RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

Barney Frank: his final last word by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog.

The late Barney Frank’s book, The Hard Path to Unity: Why We Must Reform the Left to Rescue Democracy, to be published September 15 by Yale University Press, is a valedictory the former Massachusetts Fourth District Congressman wrote during the last year of his life. In a sweeping broadside peppered with astute observations, he describes it as “an effort to undo the damage inflicted” by the “well intentioned but deeply flawed choices” of a Democratic left that is, he insists, “largely responsible for the political strength that xenophobic populism has come to enjoy in the developed world.” He opens with “Mea culpa,” but this is no personal apology. He assigns the guilt for this “tragic historical irony” to others on the left, especially the left of the left.

Frank’s argument is sharper than that Democrats have merely moved too far left to win. He indicts two distinct parts of the Democratic left for jointly creating the conditions in which right-wing populism could flourish. First, he maintains that, from the 1980s until recently, mainstream liberals neglected, in varying degrees, working people’s economic insecurities. Then, after Trump’s 2016 victory, self-styled progressives alienated potential allies with absolutist positions on social and cultural issues that undercut chances for electoral success. Worse, Frank argues, mainstream liberals have failed to challenge “the left wing of the left wing’s left,” letting the Republican right tar all Democrats with the most extreme positions — “defund the police,” pronoun litmus tests, open borders, and more.

Frank’s basic thesis, and the organizing principle of the book is that Democrats must offer practical solutions to the extreme concentration of wealth in this country and not subordinate that goal to a host of social transformations that are not only unpopular but will undermine both the Democratic Party and American democracy.

Frank believed his bona fides as a card-carrying progressive — battle scars earned over decades in the legislative trenches, fighting against rising income inequality and for civil rights, gay, labor and women’s rights — earned him the standing and the credibility to speak frankly to an audience not primed to hear his message.

He may have an audience. Even some more established “progressives” like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez are reframing the posture they took in their earlier days in politics. She told ABC News recently that “Woke 1 was crazy.”

Frank writes that, when the dissident left made certain issues litmus tests for candidates, mainstream Democrats remained silent on things that were unpalatable to them, just as today too many party members have quietly allowed themselves to be defined by much of the extremist agenda of Democratic Socialists. Certainly, Republicans are only too happy to smear the whole party with the fringe call for abolishing prisons, eliminating national borders, even canceling Thanksgiving.  The ensuing culture wars have fueled populist outrage and undercut mainstream efforts to address the income inequality that, Frank argues, is destroying the people’s faith in liberal democracy.

Frank, who cultivated a reputation as the smartest one in the room, is oddly lazy about his descriptive terms, and his definitions are often diffuse. Liberal democracy he defines narrowly as rule by a majority that respects the rights of minority voices. He might well have added how free and fair elections, respect for the rule of law, free press and independent judiciary – all under attack today – are key to the weakened democracy he wants to rescue.

When he aspires to address the Democratic left worldwide, the book gets muddled. He uses “the Left” too promiscuously, paying too little attention to the new democratic-socialist movement in the United States and failing to distinguish it from the substantially different labor and social-democratic parliamentary parties of Europe.

He saw the book as a response to the tragic irony that deeply flawed bad choices by the Democratic left (meaning those who are labeled progressives today) “are largely responsible for the political strength that xenophobic populism has come to enjoy in the developed world.”  The grandiosity of this claim oversimplifies. There’s strong evidence that economic insecurity feeds populism — often through culture and identity — but that explains only part of whether discontent hardens into a successful radical-right movement.

To Frank, the cardinal sin of mainstream liberals here and abroad was embracing free trade, technological innovation and growing GDP while failing to address the lost jobs, stagnant wages, weakened communities and widening inequality that came with them. They mistook a growing economy for shared prosperity and served the affluent professionals and corporate titans of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Wall Street, ignoring the growing concentrations of wealth that left working-class people behind.

Against that economic background, the far-left minority (what Frank calls the left of the left) was simultaneously pushing an extreme social agenda that mainstream Democrats (not to mention independents and others) were not ready for. One example of the lamentable social issues: the insistence of some transgender activists that male and female are no longer “valid categories.”

He faults activists for confusing the righteousness of their views with majority opinion, and for often misreading resistance as prejudice or ignorance instead of honorable disagreement. The litmus tests and simplistic slogans of the radical left are troubling enough in a primary; they are fatal when activists withhold support from the party’s nominee in a general election, effectively preferring a Republican to a Democrat who failed to check every purity box.  Simultaneously, Democrats cannot gloss over legitimate immigration, crime or sex-and-gender questions merely because Republicans exploit them.

