of Bah stun.”
Our first apartment was in Lowell, our primary residences were in the burbs, and we owned several income properties in Lowell, where I was born and raised. So, yeah, I’m from Lowell.
Spoiler alert for New Englanders and beyond.
Lowell is a Milltown rich in industrial history with entrepreneurs, politicians, movie stars, famous writers, and prize fighters. The city has been an inspirational incubator for successful, determined doers and restless, creative dreamers.
What follows is not an insider’s view of the city’s history and its movers and shakers, which is already elegantly described by local historians, but rather my observations of Lowell’s contemporary newsmakers that I’ve admired in my lifetime. Hence, I proudly drop more names here than sesame seeds on a bun. So, please roll with it.
Sometimes, I get to ask people where they are from. This past spring, I was taking my mid-day walk through downtown Fort Myers. Locals and snowbirds were enjoying balmy weather and al fresco dining on the palm tree-shaded sidewalks.
I spotted a silver-haired man in a UMass Amherst T-shirt walking with a lovely brunette and their handsome teenage son. I figured they were here on school break to catch a Red Sox spring training game at Jet Blue Park, a replica of Fenway.
I ask the barrel-chested guy about my height, “Are you from Massachusetts?”
He nods, and his petite wife says, “Yes, Tyngsboro. Where are you from?”
I had our last home built in a plus fifty-five community in Tyngsboro, and I chose a lot on Thoreau Lane, inspiration to write novels again in my semi-retirement. I started another business and never wrote a paragraph.
I explain, “I lived in Tyngsboro before retiring here. I was born in Lowell.”
“So were we,” the guy says.
“I’m Ed De Geezus,” I say, extending my hand.
“Paul Meehan,” he says, shaking mine. His wife says, “I’m Karen. This is our son, Brendan.”
I ask, “Are you related to Marty?”
“I’m his youngest brother of seven kids,” he said with a broad, Irish Catholic grin.
Marty Meehan became Chancellor of UMass Lowell (UML) the year after our youngest daughter graduated. In 2016, he was appointed President of the University of Massachusetts System.
I say, “Marty’s done a lot for the city, adding ten UMass buildings.”
“It’s all about raising money,” Paul says proudly.
I’d previously voted for Marty as US Rep even after he broke his term limits campaign promise. He raised millions each term. He made up for it by donating his hefty campaign coffers to a Lowell University scholarship. The last time I spotted Marty, he was raising martinis at the bar in Fortunato’s Italian Steak House on Palmer Street, now TreMonte Pizza.
“Indeed,” I say to Paul, then ask, “Are you in town to catch a Sox game?”
He shakes his head no. Karen frowns and says, “We usually go to Fort Meyers Beach and Sanibel Island, but everything is gone.”
Two years ago, Hurricane Ian’s eighteen-foot surge washed all the Fort Myers beach and many of Sanibel Island’s homes and businesses out into the Gulf of Mexico. They estimate it will take five years to rebuild. If you’re from Mass or New Hampshire, picture every home, cottage, and business, from Hampton Beach to Plum Island, Salsbury, and Seabrook in between, leveled to just sticks, mud, and sand.
I nod and say, “All these stores and restaurants got hit with three feet of watah, mud, and sewage from the storm surge. The streets all looked like dirty canals. Many businesses never returned.”
They look around and see some boarded-up stores. I add, “I just finished a novel with many scenes in Fort Myers’s restaurants and nightclubs. Along with many scenes in Lowell, where the missing Irish red-haired girl and the male protagonist were born.” [1]
“Cool, I’ll read it. What’s the title?” Karen asks.
“The Vulnerable,” I say, “But I just sent it to publishers. Those things take time.”
Too much time, I say to myself. I probably should have self-published the Eco-thriller, but I’m a proud traditionalist and glutton for punishment.
Karen asks, “Can you recommend a place to eat?”
I look at their son and say, “Ford’s Garage has juicy burgahs. For pizza, go to Capone’s with its gangstah theme.”
Karen wrinkles her nose, and I suggest, “Izzy’s Fish and Oyster has New England Clam Chowdah, and Cod Fish n Chips.”
“Seafood it is,” she says, and I shake Paul Meehan’s hand again before we depart.
