At Land’s End with Jack Kerouac By Jim Provencher After all that road-going, coasting into Frisco was always an arrival of respite and relief for Jack Kerouac, shaking off desert dust, bathing in thick ocean fogs, luxuriating in the warm, boisterous scenes of Chinatown, North Beach, Berkeley and Russian Hill. …
Boarding School Blues: Chapter 32 By Louise Peloquin Ch. 32: Mnemonic Device The weeks after Thanksgiving flowed with relative calm while the student body settled into a routine structured by SFA rules and regulations. As the novelty of boarding school had worn off, spells of boredom set in. In an…
Some news from DIY Lowell: The DIY Lowell Advisory Committee selected downtown resident Jack Moynihan and the Lowell Litter Krewe among more than a dozen nominees for its annual awards to be given at the fourth annual “Community Chill Night Chili and Stew Contest,” on March 25, 2022. The event…
Earlier this week the Boston Globe reported that the U.S. Department of the Interior is providing funds to restore the historic monument on Dorchester Heights. (“Dorchester Heights monument in South Boston to undergo multi-million dollar restoration”). The monument commemorates the action by the colonial army under the command of George…
Living Madly – Eulogy for a Sugar Maple By Emilie-Noelle Provost Ten years ago when we moved into our house, one of the things we liked most about the yard was the large sugar maple tree growing beside the driveway. I could tell the tree was old by the thick,…
Back in the late 1980s, Lowell had its first St. Patrick’s Day breakfast which immediately became the signature political event of the year. Modeled on the much longer running South Boston St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, the Lowell version took place in the downtown Hilton Hotel (today’s UMass Lowell Inn &…
Just in time for St. Patrick’s Day! Two hundred years ago Hugh Cummiskey, an Irish immigrant living in Charlestown, Massachusetts, led a group of his countrymen on a 30 mile walk along the Middlesex Canal to the sparsely settled farming community of East Chelmsford. Cummiskey had heard that a group…
Coffee Shop Musings #8 By Bob Hodge Three pieces and a song from Bob Hodge. The Boy’s Club I must have been around eight, nine or ten when I first started going to the Lowell Boy’s Club on Dutton Street by the Haffner’s gas station with the kicking mule logo…
The 2022 edition of The Lowell Review is available for purchase on the Lulu.com print-on-demand publishing website. With contributions from across the United States plus Ireland, Morocco, Hungary, and the U.K., The Lowell Review 2022 contains writing and poetry about the pandemic, politics and other contemporary topics but also has…
Le Hibou Gregory F. DeLaurier It’s a hot summer day in 1966 and we’re on the road again. Bryan is driving his Dad’s Chrysler, The Rolling Stones’ ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’ is blasting from the radio. We are young, happy and excited, laughing at silly jokes, talking about girls.…