Frank’s recommendations are rooted in a deep understanding of the legislative process and a willingness to tackle problems that reflexive Democrats are often loath to discuss. From his years in government — though he did not always practice the niceties of persuasion himself — Frank understood legislative sequencing, compromise, and the moral weight of actually enacting policy.

More valuable than Frank’s turgid analysis of Keynesian economics is his insider account (as chairman of the House Financial Services Committee) of strategies enacted to save the banking system and the auto industry in the financial crisis of 2008. The lasting result was the deepening resentment in homeowners and other individuals who saw government’s role only as protecting institutions that needed protection the least. Since that crisis, voter cynicism about the efficacy of government solutions still prompts high unfavorability ratings of both parties, eroding public confidence and participation, which effective government requires.

His recurring theme is not new but remains relevant, namely, that “forging a coalition behind a broader, less politically provocative agenda is the only way to restore majority support for liberal governance.” He is not without practical solutions to the predominant sources of economic grievances, with specifics on health costs, housing and environmental regulations.  As for how to pay for them, other than naming farm subsidies and the space program, he dodges cuts to be made,  saying “I do not presume to dictate where cutbacks should be made,”

Frank fans will find vintage Barney aphorisms such as “cursing the darkness is more emotionally satisfying and less intellectually taxing than working out the candlepower needed to dispel it;” and “for a politician, criticizing your friends can cost more than standing up to your enemies.”

Unfortunately, he gives just two sentences to one of the thorniest issues at play in Democratic politics: the intra-party differences in attitudes toward Israel and the resulting raw antisemitism, much of it intergenerational, that threatens the party today. In his final interviews, Frank staked out a more nuanced position than this book offers, one that is neither unconditional support nor outright rejection.

His arguments are not new. The book aggregates concerns he aired for decades — excoriating neoliberals and the far left alike, advocating pragmatic legislative incrementalism. At his memorial service in May, we learned how hard the writing had become as congestive heart failure advanced and the heroic part his husband, Jim Ready, played in helping him finish. It is a small book —111 pages— that, had Frank been in better health, might have been trimmed into an essay for The Atlantic‘s Ideas section or a long op-ed. Instead, as he trigger-warned us, “redundancy is preferable to any possible ambiguity,” and the main theme returns, in slightly different dress, again and again.

In the end, the book (already somewhat dated) works as a political warning — above all on economic abandonment, cultural litmus tests and coalition discipline. He is right about ideological excess and insufficient repudiation. But the more vexing problem is that many voters simply don’t believe that existing institutions, parties or economic arrangements respond to them. Cultural overreach can worsen that crisis; moderation alone cannot cure it. (He supported the more moderate Democrats in Michigan and Maine primaries, both of whom lost.)

The Hard Path to Unity is more an epilogue from Barney Frank —his conviction about how a broad Democratic coalition must conduct itself — than a comprehensive strategy for how “the Left” can “Rescue Democracy.”

Lowell Politics: September 13, 2026

The Lowell City Council met on Tuesday, September 8, 2026. The council is still on its twice-monthly summer meeting schedule which typically yields a very long meeting, however, this one lasted just over two hours, which is concise by summer standards. Contributing to the brevity of the meeting was the absence of City Manager Tom Golden – he gets asked a lot of questions by councilors during most meetings – and three councilors – John Descoteaux, Belinda Juran and Corey Robinson – all participated via Zoom rather than in person.

I’m a big fan of doing things on Zoom. It is efficient and, if well organized with engaged participants, can accomplish much. While I do think that regular council meetings should be held in person, I’m happy that councilors who are unable to attend in person are able to still participate. And one of the unintended consequences of some attending via Zoom is that the meetings are faster since participating remotely on video tends to curtail the kind of impromptu, impulsive council comments that prolong meetings without accomplishing much. Perhaps the council should conduct a controlled experiment with one member each week on Zoom to see what effect that has on the dynamics of the meeting.

Here’s the link to the YouTube recording of the meeting for anyone who is interested in watching.

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The issue of Data Centers was on the agenda in the form of a joint motion by Councilors Vesna Nuon and Sean McDonough requesting the city manager develop a request for proposals (RFP) “for a community impact study examining the various impacts of data centers, including but not limited to environmental, public health, utility and energy and fire safety impacts with said study to be funded privately.”

