RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

‘Sonic Boom’ by Paul Marion

Here’s a story, a memory from my early days in Dracut, Mass. When I was growing up, high-speed aircraft often broke the sound barrier even over residential areas. The enormous boom results from a massive shock wave caused by the aircraft moving faster than the speed of sound. This is something that has been regulated out of our daily lives for a common sense reason–think shattered windows and security alarms going off. But what I’m recalling is a rare accident involving a military plane. — PM

Sonic Boom: A Local Aircraft Story (1958)

North American F-86A (P-86-A) Sabre jet, not the exact aircraft in the story (image courtesy of Smithsonian Institution)

The plane crashed. The pilot survived. I don’t know if I saw this or was told about it by my parents or remember the incident because I heard others describe it. In my mind I see myself in real time either standing in the front yard of my family home on outer Hildreth Street in Dracut with my father or with my mother looking out the west-facing picture window of our small ranch.

I was four years old on June 8, 1958, when an F86L jet fighter arrowed down out of the sky at 3:30 p.m. on a Sunday about a mile from my house. New Hampshire Air National Guard pilot Peter Gulick on a patrol flying out of Manchester, New Hampshire, was returning to Grenier Air Force Base when the engine on his swept-wing Sabre jet failed, “flamed out,” he said, forcing him to eject. A second jet on the same maneuver also went down due to mechanical issues and fuel trouble, this one in a forest many miles to the north. Both pilots were in the 133^rd Fighter-Interceptor Squadron at Grenier.

Ray Kelly was outside in the Navy Yard section of town when he saw the plane descend at a frightening rate above the J. P. Stevens Mill next to one of the Beaver Brook dams, veering north to the New Hampshire state line. Archie Wolf and Ronnie Cartier were at Fox’s Dairy on Bridge Street a couple of miles to the east in Dracut Center. After the plane went out of view somewhere beyond the Rifle Range and Colburn Avenue, Archie’s father drove the boys to the scene. They waited on the road while the dad joined cops and firefighters who ran into the woods to help.

The sound in the sky. In those years we were not surprised by the sudden rolling thunder of a jet plane breaking the sound barrier. An aircraft reaching a speed faster than sound tripped a massive sonic boom, shaking the clouds.

But this was a different noise. The enormous bang of the “expulsion chute explosives” would have made my neighbors look up if they had not already spotted the transonic aircraft hurtling nose-first toward the forest at the end of Hildreth Street. The parachute carrying First Lieutenant Gulick sailed over and then into the distant dark green woods. The pilot did his best to direct the plane away from houses. He may have been 2,000 feet up with the jet going 200 miles per hour when he bailed out. His chute caught in a pine tree twenty feet up.

Chopping wood 100 yards away from the impact site, Alex Bursey dropped his axe and followed a trail toward the spot where he had seen the parachute touch treetops. He was able to help the slightly hurt pilot out of the woods. The jet smashed into a natural sand pit near a clearing with marshes and a small pond—more like a water hole—a place where my friends and I played hockey when I was older. Civil and military authorities, including Air Police from two nearby bases, sealed off the widespread crash site as best as possible. Jean Turner of the Lowell Sun reported that police turned away hundreds of sightseers in cars who converged on the crash location, eager to get a look at the shattered plane.

I learned much later that the Sabre jet carried “top secret” computer equipment designed for intercepting enemy aircraft. On summer days with fishing rods or just to snoop around, my friends and I hiked to the crash site and often returned with metal fragments as big as a hand. Twenty years after the crash, the largest parts of the jet were dug up and sold to a salvage yard for the still-valuable aircraft aluminum. Leo Gamache remembers because he drove the truck carrying the broken wings.

