Author Archive

The Lowell City Council held a special meeting on Tuesday to consider the city’s FY2025 budget. Although the meeting lasted more than three hours, the council mostly just ratified the budget proposed by City Manager Tom Golden. In a way, this meeting was a legal formality since two things that…

Lowell resident Belinda Juran compiles an incredibly email newsletter that she distributes to subscribers every couple of weeks. The newsletter lists dozens and dozens of events and activites in Lowell and serves as an excellent community calendar. Belinda graciously granted me permission to repost her newsletter here on richardhowe.com to…

Today is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, the invasion of Normandy by the Allies. More than 2,500 Americans were killed that day, June 6, 1944, including several from Lowell. In the months that followed during the fight across France, many more were killed. Here are the stories of some of…

“Voilà my solution” – (PIP #34) By Louise Peloquin Over the last two weeks, our peeks into the past have presented local stories covering life journey episodes. (1)  This one deals with the most time-consuming of all – work. The text, perhaps a foreign news agency dispatch, offers a humorous twist on…

A pair of recent Lowell Sun articles on the Lowell Planning Board’s review of the city’s proposed master plan update grabbed my attention so that topic will be the focus of today’s newsletter. (There was a City Council meeting Tuesday night, but it was conveniently uneventful.) The Lowell Planning Board,…

Philosophy and the Insect By Stephen O’Connor  As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.      –Shakespeare My father was a religious man, a devout Catholic who got down on his knees every night to pray. Though he regarded Catholic theology as the…

“Who wants to sell a day in June?” – (PIP #33) By Louise Peloquin Love’s gentle spring doth always fresh remain. Shakespeare’s verse comes to mind when perusing the following 67-year-old news items. Accounts about young couples celebrating upcoming spring  weddings and babies welcomed into the world never grow old. Ever…

It’s budget time for the city of Lowell. At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, City Manager Tom Golden presented his proposed FY2025 budget to Councilors. Other than a brief statement by Golden, there was no discussion on the budget. That will occur on Tuesday, June 4, 2024, at 6 pm at…

This article originally appeared on this website on November 10, 2022, in recognition of the fortieth anniversary of the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. I’m reposting it today in honor of Memorial Day 2024.  1965 September 1, 1965 – PFC Donald L. Arcand 19 years old.…

Pet Soundings A Music Essay by David Daniel Let me confess right up front. When the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album dropped fifty-eight years ago this month I was one of the naysayers. In the early and mid-1960s you bought albums (such an exotic concept today!) based upon the appeal…