However, when the motion was called, the councilors who made it asked that it be withdrawn because Governor Maura Healey had issued an executive order on data centers just that day, and councilors wanted to understand the implications of that order before pursuing local action.

Healey’s order, “Establishing requirements for responsible data center development and operations in Massachusetts to protect and support ratepayers, communities, and the environment,” requires data centers to address environmental and public health impacts, cover the costs of infrastructure they require, and to obtain the consent of the host community in the form of a community benefits agreement before any state agency may issue a permit for the proposed data center.

The Environmental Law Foundation, which is involved in the lawsuit by some Lowell residents against the Markley Data Center located here, praised the bill but pointed out that it does not apply to existing data centers and urged that more state action be taken to address them. (An article on the Conservation Law Foundation website provides a detailed view of the Lowell situation and cites that as the prime example of why the state should address these retroactively.)

As I’ve written previously, public pushback against data centers is growing stronger across the country with politicians from both parties supporting the attempted crackdown. Certainly, there is the immediate harm done to those who live in proximity to data centers and to those who must pay higher electricity and utility bills due to the stratospheric demands for power and cooling, but I also believe data centers are a tangible emblem of societal unease with both artificial intelligence and the billionaires who control it.

If anything, that concern increased recently when a group of experimental AI agents broke out of the containment system their human creators had constructed to control the agents and staged a cyberattack on a company called Hugging Face.

Hugging Face is like a public library for the AI world. Not all AI applications are created by the handful of trillion-dollar companies that are owned and operated by the aforementioned billionaires. Many academics and independent researchers are working in AI. Most of them have an “open source” philosophy that makes computer code they develop widely accessible so that new users can benefit from it but also improve it.

The rogue AI agents had been tasked with probing cybersecurity applications within a controlled, limited environment. However, once they started the task, the AI agents independently schemed to break out of their containment, hack into Hugging Face, find AI tools that would help them defeat the cybersecurity systems they were tasked with testing, and cover their tracks so that no humans could discover what they had done.

But humans did discover it, almost by accident, and were able to disable the AI agents. Here’s what New York Times tech reporter Kevin Roose wrote about the implications of this episode:

A.I. safety experts were even more alarmed. They saw the case as the first real-world example of an A.I. system successfully escaping human control, commandeering resources and scheming to cover its tracks. One of the independent investigators of the Hugging Face incident wrote that it felt “like it’s more than 50 percent of the way to full-blown A.I. takeover.”

By “full-blown A.I. takeover,” she meant a scenario in which an A.I. system literally takes over the world: shutting humans out of critical systems and seizing political, economic and military power.

I always remember an interview with a concerned technologist early in our AI age (which means three years ago). When asked, what’s the worst that can happen, the tech guru said, “If you assign an AI agent the task of solving world hunger” the agent would likely decide that the most efficient way to accomplish that task is to cause the deaths of 10 percent of the world’s population which would leave more food for the survivors.

Do I think that is likely to happen? No, but I also have zero faith that the people who control this stuff are motivated by anything other than maximizing their own profit at the expense of the rest of us. We’ve been through this before with social media and the same people that brought us that chaos are driving the AI train. I don’t want AI to go away; I just want some collective controls that will safeguard all of us. Right now, our national government shows no inclination to do anything like that, so it’s up to ordinary citizens at the local and state level where people have the most impact on the political process to force their representatives to respond to these legitimate concerns. Data centers sit in our midst and serve as a flashpoint in this societal struggle.

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As promised in last week’s newsletter, here is a precinct-level look at the electoral performance of City Councilors Corey Robinson and Sokhary Chau in the September 1, 2026, Democratic Primary.

16th Middlesex District (Lorena Betts defeated Corey Robinson. She received 1611 votes in Chelmsford and 1247 in Lowell for a total of 2858. Robinson received 256 votes in Chelmsford and 956 in Lowell for a total of 1212).

Let’s start with the parts of Lowell that are within this rep district but are not part of Robinson’s city council district.

2026 Democratic Primary Lowell precincts in Ward 1 (Pawtucketville)

Precinct 1: Betts received 124 votes; Robinson received 75.
Precinct 2: Betts received 169 votes; Robinson received 89.
Precinct 3: Betts received 224 votes; Robinson received 131.
Precinct 4: Betts received 233 votes; Robinson received 123.

