Author Archive

Living Madly: Harvest Home By Emilie-Noelle Provost *This essay is dedicated to my sister Morgan who loves fairs so much she got married on the Ferris wheel at the Franklin Country Fair in Greenfield. **** When I was very young, my family used to go to the Marshfield Fair every…

Portraits Along the Way: 1976-2024 by Paul Marion. Reviewed by Richard Howe For more than a dozen years I’ve been leading tours of historic Lowell Cemetery. If it’s not raining, we average 80 to 100 people on each tour with many return visitors. Although Lowell Cemetery is a beautiful place,…

The Lowell City Council met last Tuesday. The end of the agenda showed an executive session “to consider and discuss ongoing negotiations relative to Lupoli Companies LLC, public discussion of which could have a detrimental effect on the city’s position.” This would be the second executive session within a month…

On the Sunday night of Labor Day weekend, we found ourselves in a veterinary emergency room with Zoe, our 3-year-old labradoodle. All is well but the circumstances of our visit are worth sharing, so consider this a public service announcement. Here’s what happened: Sunday, September 1, 2024, was a beautiful…

Preparing for a Pandemic By Richard Howe (on September 3, 2009) For many years at the registry of deeds I wrote daily blog entries on real estate matters. But doing that daily is a difficult chore so often I would write about other things, especially world events that somehow affected…

Frequent contributor Steve O’Connor wrote the following essay in 2008 on the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. It seems appropriate to post it here once again: On September 11, 2001, I was teaching a class at Greater Lowell Tech as a few hundred miles south of us, men guided…

Worse? – (PIP #40) By Louise Peloquin      Delineating the role of the State in public health issues has fueled debate for decades. L’Etoile April 2, 1957 Statism worse than fluoridation Some time ago, while the battle about fluoridation was in full swing, a Chicago professional wrote to the Richmond…

No Lowell City Council meeting this week. Election Results – 18th Middlesex Congratulations to Tara Hong on his victory in the Democratic Primary for the 18th Middlesex District State Representative race. Hong defeated incumbent Rady Mom who has held office since 2015. Here are the results: Tara Hong – 1195…

Olympic Withdrawal By Richard Howe Is anyone else experiencing Olympic withdrawal? It’s the feeling that something is missing in your daily entertainment diet. I am, and the August swoon of the Red Sox and the rebuilding woes of the Patriots aren’t easing the loss. I’ve only ever been a casual…

I’ve updated the Elections Page of this site to reflect the preliminary numbers from yesterday’s Democratic Primary. There were two contested races in Lowell. In the 18th Middlesex State Representative District, Tara Hong defeated incumbent Rady Mom. In the Northern Middlesex Register of Deeds race, Karen Cassella defeated Sokhary Chau…