I took engineering courses at Lowell Tech, now UML’s North Campus, and transferred the credits to my BU Computer Science program. Years later, I took creative writing courses at UML’s South Campus. I’ve read that UML is now Lowell’s second larges employer.
It occurs to me that with UML’s growth combined with Middlesex Community College, Lowell has evolved into its fourth identity as a vibrant college town.
First, it was known for pioneering America’s textile industry in the 1800s. It was built on the backs of English, French-Canadian, German, Greek, Irish, Italian, Polish, and Portuguese immigrants. My Portuguese grandparents, who immigrated in 1890, and my parents all toiled in Lowell’s mills.
Jewish immigrants arrived after WWII, and Cambodians after the Vietnam War in the melting pot city. Each ethnic group had its own neighborhoods and improved the lives of its subsequent generations. Their offspring often married into other ethnic families. Love has no borders.
Eventually, Lowell fell on hard times with shuttered mills, record-high unemployment, and crack houses. It then became a revitalized urban renewal city and tourist destination with a National Historical Park Service and textile museums honoring its Mill Girls and immigrants. Lowell has a US-minted silver quarter with an engrained image of a Mill Girl working a loom press. There are over 328 million Lowell quarters in circulation.
Lowell’s planned city was built along the Merrimack River to harness the hydropower to run the cotton looms. Nearly six miles of canals were hand-dug by immigrants to connect to the Concord and Charles Rivers to transport its manufactured goods to Boston Harbor. Envisioned by entrepreneurs and designed by civil engineers two hundred years ago, historians often depict it as our nation’s first Silicon Valley.
If you’ve been to the Fours Sister’s Owl Diner on Appleton Street in Lowell, you’ve probably had one of their great omelets named after the city’s street names dedicated to its founders and businessmen. To learn how Lowell’s fascinating industrial history came about and the famous people who made it all happen, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Legendary Locals of Lowell by Richard Howe Jr, Lowell’s active local historian and tireless tour guide.
Contributors to his blog, Richardhowe.com, know that he has been capturing the political pulse in Lowell for decades. In recent years, he has built a platform for the region’s most distinguished wordsmiths in ‘Voices of Lowell and Beyond,’ a significant source for the periodical The Lowell Review, a terrific New England collection of poetry, photography, and prose.
One of the most influential people who championed Lowell’s transition to a revitalized model city was also the most appreciated and courageous politician, US Senator Paul Tsongas. He ran for President and won ten primary contests before losing to the comeback kid, Bill Clinton.
Twenty years before that, Paul was a city councilor advocating for Lowell’s transition and my first attorney. His father, the proprietor of Tsongas Cleaners, owned a stately multi-unit home at 62 Highland Street across from the South Common, where I played in Saint Peter’s Little League.
Paul and his new bride, Niki Tsongas—who subsequently became a US Rep and US Senator—lived on the first floor, where he had a rear office. My sister, Kathy, and her first husband were upstairs tenants. In 1971, I had a dispute with an auto-repair garage; attorney Paul Tsongas, representing me pro bono, wrote a letter to the business owner.
To appreciate Paul Tsongas and the efforts and motivations of other Lowellians who contributed to Lowell’s revitalization, I highly recommend picking up a copy of Mill Power: The Origin and Impact of Lowell National Historical Park by Paul Marion.
Paul Marion, a Mill City mover and shaker in his own right, is a prolific poet, writer, editor, and owner of the Loom Press, which publishes books by writers, poets, artists, and photographers from and about New England.
Excellent Loom Press titles by Lowell authors with prose that brings out the city’s character and characters include award winner Stephen O’Connor, Northwest of Boston, Smoke Stack Lightening; both will make you chuckle and swear you know those people; and respected local community organizer Charlie Gargiulo, Legends of Little Canada. I’m sure Paul Marion will suggest many more, but I have not read them yet.
Lowell has constructed monuments and parks dedicated to its beloved Beat Generation author, Jack Kerouac. He draws many tourists and academics to the city, which honors him every October at Lowell’s Pollard Memorial Library with a Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Book Talk. UMass Lowell has a Jack Kerouac Writers in Residence program.
Kerouac’s most famous novel, On The Road, influenced megastars Bob Dylan, the Doors, Willie Nelson, Patti Smith, and Bruce Springsteen. In 1975, Dylan and poet Allen Ginsberg, the Ambassador for Peace and Equality, visited Kerouac’s gravesite in Lowell’s Edson cemetery, dramatically increasing awareness nationwide of Jack’s impact and influence on artists, writers, and educators.