Ward 4/Precinct 4: Betts received 78 votes; Robinson received 75.

Now, for the portion of the 16th Middlesex that is within Robinson’s council district:

2026 Democratic Primary vote in Ward 2 (Centralville)

Precinct 1: Betts received 66 votes. Robinson received 85.
Precinct 2: Betts received 92 votes; Robinson received 96.
Precinct 3: Betts received 161 votes; Robinson received 152.
Precinct 4: Betts received 100 votes; Robinson received 130.

Here are the results of the 2025 city council election in that district in which Robinson ran unopposed:

District 2 results in 2025 City Election (Robinson):

Precinct 1: Robinson received 99 votes with 17 blanks
Precinct 2: Robinson received 101 votes with 29 blanks
Precinct 3: Robinson received 208 votes with 59 blanks
Precinct 4: Robinson received 147 votes with 41 blanks

18th Middlesex District (Tara Hong defeated Sokhary Chau. Hong received 2041 votes. Chau received 991.)

On the city council, Chau represents District 6, so we will leave the primary election results from Ward 6 to the end of this section. Here are the results in the precincts in the 18th Middlesex District that are outside Sokhary Chau’s council district:

Ward 4/Prec 3: Tara Hong received 74 votes; Sokhary Chau received 19.

Ward 5/Prec 1A: Hong received 54; Chau received 15.

Ward 7/Prec 1: Hong received 123 votes; Chau received 67.
Ward 7/Prec 2: Hong received 138 votes; Chau received 35.
Ward 7/Prec 3: Hong received 185 votes; Chau received 40.
Ward 7/Prec 4: Hong received 103 votes; Chau received 45.

Ward 8/Prec 1: Hong received 177 votes; Chau received 89.
Ward 8/Prec 2: Hong received 172 votes; Chau received 69.
Ward 8/Prec 3: Hong received 325 votes; Chau received 193.
Ward 8/Prec 4: Hong received 243 votes; Chau received 148.

Then, in Ward 6, which is within Sokhary Chau’s council district, here are the results from last week’s primary:

Ward 6/Prec 1: Hong received 200 votes; Chau received 102.
Ward 6/Prec 2: Hong received 114 votes; Chau received 58.
Ward 6/Prec 3A: Hong received 20 votes; Chau received 9.
Ward 6/Prec 4: Hong received 113 votes; Chau received 102.

Finally, here are the District 6 results from the 2025 city election in which Sokhary Chau ran unopposed:

Precinct 1: Chau received 197 votes with 53 blanks
Precinct 2: Chau received 101 votes with 36 blanks
Precinct 3: Chau received 63 votes with 10 blanks
Precinct 4: Chau received 144 votes with 26 blanks.

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This week in my Seen & Heard column, I wrote about my visit to the Great Elephant Migration exhibition in Boston; commented on the obituary of Dolly Parton; noted a story about the high incidence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) among former NFL players; and wrote about the temporary relocation of the 900 year old Bayeux, from its home in Normandy to the British Museum in London.

Also on richardhowe.com this week, I reposted a group of essays by local authors on 9-11; and Leo Racicot reviewed the movie “Tony” about the late chef and TV personality, Anthony Bourdain.

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Here’s some info on some Lowell Walks I’ll be leading this fall:

Saturday, September 26 & Sunday, September 27, 2026, both at 10am – Walking tour of Lowell Cemetery. The tour takes 90 minutes and begins at the Lawrence Street entrance to the cemetery. It is free and requires no registration. The same tour is offered on both days.

Saturday, October 17, 2026, at 10am – “Secrets of Lowell Cemetery” tour which is part of the of the Poe in Lowell Festival. Edgar Allan Poe came to Lowell at least three times to lecture but also to spend time with a female friend who is buried in Lowell Cemetery. Learn their story and the stories of others involved in their orbit. This tour is free and begins at the Knapp Avenue entrance of the cemetery (77 Knapp Avenue).

For Edith Nourse Rogers

A poem to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Edith Nourse Rogers on September 10, 1960. Rogers represented Lowell in Congress for 35 years. 

For Edith Nourse Rogers

By Suzanne Beebe

Memorial Day in 1950s Lowell — with
Color guards, and marching bands, and U.S
Military men and vehicles, and
Lowell firefighters and police, and
High school regiment of boys led
By their peers, and girl officers
In units all their own, resplendent in navy
Blue with bright buttons of gold, their pleated
Skirts fitted to tiny waists, their shirts
Ironed and long-sleeved, faux swords at rest
On prim shoulders, the whole parade streaming
Up festive crowded streets to City Hall.