—Paul Marion (c) 2023

Between the Covers

Between the Covers

By Leo Racicot

The Golden Age of magazines was still going strong when I was a kid. Popular publications like LIFE and LOOK Magazines still held their popularity with readers. As someone who’d been weaned from a young age on movies and movie-going, thanks to my father’s love of them, I especially liked LIFE; It was larger than most magazines of the time , had an almost cinematic quality. Its size was cinematic. Some of its subject matter and themes were lustrous, high-quality photos of movie sets, movie stars. It took a grand, larger-than -life approach to the movers and shakers of the day: presidents, presidential candidates, world leaders, even bringing depictions of so-called ordinary life into the living room: Midwestern farmers, New England Shaker communities, cotton growers of The Deep South. Readers need never leave their homes in order to see the world, Or, were inspired to visit the places and peoples they saw in these two magazines (LOOK offered the same vistas only on perhaps a smaller scale: LOOK was LIFE’s kid sister). National Geographic was also themed along these same lines and how many young folks of that time were made aware of the people and cultures of exotic places (Africa, Alaska, TheSoviet Union, The Far East) through the pages of this still-popular publication? I still love browsing through vintage copies of National Geographic, and if I’m at Savers or Brattle Book Shop, I head instantly to the used magazine racks to look for National Geographics to be had for mere pennies. National Geographic fed my imagination, opened me up to a world I didn’t know and probably would never see in-the-flesh. One particular article that has stayed with me all these years is a 1968 issue heralding the around-the-world solo journey of Robin Lee Graham, a young man of 16, who dared to take his sailboat, The Dove, from California and back, on a three-year circumnavigation. National Geographic followed him in what became a series of articles chronicling Robin’s entire trip through to his safe return home in 1970. On the way, he visited such places as Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji, The Hebrides, The Solomons, South Africa and Australia. It was great fun and truly exciting following him on his sea odyssey and even now, if I spy one of those issues, I scoop it up, even though I already have it. The romance of his brave, intrepid adventures still has the power to move me.

As a boy scout, I really looked forward every month to Boys’ Life, the official magazine of the Boy Scouts. Its blend of fiction, non-fiction, articles on scouting and character development, its highlighting of popular science fiction writers of the day like Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov (I was fascinated hearing that Asimov had written over 500 books!), stories of seafaring and safari adventures and of the wonders of just plain being a boy captured me.

I liked Boys’ Life almost as much as I liked the comic books of the day. I thrilled to the adventures of Batman and Robin (Batman remains my favorite superhero) Also popular in those days was the Archie Gang: Archie, his best pal, Jughead, their on-again, off-again girlfriends, Betty and Veronica, cohorts Reggie Mantle and Moose Mason, evil Madame Satan (whom Anthony said had to be an ex-nun). I followed faithfully for years the Riverdale kids and their antics for years. And wasn’t it a hoot finding a beloved old back issues down at Harvey’s Bookland on Central Street?  I especially enjoyed scouring the ads found at the back of most comic books: ads for X-Ray glasses (so you could see like Superman), Joy Buzzers (You placed these in the palm of your hand and walked up to an unsuspecting victim to “shake hands”. Joe liked the Charles Atlas ads in hopes that one of the muscle-building products could bulk him up and I put in an order for the live sea-monkeys which, predictably, arrived dead.

One of the things I liked best about going to see the doctor or the dentist was the wealth of fun magazines to be thumbed through in the waiting room: being a Catholic grade school student and being “a good little Catholic boy” — ahem –I liked finding the many Bible stories oriented magazines there — anything to take my mind off the dentist’s drill or Dr. Brady who used to shoot a fizzy medicine in my ear, calling it “ginger ale”. I had terrible, chronic ear aches throughout my childhood and I remember the day Dr. Brady surveyed the latest and told my mother, “If Leo has any more of these, he’ll be deaf”.  Miraculously, I never had another earache.

But I digress — who me?? DIgress??

In the late ’70s and ’80s, when I was first submitting essays for publication, it was magazines that bought my work: First Hand, Spiritual Life, Faith and Inspiration. Il loved the editorship of now legendary publishers and editors, Art Kleiner & Stewart Brand, both of Coevolution Quarterly and WInston Leyland over at Gay Sunshine Journal. These mags weren’t Time or Newsweek but it was a thrill seeing in print what I’d written.

To this day, I love the sight of a library’s magazine racks. Even if I don’t read them all (who could??), I like the look of them on their shelves, When I worked at O’Leary Library, I’d spent most of my break in the Periodicals Department thumbing through as many as I could. I like magazines almost as much as I like books, possibly for their visual enticements, their highway into a world I wouldn’t otherwise be able to see….

_________________

Bible Stories for Boys and Girls

Boys Life Magazine

CoEvolution Quarterly Magazine

Harvey and his wife Rita, Harvey’s Bookland

Look Magazine

Life Magazine

Robin Lee Graham

Stewart Brand

The Archie Jughead Gang

Winston Leyland

Seen & Heard: Volume 27

A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday. 