Andre Dubus III, is a UMass Lowell professor with six best-selling books. His novel House Of Sand And Fog made the big screen starring Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley. After his novel made Oprah’s book list, he lured her to Lowell, where she packed the Tsongas Arena and delighted everyone. He was the UMass Lowell Jack Kerouac Writers in Residence in 2001.
David Daniel was UMass Lowell’s 2004 Jack Kerouac Writers in Residence. His first-in-a-series PI novel set in Lowell was the St Martin’s Press Private Eyes of America Best First Private Eye Winner and a Shamus Award Nominee. He has written a dozen books, over 200 short stories, and three hundred articles and reviews of books and music. The former UMass Lowell Professor and writer instructor is on the board of trustees for the Lowell Middlesex Charter Academy. His latest book, Beach Town (Loom Press), is also available on Amazon.
New England area authors fortunate enough to have a book blurb by Mr. Daniel will feel like it’s an Oprah Winfrey recommendation. Anyone who gets even an ‘Atta Boy’ from him on a short piece can close their laptop because no matter what’s on your resume, you can rest knowing your obituary says he/she enjoyed writing.
Thirty years ago, I was fortunate to have Dave critique my first apprentice novel. I wisely took his advice to set it aside and worked harder at my career in technology. Lowell has an abundance of published authors; he’s a lock to make the Spindle City Writers’ Hall of Fame. No other author inspires me more than David Daniel.
Lowell-born author Elinor Lipman, LHS class of ’68, has a dozen NY Times best-sellers. It’s no wonder Lipman retired in a Manhattan Highrise and drew crowds to the book signings of her romantic comedies typically set in the Big Apple. Her novel Then She Found Me was made into a movie starring Helen Hunt, Bette Midler, Colin Firth, and Mathew Broderick.
Speaking of Hollywood, big screen and TV stars from Lowell include Michael Ansara (Cochise) and was Barbara Eden’s first husband; Michael Chiklis (The Sheild); Academy Awards winners Betty Davis and Olympia Dukakis (Moonstruck); Mark Goddard (Lost in Space); Scott Grimes (ER, Party of Five); Ed McMahan (“Here’s Johnny”); Jack Neary (The Town); Maryanne Plunkett (Little Woman); and tough-guy Robert Tessier (Born Losers and The Longest Yard), who epitomized the gritty people in the Spindle City.
Lowell’s boxing legend, Micky Ward, the IBU Light Welterweight Champion, exemplifies the grit and determination of Lowellians. Ward’s battle with Arturo Gatti—in the bloodiest match ever—won Ring Magazine’s Fight of the Year award.
Mickey Ward’s boxing career and his family’s struggles were depicted in The Fighter, filmed in Lowell. Mark Wahlberg, who produced it, portrayed Mickey Ward. Amy Adams played his wife. Mickey’s stepbrother Dickie Eklund—an excellent boxer in his own right and known as the “Pride of Lowell” for going ten rounds with Sugar Ray Robinson—was portrayed by Christian Bale, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.
Ward’s trainer and Lowell Police Sergeant, Mickey O’Keefe (may he rest in peace), played himself in the movie. He was a Silver Mittens and Gold Glove champion with a heart of gold. I graduated from Lowell High in 1967 with Micky Okeefe and his lovely, dedicated, hard-working wife, Donna Perrault O’Keefe, who still lights up the Owl Diner.
Everyone bumps into Micky Ward around Lowell. In 2011, I ran into him in Aruba. We were waiting for a bus outside of our Marriott Timeshare resort, and I saw this guy jogging along the main road in the scorching ninety-degree heat, sweating his butt off. As he got closer, I realized it was the Pride of Lowell, Irish Mickey Ward. We chatted and took pictures, and then he said he had to go; his wife was waiting for him in their resort another five miles away.
We fist-bumped, and I said, “Say hi to Amy,”
He chuckled and said, “I wish.” Then he jogged off into the heat.
While not a politician, Richard K. Donahue was arguably Lowell’s most prominent and influential attorney in the twentieth century. He ran John F. Kennedy’s campaign office and worked at the White House as his assistant and liaison to Congress. He later ran Senator Ted Kennedy’s campaigns. He also served on the board of directors for Nike and was appointed as their President and COO. Just Do It.
