Author Archive

FRENCH CANADIANS – GOOD AMERICANS – (PIP #44) By Raoul H. Beaudreau      L’Etoile published in French from 1886 to 1957 with English popping up occasionally, in advertisements for example. The following reader’s letter appeared in English and was later reprinted all over New England. Here is the original, with…

Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting was largely uneventful, which is often the case these days. “Uneventful” is not necessarily a bad thing for a city council meeting to be. Functioning properly, the city council is supposed to develop a strategic vision for the city, communicate that vision to the city…

Did Poe Transform History? By David Daniel Among the themes that recur in the work of Edgar Allan Poe —madness, the death of a beautiful woman, the doppelgänger, the idea of the perverse—one of most insistent is revenge. Noodling on the Internet recently, thinking ahead to the upcoming Poe in…

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…

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…

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,…

Ballots for those who will vote by mail are beginning to arrive at the homes of Lowell residents this week. Besides all the elected offices, there are also five referendum questions on this ballot. They haven’t received a lot of attention so I’ll start with a quick synopsis of each:…

My Back Pages and Dermot’s Theory By Stephen O’Connor In the winter of 1985, I was 29 years old. The snows melted away, and so did my time in that golden decade. As I approached my thirtieth birthday, people said to me, “So, how does it feel? The big 3-0…

Dropped Baby By David Daniel If you were around forty years ago you may remember the story.   A fire in a triple-decker tenement in Lowell, Massachusetts, on a December night so cold that the hydrants froze and firefighters had to use blow torches to open them. It was all…

Lowell celebrated Keraouc’s future friend – (PIP #42) By Louise Peloquin      An October gathering of Kerouac’s friends and admirers would definitely have included Fr. Armand Morrissette, O.M.I. (1910-1991) who recognized in adolescent Jack a talent which would become no less than stellar. “Father Spike” championed Jack even into eternity when,…