Article: “Inside Trump’s Great American State Fair” by Jim Puzzanghera, et al, Boston Globe, June 29, 2026. The Great American State Fair is a 16-day event on the National Mall in Washington, DC that runs from June 25 to July 10, 2026, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States. It is organized by Freedom 250, the outfit created by President Trump to run various semiquincentennial events (as opposed to America 250, the official, bipartisan entity created by Congress for the same purpose). For this article, the Globe dispatched a team of reporters to the fair to see what was going on. They observe that even though there is a booth from Massachusetts, no official state presence since Governor Maura Healey opted not to participate after seeing the price the state was expected to pay for the booth. But Massachusetts is not completely unrepresented – a Trump supporter from Greenfield hit up a local maple sugar plant for some sample then drove to DC and sits at the booth each day handing out maple syrup bottles. New Hampshire has an official presence but none of the other New England states are present. The reporters also describe some of the other state booths, especially for states with Republican governors, have more robust offerings. I thought the article was straightforward with no editorializing, but there was nothing I read that made me regret missing out on this. 

Article: “NFL ‘Insider’ Whose Access Became the Story” by Katherine Rosman and Ken Belson, New York Times, June 26, 2026. This was a fascinating article in many ways. Essentially, it was the Times investigating the sports journalist Dianna Russini – who worked for the New York Times. The thing being investigated was Russini’s relationship with Mike Vrabel, the head coach of the New England Patriots football team, who she’s covered in the media for years. Earlier this year, other media outlets published photos of Russini and Vrabel in intimate-looking situations. They are both married, though not to each other. The investigation was not prompted by moral issues but by questions of journalistic ethics, specifically, did the reporter’s personal relationship with the coach influence the coverage of said coach by said reporter. There’s a lot going on here. First is the gender dynamics. Had this been a male reporter socializing with the coach in a non-public way, I doubt the resulting angst would be comparable since in our misogynistic society, women are held to different standards than are men. Next is an internal feud at the Times. Russini actually worked for the Athletic which started as an edgy, web-based, all sports site that became hugely popular among sports fans but didn’t make much money. In January 2022, the Times bought the Athletic for $550 million and turned the Athletic into the paper’s sports department (shedding many sports reporters in the process). Many of those who came over from the Athletic are paid substantially more than are most Times reporters, but they are also said to be held to much looser ethical constraints. I’m ambivalent about most of this but what bothers me most is this whole “insider” philosophy, that there are people who cultivate sources to gain access and obtain news before anyone else. While I value getting news promptly, my sense is this whole system is just a game among insiders and we’re the dupes who pay subscriptions or watch ads to fund the insiders, their employers and their sources. The setup is inherently manipulative with the reporter being the one easily played by the source. This is one of the things that’s most soured my interest in sports recently. Whether it’s MAGA-loving Bob Kraft (owner of the Patriots), the underperforming Red Sox, rampant gambling, both legal and by insiders that I think gets a wink and a nod acknowledgement, and high cost of in person events that exclude many, sports has lost much of my affection and of my attention. 

Article: “Trump Rants Divide Court on Race Bias” by Adam Liptak, New York Times, June 28, 2026. By a 6 to 3 vote, the US Supreme Court upheld President Trump’s power to dissolve the Temporary Protected (Legal) Status of 350,000 Haitian refugees who have been living in the United States which will likely lead to their imminent deportation (after being snatched off the street by ICE). Those challenging Trump’s decision alleged it was based on his racial animus which would make it illegal. They cited his claim (with no evidence) that Haitian people living in Ohio were eating the pet dogs and cats of their neighbors; that Haitians “probably have AIDS”; that Haitian immigration is “like a death wish for our country;” that Haiti is “a shithole country”; and that Haitians “are poisoning the blood of our nation.” Writing for the majority, Justice Alito said none of this was overt racism and that the President likely had reasons unrelated to race for his decision. In dissent, Justice Kagan said Trump’s comments were “shot through with racial stereotypes and tropes.” Chief Justice Roberts and his conservative colleagues long ago lost any legitimacy in my eyes. Fortunately, decisions like this will, when viewed by future historians, will enliven the debate about whether this court or the one that decided the Dred Scott case in 1857. 

