Author Archive

The Lowell City Council met on Tuesday night. What seemed like an innocuous item on the agenda, a vote to accept the draft 2024-2028 Lowell Housing and Housing Production Plan, generated considerable discussion. In his transmission letter to the council, City Manager Tom Golden explained the purpose of the plan:…

Next Tuesday, June 17, 2025, is the bicentennial of the Battle of Bunker Hill, the decisive Revolutionary War fight that took place 30 miles south of here. In honor of this 250th anniversary, I am reposting a story I’ve published several times, followed by another past blog post about those…

The Pleasure and the Sadness of “Owning the Libs”  By Rev. Steve Edington This editorial was originally published in the Saturday/Sunday—June 7-8, 2025 —edition of the New Hampshire Union Leader **** While doing some mall shopping recently I noticed someone wearing a sweatshirt that read “Make a Liberal Cry.” That…

Field Day By Leo Racicot I remember with great clarity, even though it was over fifty years ago, Lowell High School’s Field Day, May, 1968. I don’t know if schools still schedule field days. These were planned festivities in celebration of the end of the school year, usually organized by the…

BAItter Books for a Brave New World By Stephen O’Connor The future of literature in the age of AI could go several ways. Here, the author, utilizing only three pounds of gray matter, eighty percent of which is water and five percent, beer, encased in an admittedly thick skull, imagines…

This coming Thursday, June 12, 2025, at 6 pm at Luna Theater at the Lowell Community Charter Public School on Jackson Street (in the former Mill No. 5), there will be a reading of the famed speech by abolitionist Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852 on the topic, “What to…

The Lowell City Council commenced its summer schedule this week which means there was no meeting last Tuesday. From now through September the council will meet on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month. On these “no meeting” weeks, I will instead write about Lowell history both to provide…

POSTPONED! By Terry Downes Leaden skies sweep o’er the field To wetter nature game may yield The faithful gathered here today May well not see nine innings play. The first ups go without a hitch No long delays between each pitch The rhythm fast as hurlers try To play the…

In honor of today’s anniversary of D-Day, the 1944 invasion of Normandy, I have reposted this article I wrote in 2020.  The weather in Lowell was mostly sunny and warm on Monday, June 5, 1944. Across the Atlantic Ocean, things were quite different. In the English Channel, high winds caused…

Summertime in Lowell, 1960s By Leo Racicot See Leo’s photo gallery at the end of this article. Every year, when the month of June rolled around, our teachers would give us a Summer Reading List. This was a list of books to be read over the long vacation. Book reports…