Richard’s brother, Daniel J. Donahue, was also an attorney and venture capitalist. He and his partners acquired the Atlanta Braves Baseball team. He served as President for three years, most notably in 1974, when Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record. Donahue sold the Atlanta Braves two years later to billionaire Tycoon Ted Turner.
Regarding baseball, Red Sox fans were fortunate to have Chaz Scoggins, a Sox beat writer for the Lowell Sun and the team’s Official Scorer. I enjoyed reading his take on each game for over four decades, which matched the box scores without ranting or second-guessing the managers.
Chaz’s scoring decisions on whether a player got a hit or reached a base on an error were crucial. They could affect the outcome of batting titles or a pitcher’s earned run averages (ERA), ultimately determining a player’s awards, salaries, and Hall of Fame records.
He is a respected sports journalist with several books published. Most notably, he co-authored with Sox third baseman Rico Petrocelli Tales from the 1967 Red Sox Dugout: A Collection of the Greatest Stories Ever Told from the Impossible Dream Season (Tales from the Team)
Lowell-born and former Lowell Sun TV reporter Jaqueline Cayer Nelson McDonald is the author of The Paper Route, a tale of a young girl’s adventures in the Lowell neighborhood where Jack Kerouac grew up. McDonald’s sequel Humming Bridge has Kerouac as a minor character.
My Lowell High School football team was fortunate to have Ray Riddick as our coach. He played end for the Green Bay Packers, coached by Vince Lombardi. It was no surprise that Riddick led Lowell to ten undefeated seasons! Our home games were at Lowell’s Cawley Stadium, where the Lowell Giants, a semi-pro team affiliated with the Boston Patriots, played.
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Last Saturday, I was working out in our condo’s gym when I saw a middle-aged guy wearing a Patriots T-shirt with a beer gut and sweating hard. I got excited, thinking I had a New England neighbor, and I asked him, “Did you just move in?”
“No. Just visiting my dad. He had open-heart surgery.”
I ask, “How do you think the Pat’s will do against the Forty-niners?”
He lowers the dumbbells with less weight than I’m pumping on a curling bar and says, “They’ll get crushed. But I don’t care; I’m a diehard fan.”
I say, “The Pat’s game is not televised. We only get to see them when they play Miami.”
“You’re shittin’ me,” he says. “Where can I see the game?”
I tell the guy who looks like a tailgater and is not fond of salads, “The Lodge is a great sports bar. It’s a ten-minute walk downtown.” Then I ask, “Where are you from?”
He lifts a dumbbell, grunts, and says, “Hopkinton. Where the Bawstin Marathon starts.”
“Nice,” I say, then add, “I remember when the Pats couldn’t sell out Sullivan Stadium, the NFL blocked TV coverage for a fifty-mile radius of Boston. I lived in Chelmsford, drove my family to our Lake Winnipesaukee condo, and watched the games on a small TV with rabbit ears. Promised my kids I’ll take them for a boat ride later. Ha-ha.”
He asked, “How long have you been a Pats fan?”
“Since the Boston Patriots inception in 1960 when Billy Sullivan bought an AFL charter franchise for $25,000 and negotiated the league’s TV contract with NBC.”
Then, proudly explain, “I’m from Lowell, where Billy was born. Sullivan negotiated with the Mara Family, which owned the New York Giants and created the NFL — AFL merger in 1970.”
He smirked and said, “Sullivan sold the Pats to Victor Kiam when his son, Chuck, bankrupted the team backing the Jackson Five’s tour.”
I want to say, “Don’t dis my Lowell homeboy.”
I say, “Billy sold it for eighty-three million after the NFL denied him from selling half the team ownership to the public. He sued the NFL and later got another eleven mil. We could have been shareholders like the Green Bay Packers fans.”
The guy raises his eyebrows, and I add, “In 1948, Billy—the then PR director for Boston College, Notre Dame, and the Boston Braves baseball team—established the Dana Faber Jimmy Fund for Children’s Cancer research with the Braves. Most people think it was started by Ted Williams and Tom Yawkey, who took over when the Braves moved to Milwaukee.”
He shakes his head and Googles on his phone. He looks at me and says, “How old are you?”
I finish curling my last rep and say, “Seventy-four.”