Article: “Israelis Watch Ties With US Coming Loose” by David M. Halbfinger, New York Times, June 28, 2026. This story came after three Congressional candidates in the New York Democratic primary all of whom were critical of Israel and its policy in Gaza, won their races with two beating incumbents who were longtime supporters of Israel. This article is mostly about the anxiety that people in Israel feel about the wavering support the country has from America, both from the government, since many think that President Trump’s agreement with Iran stabbed Israel in the back; but also by individual Americans whose support for Israel has dropped considerably. My personal turning point came in 2015 when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was invited to address Congress by its Republican leadership and his remarks he harshly condemned the agreement that President Obama had negotiated with Iran. It was Netanyahu’s prerogative to criticize the agreement (although as subsequent events have demonstrated, it was a pretty good deal), but for him to come into Congress and blatantly disrespect the President from that podium was outrageous (although not as outrageous as the Republicans who had brought him there). I fully understand the horrors of the Holocaust and the evil of antisemitism, but that should not mean that we all have to fully back Israel’s policies, right or wrong. I suppose I feel about Israel the way many in the rest of the world feel about the United States these days. The country has a horrible leader and the people bear some responsibility for that, but that does not erase the affection I have for the country and its people. 

Article: “Questions swirl around Duck Boat accident” by Brian MacQuarrie, et al, Boston Globe, June 30, 2026. If you ever are in downtown Boston in the nice weather, you can’t miss the “Duck Boats” filled with tourists cruising through the city’s streets. It’s undoubtedly one of the most popular tourist experiences in town. Besides a narrated driving tour through the city, riders get a cruise on the Charles River while still in the vehicle. This weekend, one of the Duck Boats stalled while in the water and another attempted to tow the disabled one up the launching ramp which is near the Museum of Science. As the two vehicles ascended the ramp, the tow rope broke and the disabled vehicle rolled back down the ramp then fell onto its side, injuring 11 passengers. Fortunately, it did not turn over into the water. Although the Boston vehicles are replicas built specifically for tourism, the original Duck Boats were built for the US Army in World War II as an amphibious utility truck. Back in the late 1960s, I read a Young Adult history of the D-Day invasion. Twenty-four of the Ducks were used in the first wave to bring 105mm howitzers ashore to provide direct fire support to the infantry, except all 24 sank in the heavy swells before reaching the beach. That story always comes to mind whenever I see a brightly painted civilian version chugging up Tremont Street, filled with people making “quacking” noises, two dozen of the 600,000 each year who pay $60 to take a ride.

A Bigger Splash in a Bigger Heat

A Bigger Splash in a Bigger Heat (1)

By Louise Peloquin

A bigger splash

After an unusually early record-breaking heatwave at the end of May, June 15th temperatures started rising past the three-digit mark to top 106 in Paris on the 24th making the City of Lights the hottest spot on the planet. The thermometer started inching down again on June 28th, but the extreme temperatures left disturbances in their wake from disrupting end-of-the-year baccalaureate exams in classrooms turned into saunas to cancelling outdoor music festivals to closing the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower early in the afternoon much to the disappointment of summer tourists.

Newly-elected Mayor Emmanuel Grégoire limited city traffic by instituting alternative driving days for vehicles according to their odd or even license plate numbers. Another decision was lifting a Canal Saint Martin swimming ban in Paris’s 10th arrondissement. (2) Back in May, many coolness seekers had violated the ban by cannon-balling off of bridges into the murky, moss green waters. How can a police officer nab a sweating kid about to make a big splash? Lowell youngsters have similarly jumped into canals in the past, haven’t they?

Temps climbing well into the 100’s in a city whose old Lutetian stone, brick and granite buildings are largely lacking AC, persuaded Mayor Grégoire, from his air-conditioned Hôtel de Ville (City Hall) office, to empathize with Parisians, and turn the Canal Saint Matin into a gratuit swimming pool. He also decided to leave all of the usually-locked-at-dusk city parks open 24/7 to allow suffocating flat-dwellers to escape stagnant air, picnic in the dark and, if so inclined, dance in the moonlight.

On June 16, the mayor tweeted:

You asked for it; we did it!
As of tomorrow, in anticipation of the extreme heat, swimming in the Canal Saint Martin will be authorized!
Take advantage of it from 4 to 8 PM!

— Emmanuel Grégoire (@egregoire)

With photographer lagadelle’s permission, here is a September 2017 shot of le Canal.

Canal Saint Martin

    Le Canal will be a Paris swimming venue in early July, as it has been since the 2024 Olympics, covered here with 7 reports. (3) “Using le Canal as a tool for refreshment… along with other measures, like offering discount tickets to air-conditioned cinemas, is a way for the city to combat global warming,” declared one city official. Political opponents did not necessarily agree with the statement.

