“Operation Duke” – 1966 in Vietnam By Dean Contover It was 3:00 a.m. in Qui Nhon, Vietnam when we were awakened by the staff sergeant to go to the mess hall for breakfast and to be briefed. One hundred and eighty-seven engineers were hand-picked for this operation which was to…
Madame la Première Ministre By Louise Peloquin On May 16th, Emmanuel Macron named Élisabeth Borne Prime Minister. In 1991, under François Mitterrand, Édith Cresson was the first woman to hold the job. The Élysée Palace put out a late afternoon communiqué: “this is the choice of competence at the service…
Redemption By Babz Clough The Massachusetts Correctional Institute (MCI) at Norfolk was built by the inmates in the 1920s as a community-based prison in what was then rural Massachusetts. The prisoners learned how to lay bricks, how to weld, and how to plumb the buildings. They planted the gardens and…
The Old(ish) Ballgame By Jack Neary Lowell native and baseball nut Jack Neary is a playwright, director, and actor. His plays have been produced worldwide, and he has appeared in the films THE TOWN and BLACK MASS. His website is jacknearyonline.com. I stood at home plate at Shedd Park, in…
Living Madly – Kairos By Emilie-Noelle Provost The ancient Greeks had two words for time. The first, chronos, refers to sequential measured time: minutes, hours, days, years. It’s the root of English words like synchronous and chronological, and the perception of time we most commonly use and understand. Lately, I’ve…
Boarding School Blues: Chapter 36 By Louise Peloquin Chapter 36: Good vibes A long frantic day was winding down. By the time Blanche finished apologizing to her teachers for skipping class, evening had fallen. Loud grumbling reminded her that an empty tummy had been ignored for too long. When the…
The Clay Pit Cemetery, also known as Claypit, is lies between the Pawtucket Boulevard and Varnum Ave in Lowell’s Pawtucketville neighborhood. To better fix its location, the cemetery is east of the new Market Basket, north of the bowling alley (once Brunswick Lanes), west of Townsend Ave, and south of…
Saturday’s The Lowell Review launch event at lala books reminded me that a bookstore is a great gathering place and an integral part of the life of a community. We’re fortunate to have lala books and another newly opened bookstore in Mill No. 5 called Lowell Book Company. We also…
French President-elect Emmanuel Macron pledges: “to act”, “to serve” By Louise Peloquin To follow up on my April 25th post, “The French Election: Sound bites from the front row”, here are some excerpts from Emmanuel Macron’s second investiture speech. [note 1]. The ten-minute oration, broadcast live, was delivered on Saturday…