“Wow! Six years older than my dad. You’re in great shape,” he says with a concerned expression and heads for the door.
“Thanks,” I say, “I wish your father a speedy recovery. Go Pats.”
I didn’t mention that I had a heart attack last Father’s Day and had a stent installed or that I was glad Billy Sullivan sold the team. We wouldn’t have had Bob Kraft, Belichick, and Brady.
The Game of Life.
I must mention a non-contemporary exception: Milton Bradley, a Lowell High graduate of the class of 1854. He created the board games we grew up playing: The Game of Life, Easy Money, Operation, and Battleship. I’ve always considered him a Lowell dreamer and a genius.
An Wang, who invented core memory and sold the pattern to IBM for half a million bucks in 1955, said, “Success is more a function of consistent common sense than of genius.”
He then started Wang Laboratories. The desktop computer firm’s headquarters were in Lowell and employed 30,000 people at its peak. Wang Towers on Chelmsford Street greeted drivers as they entered the city on the Lowell Connector. Many Lowellians worked there. Ted Leonsis, Lowell High class of ’73, was their Corporate Communications Director fresh out of college.
In 1981, still in his twenties, Leonsis founded List, a personal computing magazine he sold two years later to Thompson Reuters, netting $20 million. He then launched the PR firm Red Gate Communications, acquired in 1994 by America Online (AOL), where he worked as a senior executive. In 1999, Ted bought the Washington Capitals NL hockey team.
After Ted retired from AOL, he was invited to Lowell to be the Keynote speaker at a jobs symposium held at the Memorial Auditorium circa 2006. At that time, I was CEO and co-founder of Justzip.com, a startup web development company aimed at marketing and servicing every small business in every Zip code in America. We had local sales and needed venture capital to take us nationwide, which was hard to come by in Boston, still reeling from 9/11 and the first Internet bubble.
My co-founder Dan Cassidy and I left our Lowell development offices on Stedman Street and went to the auditorium to see Leonsis speak. Wearing our Justzip.com monogrammed polo shirts with our Local, Fast, and Free tagline, I cornered Ted, who said he liked our tagline and asked us what we were all about. I gave him my elevator pitch, and we exchanged cards. In a follow-up email, I asked if he was interested in seeing my VC business plans; I never heard back from him.
I assumed Ted was too busy, as he soon became the CEO and largest shareholder of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, a conglomerate with eight teams, five venues, a TV network that includes his Washington Capitals NL hockey team, the NBA Washington Wizards, WNBA Mystics, and Washington DC’s Capital One Arena. He is a multi-billionaire and a philanthropist for the DC area, and he funds over 10,000 kids’ college educations.
By contrast, Lowell entrepreneur and philanthropist Luis Pedroso, LHS class of 1980, created hundreds of jobs and gave back to the community. This humble Portuguese immigrant from the Azores, where my grandmother was born in 1876, built Qualtronics. His small proto-type manufacturing company serviced New England electronic networking and medical firms.
He employed his entire extended family and more hard-working Portuguese people from back Central Street than attended Sunday’s service at Saint Anthony’s Church, where my siblings and I received our first communion and confirmation.
I met Louis in 2000 when I was VP of Engineering and Design for Manufacturer’s Service Limited (MSL), a global contract manufacturing and supply chain firm headquartered in Concord, MA. Along with my engineering staff in Ireland and Spain, I made several local acquisitions and recruited former employees. I then built the largest design center on the East Coast in Westford, MA. I needed a prototype shop to send our designs to and be our lead for MSL’s volume manufacturing, which, at that time, was approaching a billion dollars in sales.
Other competitors had pursued Luis to acquire his company. We bonded immediately. Luis agreed to a pre-IPO acquisition and stayed through the transition when we relocated his Wood Street company to the aged Merrimack Magnetics building on Hale Street, which we first gutted and modernized. It had easy access to the Lowell connector, and I negotiated a tax incentive for job creation with the city.
I chose that building and negotiated the lease with the family members who owned it. From the front door, I could see the bedroom window of the house I grew up in on Cambridge Street, a block away. It was sweeter when they hired my older brother, Tom, and younger brother, Tony.
My combined divisions yielded the highest profits for MSL and its successful IPO. When the market dived after the 9/11 attack, MSL’s stock tanked, too. Celestica acquired it, and the other senior corporate executives and I had long been pushed out.
