Over the next few weeks I will write about the Lowell City Council elections that took place between 1943 and 1965. The former date is the first election held after the city adopted the Plan E form of government; the second date is the first year covered by my Lowell…
From Paul Marion, a co-editor of The Lowell Review: Readers will notice something new in the left column on the main page of RichardHowe.com, an image of the cover of issue #1 of The Lowell Review, a literary magazine that we have spun off this blog. In the tradition of American literary magazines, The…
Class Lecture By Mark Cote I began my lecture the other night by telling my students that neither the future nor god exist. Seemed the right thing to do. The time had come to stop pretending everything was ok. The Capitol had been breached for the love of God! All…
Boarding School Blues By Louise Peloquin Ch. 15: In the Night Blanche’s vision sharpened that October Saturday. People she thought she knew by heart were no longer what-you-see-is-what-you-get. Her mother, for instance, was always in control and made lemonade out of life’s lemons. But seeing her mute and compliant with…
Last Sunday, June 27, 2021, several hundred people from across the region gathered on Market Street at the Western Canal to witness the dedication of the Philip L. Shea Bridge. The cement and steel structure that was totally rebuilt in 2019 now bears the name of the only individual to…
Stumbling Upon The Town and the City By Mike McCormick One Sunday in late April, I wandered with my friend Matt as he pointed out his favorite businesses in an upscale shopping district on Bainbridge Island, a thirty-minute ferry ride west of Seattle. As we sauntered, I remembered days during…
A Man You Don’t Meet Every Day By Stephen O’Connor “I never heard a singer as good as Liam, ever. He was the best ballad singer I ever heard in my life, and still is.” —Bob Dylan, 1986 Somewhere around 1982, not long after the noon hour on a Saturday,…
Derwin at the End of a Scribble By David Daniel He almost always came to class (maybe only because it was a place to be). He always sat in the back of the room, always with a fine-point Sharpie in hand in perpetual motion. Sometimes I would call on him:…
More than 34,000 Lowell residents voted in the November 4, 1942, state election. Besides selecting state officers and local representatives, the people of Lowell also chose by a margin of 16,477 to 14,135 to replace the existing Plan B form of government (a strong mayor and city councilors both elected…
This post originally ran on March 12, 2021, but it’s being repeated here as a reminder of the approaching contest deadline. ATLANTIC CURRENTS II Enter Your Original Writing—Compete for Cash Prizes Attention, writers! Alumni and students of UMass Lowell and University College Cork are invited to submit original prose…