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The Christmas Fruitcake: An Ageless Traditionby Henri Marchand A note from the author: Like its subject this essay has been around, appearing first as a Sunrise radio essay on WUML-FM, re-wrapped as a “Guest Column” piece in the Sun newspaper, and showing up on this blog for the past few…
Read More »Recollections of Noël By Louise Peloquin When the priest at Notre Dame de Lourdes church * put on violet vestments on the first Sunday of Advent, Noël was on the horizon. My family attended French Mass which always included traditional hymns from Québec and France. Our Advent favorite was: “Venez…
Read More »Crawdaddy Remembers A 1953 Christmas Encounter With the Drifters By Bill Crawford My dad yanked me in hard out of the cold. It was mid-December 1953, and the black Gotham City skies were spitting down snow flurries. We were waiting to rendezvous with my mom who left us for a…
Read More »A Perfect Day By Malcolm Sharps Malcolm Sharps recalls a day in London in the seemingly much safer world of forty years ago: My girlfriend was from Brazil. Or rather, to me, she wasn’t just from Brazil, she was Brazil, the embodiment of the country, she was bossa nova, she…
Read More »Boarding School Blues: Chapter 26 By Louise Peloquin Ch. 26: Bon appétit! Gargantuan appetites wiped out the feast Tante Lucie had spent days preparing. Blanche watched spellbound as the ovenware plates were filled, cleaned, refilled and cleaned again. The sight of loaded forkfuls so quickly devoured made her feel a…
Read More »Today we venture into the field of International Relations, a rare topic for this site. The prompt for writing is the departure of Angela Merkel from the office of Chancellor of Germany, a position she held for the past 16 years. As I’ve written previously, I have an interest in…
Read More »Belinda Juran, a Lowell Walks veteran and active community member occasionally sends emails to her contacts with information about what’s going on in the city. Today’s version was so chock full of great holiday ideas, that I asked permission to repost it here. WCAP Salvation Army radiothon – Every year,…
Read More »Take Flight By Melissa Contover “Bienvenue a bord mesdames et messieurs” the flight attendant announces over the planes intercom making me feel as if we were already in France. Thank god I retained something, anything, from my French classes which I had taken ever since seventh grade. I could finally…
Read More »The following was first posted on December 7, 2017. U.S. Navy photograph of battleship Arizona sinking after being hit by Japanese air attack on Dec. 7, 1941. National Archives photo. Today is the anniversary of the surprise attack by the Japanese navy on Pearl Harbor. By the time the attack…
Read More »Governor Charlie Baker’s announcement this week that he will not seek reelection to a third term as the governor of the Commonwealth will make the 2022 state election especially interesting. With that in mind, here is a synopsis of each gubernatorial race from 1970 until now. 1970 Governor – Francis…
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