A few years later, Luis started Accutronics in Chelmsford, MA, and rehired most of his former employees in Lowell. Luis funds the Scholarship for Portuguese Studies at UMass Dartmouth and the creation of a Portuguese culture and research center at UMass Lowell. He also funds the Pedroso Tutors program, which helps elementary school students in Lowell. Greater Lowell’s Portuguese residents adore him, and I admire no one in Lowell more than Luis Pedroso.
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Due to approaching Category Five Hurricane Milton, we rescheduled our trip north to October 11th. We hope to see our youngest daughter in New Hampshire and visit our extended family in Greater Lowell.
I also have a Digital CAD Systems Engineering alum reunion. Many helped me with my software development career in the ‘70s and mid-80s when my work was published in the IEEE Design Automation and Artificial Intelligence journals.
I recall visiting Lowell on Columbus Day weekend for my fiftieth LHS class reunion, a Friday night pre-party at Cappy’s Copper Kettle on Central Street, and the next night at Lenzi’s in Dracut.
This trip includes a stop at the Pollard Memorial Library for the annual Lowell Celebrates Kerouac Book Talk. Paul Marion will read from his latest book, Portraits Along The Way. It has gained rave reviews from many writers who contribute to this blog, whom I hope to see there.
I cherish returning to Lowell in the fall when colors are spectacular, the air is crisp and fresh, and you don’t mind getting hit by falling chestnuts and acorns as long as a squirrel doesn’t fight you for them.
As Jack Kerouac said, “Everybody goes home in October.”
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[1] Ed DeJesus’ latest novel, The Vulnerable, is an Eco-thriller set in Lowell, Massachusetts, and Fort Myers, Florida. It is currently under consideration with publishers. His forthcoming memoir, Simpler Times in The Spindle City, is a collection of short stories; some have been previously posted on the RichardHowe.com blog.
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Editor’s Note: Ed made it to Lowell for Paul Marion’s reading of his new book, Portraits Along The Way, and grabbed the below photos which feature Ed, Paul, me (Richard Howe), and author Steve O’Connor, all at the Pollard Memorial Library.
Kerouac Connections: Meet Cousin Herve
Kerouac Connections – Meet Cousin Hervé – (PIP #43)
By Louise Peloquin
“Leo with Louis at L’Etoile, 3rd peek into the past, posted on October 5, 2023, presented Jack’s father. See the link.
This October, let’s meet Jack’s 1st cousin Hervé – another French-speaking Franco-American from Lowell, an adventurer, a brave man with a radiant smile and ties with St. Jean-Baptiste Church.
L’Etoile, July 13, 1944
Hervé Kérouac is in France (1)
Yesterday, Mrs. Léontine Kérouac, 86 School Street, received the second letter from her son, soldier Hervé Kérouac since his arrival in France on June 20th. In his last missive, he does not specify which French villages he visited but he says that “not for all the gold in the world” would he exchange his experience.
The only member of his regiment to speak French, soldier Kérouac is very happy with the services he can render to his superiors and with the friendships brought about by the knowledge of his mother tongue.
In the army since October 14th 1943, he completed his preliminary military training at Camp Croft in South Carolina then at Fort Meade, Maryland. He spent two months in England before crossing over into Normandy.
L’Etoile, October 26, 1944
Decoration for Soldier Kérouac
The Bronze Medal with honorable mention was awarded to soldier first class Hervé Kérouac, member of the United States infantry, for heroism in action “somewhere” in France. Soldier Kérouac received this important decoration at the beginning of October but was not free to reveal the acts which distinguished him in combat.
This young soldier, son of Mrs. Léontine Kérouac, 86 School Street, went to France on June 20th and arrived in Normandy. In his letters, he mentions many important cities visited during the course of his expeditions, among them Le Mans, Alençon, Coutouche, Reims. However, he only saw this city’s imposing cathedral from a distance.
Hervé enrolled in October 1943 and completed his training at Camp Croft, South Carolina and then went to Fort Meade, Maryland before crossing over to England. He is a former student of our parochial schools and ex-cantor of the Great Choir of Saint-Jean-Baptiste where he was popular.
L’Etoile, November 28, 1944
Soldier First Class Hervé Kérouac, wounded in action in France
Mrs. Léontine Kérouac, 86 School Street, has just learned by telegram that her son, soldier first class Hervé Kérouac, received minor woulds in combat in France on November 12th.