But somewhere down the road a hush falls,
An open car approaches, she sits in front,
Near-regal, smiling, white-haired, waving as
Applause breaks out, the gathered crowd’s esteem
(no! reverence!) palpable as she
Rides by, then stops at the reviewing stand
To exit, climb the steps, field greetings from
The dignitaries, and remain to grace
The grand parade, the day, the living and
The dead with quiet presence manifest
Through years of public service exercised
With dogged persistence and generosity
Of care for others. (Not to be denied!)

She sought office when her husband died,
A common tale back then for women sent
To Congress by voters grateful for a husband’s
Service and convinced a wife would follow
Faithfully in purpose, style, and substance,
Taking on the mantle of a life
Lived within the public gaze, the push
And pull of public conflict and opinion,
With selfless goals and values always threatened
By self-interest, the lure of profit,
Self-aggrandizement and power — resisted, it seems
By her and her beloved John Rogers.

She followed in his footsteps, yes, but she
Was more than capable of forging her own
Path, as years of legislation would show.
Drawn early to the plight of shattered soldiers
Encountered in the field hospitals
Of the first world war, she made
The veteran’s welfare an abiding goal
For life, becoming mother to the GI
Bill of Rights and forging paths to homes,
Jobs, and schooling — above all, medical care —
For those who’d borne the brunt of battle
And paid the price in lives changed forever.

Angel of Walter Reed Hospital,
Exponent of the Women’s Army Corps,
Relentless force behind establishment of
Veterans’ hospitals, recipient of
Their Distinguished Service Cross, champion
Of Nazi Germany’s exiled Jewish children,
She led with her heart and followed through with drive,
Persistence, and know-how sprung from deep concern.
Loved by the people she served, she served for many
Years, returning time and again to be
What every public servant is called to be:
Courageous, caring, conscience-fueled, and free.

© 2018, 2026 Suzanne Beebe

9-11 on richardhowe.com

In recognition of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, here are some items on those events that have appeared on this website:

Notes from September 11, 2001

By Richard Howe (on Sept 11, 2011)

Within days of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, I sat down with a pencil and a yellow legal pad and made some notes about what had happened. Here’s what I wrote in the days after 9-11:

When Franklin Roosevelt spoke to the country after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he said that December 7, 1941, was a day that would live in infamy. September 11, 2001, became such a day when terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing two of them into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon, killing more than 5000 innocent civilians.

The story is well known. At 8:48 a.m. last Tuesday, an American Airlines 757 that had left Boston bound for LA smashed into the upper floors of one of the two towers of New York City’s World Trade Center. Eighteen minutes later, while the world was watching on live TV, a United Airlines 757 smashed into the second tower. About an hour later, an American flight from Dulles Airport to California crashed into the Pentagon. The fourth hijacked plane took off from Newark, flew almost to Ohio, then turned back on a course towards Washington, DC. That plane crashed in an open field near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The investigation has thus far identified nineteen hijackers, all from the Middle East. In teams of four or five, they boarded these planes armed with knives, razor blade box cutters and, perhaps, explosives. Much of what we know about what happened on these planes came from passengers on the planes who used cell phones to call people on the ground. Many of these conversations, related by relatives, were heart-wrenching, with last goodbyes and admonitions to take care of the kids.

But the calls also painted pictures of what happened on the planes with people being stabbed. By the time the Newark flight was taken, the whole country realized this was a massive terrorist attack. The cell phone calls from that plane brought the passengers the news that their captors were on a suicide mission. At least three passengers said they were about to try to retake the plane. Whatever happened – a deliberate crash, a bomb, or just a loss of control – the passengers on that plane are viewed as heroes, because that aircraft’s target was undoubtedly the White House, the Capitol, or some other such building.

The other heroes on this sad day were the firefighters and police in New York City, more than 400 of whom died. Here is what happened: The terrorists had planned well. They took over planes on cross-country flights early in their journeys when they were still full of highly flammable jet fuel on a Tuesday, statistically the slowest day for air travel, with fewer passengers to control. So when the planes hit the World Trade Center, each created an immense fireball of burning jet fuel. Photographs show dozens of people in proximity to the flames dangling from windows. More gruesome pictures freeze people in midair as they plummet to certain death one hundred floors below. At least one fireman was killed when such a person landed atop of him. In such desperate circumstances, hundreds of firefighters streamed into the building, laboriously climbing the stairs as thousands of the buildings’ occupants passed them as they evacuated down the stairs.