Canal shot by photographer Steffi Emmi

The Agence Régionale de Santé (Regional Health Agency) states that water quality testing guarantees meeting sanitary standards in le Canal.

Some people are not so sure about that and had already questioned Seine water cleanliness during the 2024 Olympics as the pieces in footnote 3 reported.

An Instagram video posted on June 21st showed a municipal agent throwing garbage right into le Canal. It went viral. That didn’t prevent hundreds of Parisians from joining millions of microbes in the newly-opened swimming hole.

Swimmers on the bank of le Canal

Now that the two-week heatwave has subsided, what is happening?

Mayor Grégoire has reinstated the Canal ban as of June 27th after a man swimming after dark outside the authorized Canal zone drowned and violent thunder and lightening storms hit Paris. Some city parks were once again closed at dusk. To offset the bans, Paris officials reminded everyone that more than 1,300 drinking water distribution points continue to supply thirsty city dwellers and tourists.

The planned reopening le Canal Saint Martin will depend on meteorological conditions but the official calendar is set from July 5th to September 6th, 2 to 6 PM on Sundays, if water quality allows.

Since 2007, from July to the beginning of September, the City of Paris has set up artificial sandy beaches along the Seine – Paris-Plages (Paris Beaches). All are welcome and entrance is free. Since 2024, three free, supervised, Seine swimming sites will open as they did in 2025. Details are found here.

Here is the map, published in the latest edition of Le magazine des Parisiens, on swimming in the city in 2026.

After covering bigger splashes, let’s take a look at the unprecedented bigger heat endured by Europe from the middle to the end of June.

The UK recorded its hottest day on June 25th when the thermometer hit 98 degrees in southwest England. Germany reached 98.6; Spain 96.8 and Italy 95.

France was the hottest spot because of its location on the continent, situated at the heart of the heat dome. Hot air, trapped under clear, breezeless, blue skies, caused heat to accumulate and immobilized the hot air making it stagnate for several days. Spain is more protected by the Atlantic Ocean and Eastern Europe is closer to cooler continental air masses. So in mid-June, it was hotter in Paris than in Madrid or in Rome and meteorologists see another heatwave looming as of July 6th.

What did the French say about the 12-day canicule? (4) “No one was ready for this, neither the schools nor the hospitals, nor anyone.” A cyclist commuter described his daily ride to work: “your skin burns, it really burns.” One network reported that an initial overview of the consequences of the June 2026 canicule showed a considerably higher mortality rate than that of the previous months with approximately 1000 additional deaths occurring mostly in private homes. During the week of June 22nd to 27th alone, 105 people died in Paris of heat-related causes. Fifty-five people drowned between June 15th and 26th, most of them in unauthorized locations like the river Loire whose strong currents and whirlpools quickly subdue even the strongest of swimmers.

Assessing the many consequences of the canicule will take some time. Twenty-three years after the August 2003 heatwave which caused 15,000 causalties, some French people maintain that their country has not begun to seriously deal with changing weather patterns. On June 29th, a meteorologist and historian declared that Paris will undoubtedly be the deadliest city in Europe should the upcoming heatwave hit 120 degrees.

A heat dome is now suffocating parts of the United States including New England. Although America is better-equipped with reliable AC than is Europe, is it ready to face the future?

****

 1) Reference in hommage to David Hockney, the British artist who died on June 11, 2026 at the age off 88. A Bigger Splash is a large pop art painting measuring 95.5 by 96 inches, depicting a swimming pool with a large splash of water created by an unseen diver. It was painted in California between April and June 1967, when Hockney was teaching at the University of California, Berkeley.

2) The Canal Saint-Martin is a 2.8 mile canal in Paris, connecting the Canal de l’Ourcq to the Seine.

3) Click on these links for the 3 pieces on swimming during the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics:

https://richardhowe.com/2024/07/09/the-last-lap-pariss-summer-olympics/

https://richardhowe.com/2024/07/16/olympic-happy-hour-ahead/

https://richardhowe.com/2024/07/24/go-jump-in-theseine/

4) French word for heatwave. “Can” refers to “dog” (“canine” has the same linguistic root) and to the “dog days” which are said to be from July 3rd to August 11th. Global warming will certainly modify this definition of “dog days.”