Soldier Kérouac enrolled in October 1943, completed his training at Camp Croft, South Carolina and at Fort Meade Maryland. Last month, he was awarded the Bronze Medal for bravery in action. (2)
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- The articles in L’Etoile print Kérouac with an accent.
- Translations by Louise Peloquin.
New damning evidence against private citizen Trump by Marjorie Arons-Barron
The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.
Donald Trump may claim he’s immune to prosecution for multiple crimes to overturn the 2020 election results, but you can read the Government’s just-released response to federal District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan showing why he acted as a private citizen and must be held accountable. Trump’s trial should have started last spring but was upended by the Supreme Court’s long-delayed landmark ruling that a President is immune for crimes charged if they are committed as part of his official duties. Special Counsel Jack Smith has demonstrated in a riveting 165-page response why Trump was acting as a private citizen, committing crimes as a candidate for office, not in his public capacity, and only to further his own private interests.
There were, of course, multiple crimes “to disrupt through fraud and deceit the government function by which votes are collected and counted – a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role.” In short, Trump was acting as an office seeker not as an office holder. The details of what Trump and his co-conspirators did are voluminously laid out: the decision made in advance of the 2020 election to claim he had won; the multiple charges of election fraud debunked in more than 60 court cases; the evidence that his private advisors had told him his claims were false; candidate Trump’s repeated pressures on targeted state officials (all Republicans who resisted his false claims); the widespread conspiracy with his private lawyers and staffers to create false slates of electors; the heavy-duty campaign to pressure Mike Pence, as Senate president charged with counting the electoral votes; his incitement to violence by MAGA supporters at the private rally on January 6th; and his disregard for the officials whose lives were endangered by the pattern of lies he created out of whole cloth.
The Government’s document (superseding the indictment that was issued prior to the Supreme Court’s case-interrupting immunity decision) outlines the legal framework for establishing why none of the allegations and evidence are protected by presidential by immunity. The document goes state by state, crime by crime, in staggering detail. It includes a trail of emails and tweets between and among Trump and numerous co-conspirators. It cites both a plethora of witness statements from those inside and outside Trump’s circle and also videotape evidence of Trump’s illegal incitements and fraudulent claims. (The Washington Post has identified the key co-conspirators whose names were redacted.)
One of the most significant takeaways for me was Vice President Mike Pence’s heroism under repeated attacks by Donald Trump trying to force him to break the law. Despite four years spent largely as Trump’s lap dog, Pence refused to bow to Trump’s unyielding pressure on him to accept to accept slates of fake electors or otherwise delay the certification of the 2020 electoral vote. Even with his life endangered by Trump’s explicit threats and his inciting the insurrection terrorists to do citizen Trump’s dirty work, Mike Pence bravely stood firm. It is not hyperbole to say that, on January 6, 2021, Mike Pence – with backup from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – saved our democracy. (Pence showed far more spine than the craven GOP members of Congress who today privately disparage Trump but publicly continue to enable him.)
Trump continues to prove in many ways that he is unfit to be President of the United States. He has made clear that whatever illegal and norm-busting actions he took during his first term are just a lukewarm hint of what he has in mind if he has a second term. That’s why, despite their policy differences with Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, a host of prominent courageous Republicans – including Liz Cheney, Jeff Flake, Nancy Kassebaum, Mickey Edwards, and Adam Kinzinger – are actively supporting her. More than 100 former members of Congress and national security officials from Republican administrations (Reagan, H.W. Bush, W. Bush and Trump) have signed a letter outlining why Donald Trump is “unfit to serve again.” Other letters have some 200 signatories including those who have worked for previous Republican nominees, including Mitt Romney. Romney has declined to come out publicly for Harris out of fear, he says, for his family’s safety. Pence himself now says that “anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States.”
Now, a month from the 2024 elections and before a repeatedly Trump-delayed trial can commence, it’s up to the voters to save our democracy. Given how close the race is, it’s not enough for never-Trumpers to abstain, vote for a third party candidate, or write in a symbolic protest vote. Whatever their policy differences with Kamala Harris, they need to acknowledge that policy differences can be debated and changed. Ceding the election to a would-be authoritarian dictator is a challenge that can’t be easily overcome. Not to decide is to decide.