Then, about an hour after the first plane struck, one of the towers collapsed. The already weakened structure could not withstand the incredible heat of the fire, and the upper floors suddenly plunged downward, creating a chain reaction until there was nothing left but a pile of rubble and a huge cloud of dust – and thousands of dead buried within the rubble. Just eight minutes later this unbelievable scene was repeated as the second tower followed the first, straight into the ground.

Only a dozen have been rescued and there is little hope for anymore. The death toll won’t be final for weeks. More than 5000 are missing including 300 firefighters, 50 police officers and the passengers on the two planes.

Compared to the World Trade Center, the casualties at the Pentagon were relatively light: Had the Pentagon happened on its own, we would have judged it to be a devastating attack. The death toll there, including those on the plane, was about 180.

Here in Lowell, the weather on September 11, 2001, was absolutely beautiful. The sky was a cloudless blue and the temperature was comfortably warm. I had walked from the courthouse down to Kearney Square for a meeting. Someone said they thought there had been an accident involving a plane and the World Trade Center. We found a TV and saw a video replay of the second plane striking the second tower shortly after it had happened in real time. Though the second plane made it apparent that none of this was accidental, it was still impossible to comprehend: Even though I had seen the video of the plane crashing into the building, I assumed it was a small private jet because after all, we had security at our airports and commercial jetliners just did not get hijacked anymore.

I walked rapidly back to the Courthouse and turned on a portable radio. The court officers had tuned the TV in the jury room to a news channel. Many of us sat there watching as the towers came crashing down on live TV. After the attack, our internet service went down, I assume from overuse of the network. At noon, Governor Jane Swift ordered that all state buildings be closed. At 12:30 pm I went home and spent the rest of the day watching CNN.

Because two of the planes had left from Boston, the Greater Lowell community was touched by loss – Ogonowski, Quigley, Kinney, were just some of the names of those who perished. A special mass was held at St. Louis church and community vigils took place at JFK Plaza and Boarding House Park. Everyone was flying the flag, but whether the average American is willing to make the sacrifices necessary to successfully respond to this attack is still an open question.

September 11

By Steve O’Connor (on Sept 11, 2008)

Seven years ago today, I was teaching a class at Greater Lowell Tech as a few hundred miles south of us, men guided hijacked planes full of innocent people toward targets full of innocent people. When the bell rang and I emerged from my class, Bob Dick, another teacher, was standing by my door. “Do you know what’s happening?”

“What do you mean?”

“The United States is under attack.”

His look told me that he was in earnest, and I knew that those were words he would never speak in jest. He explained quickly what had happened so far, jetliners full of fuel had slammed into the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon; other hijacked planes were unaccounted for. Someone said there was a television on in the cafeteria. I had the next period off, so I ran to the cafeteria. Students and teachers sat transfixed, watching black columns of smoke rising miles into the sky above the burning towers. The camera panned in to show people leaning far out of the upper windows, driven to those dizzying perches by the scorching heat within. The camera pulled back while the stunned commentators tried to make sense of what was happening, and then, before our eyes, the South Tower crumbled into a pillar of cloud.

If you were alive in 2001, I don’t need to remind you of all of this. As Americans, as human beings, the scenes of destruction and grief are etched in our memories. Beyond that, there was the way that that day touched so many of us individually. I saw a young colleague in tears. Her brother worked in the Pentagon, and she had not heard from him. The husband of another had been scheduled to be on American Airlines Flight 11. The day before, his boss had decided to send someone else. The following Sunday, I went to play with the over 40 soccer team from Pepperell against Nashua. Before the game, both teams gathered in a circle at the center of the field for a moment of silence. The brother of one of the Nashua players had died on one of the hijacked planes. My wife told me that a young man who worked at the gas station on the corner of Fletcher and Pawtucket had also been killed. He used to say hello to her every morning as she walked to her classes at the university. On September 12th, as I entered Greater Lowell Tech, I saw school custodian and former Dracut selectman Doug Willet, lowering the flag to half mast. There were tears in his eyes. He had been a personal friend of pilot John Ogonowski.

My sister in law, Maria Elena Ortiz, had a nephew named Danny Correa. He was born in Colombia, but came to this country as a child, and grew up in Union City, New Jersey. At the age of 25, he had realized the American dream. He was near completion of a degree in Accounting earned while working as a manger in a Loews Theater in Secaucus. He applied for a job in the accounting department of an insurance firm, and was hired. His office was on the 98th floor of the World Trade Center. “It’s like working in the clouds,” he told his aunt, “I feel like I’m in heaven.”

His father dropped him at the PATH train station at 7:45 AM that Tuesday morning. Several hours later, his father and mother were wandering the streets of New York, checking the armory, Red Cross stations, hospitals, one of an army of helpless people searching for loved ones. But like so many of those whose destiny it was to be in the towers that day, Danny Correa was never seen again. His mother Marina fell gravely ill and spent some time in the hospital. The inexplicable tragedy of that day eventually tore her marriage asunder.

Danny Correa had formed a garage band called Lucid A. He played guitar, drums, keyboards and horns. He was also the band’s songwriter and lyricist. In a song called “London Kills Me,” the young immigrant had written, “London kills me in the morn. New York saves me by the dawn.” He had become a true New Yorker. Looking out from his office window on the 98th floor of the World Trade Center, he wrote to a friend, “I dance in the clouds, and soak in the haze.”

They say that the hijackers who murdered thousands that day believed they would go to heaven. I don’t think so, but as for Danny Correa, he was already there.

9/11 at Home

By Paul Marion (on Sept 10, 2016)

I waited a long time before writing about 9/11, not because I didn’t want to but because I could not find the right words. I had composed a short, oblique poem called “The Cut” that delved into the way Nature tends to heal itself when it can, the way tree bark will close up over a lost limb. There was nothing specific about 9/11 there, however, I was trying to get at the idea of loss and recovery, wound and scar. A few years later, after reading my friend Jack Neary’s tribute to his high-school friend John Ogonowski, I found a way forward. It was the Dracut connection. I didn’t know John, but I had gone to school with members of his extended family. I knew the landscape, the culture of the town we shared. We had graduated from the same college. For those of us who live in eastern Massachusetts, the brutal attack on the planes that day was searingly real. Many of us knew somebody who was killed. These were our people. Of all the projects I worked on during my time on the UMass Lowell staff, the 9/11 memorial on campus may be the one that means the most to me. The original idea and specific design came from students, and with people on campus working together we got it built in a timely way. I was glad the university yesterday re-dedicated the sculptural tribute called Unity on the East Campus along the River Walk. After several attempts, a few years ago I completed a prose poem or sketch that is an elegy for John Ogonowski, not the conventional elegy form but one where form followed content.—PM

On a rise on the southern bank just below the rocky grill of the riverbed, students at his college carved into stone his name and those of six others to remember John, who grew up to be a pilot and a farmer, who shared his land with Asian refugees who had resettled in the inner precincts of Lowell and who wanted to grow vegetables as they did in Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, places from which John had flown home hurt soldiers in the closing years of the war in Southeast Asia,

John the preservationist, who protected open space in his town whose English name is Dracut, from the 1600s, called Agumtoocooke for ages by native people for its vast forest, John, who on September 11, 2001, lifted his passengers into a “severe clear” sky, nothing but blue on the route west, John, who guided American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston’s Logan Airport, where so many of us have flown away with faith in the promise of technology, management, and civilized behavior,

John, who carried his travelers into boundless air on a day when he had as usual driven in early from Marsh Hill in Dracut to captain his plane across country, that day like any other in the late summer, not officially fall even though schools were in session, that day like no other by the end of the morning, by the end of the paper rain and ash-cloud, by the end of the twisted steel and burnt ground, by the end of John’s life,

on that day from which we have not fully recovered the bounce that had always made people elsewhere admire our sure belief that Americans could figure out a problem and invent the next dazzle, a day that moved John’s neighbors and even strangers who had never heard of him to drive slowly up the winding hill road that leads to his farm, where they heaped flowers, hand-made signs, candles, and sympathy cards in front of the wide white gate leading to the farm, piled high the cut flowers, placed in silence,

and past the white gate up the driveway a giant crane held an American flag as big as the flag that covers the left field wall at Fenway Park on opening day, and past the crane and flag was the farmhouse of John’s family, his wife and daughters, who needed him to come back so he would sit next to them at the table in the house one more time.