Author Archive

Pandemic Glossary

Terms commonly used during 2020 Covid-19 Pandemic Aerosol – virus particles emitted by an infected individual that are small enough to be suspended in the air for an extended period of time which may infect others. AstraZeneca – A drug company that teamed with Oxford University to create a Covid-19…

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Book Review: The Rise of the GI Army, 1940-41

Paul Dickson’s 2020 book, The Rise of the G.I. Army, 1940-1941, has the subtitle “The forgotten story of how America forged a powerful Army before Pearl Harbor.” Forgotten indeed! I found the story in this book startling, although I should not have. Like many others, I just assumed that on…

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Boarding School Blues, chapter 2

  Boarding School Blues is a fictionalized story by Louise Peloquin of life at a Catholic high school in 1960s New England. The full story will be presented in regular installments over the next few months with one chapter appearing every other week. Boarding School Blues, chapter 2 Facing the inevitable…

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Proposed City Council Districts

The city of Lowell has released map showing the eight proposed districts that will each elect a City Councilor in the November 2021 city election (NOTE: An earlier version of this post referred to the preliminary map shown below which has since been superseded by this map which changed the…

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The Christmas Fruitcake

The Christmas Fruitcake: An Ageless Tradition By 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 years.…

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Christmas Entertainment

Here are some audios and videos for your holiday enjoyment. First, a couple of songs written (lyrics and music) by Charlie Gargiulo. Both are sung by Patti Sardella and produced by Elliott Jacobowitz. Next we have an old favorite from 2012, Lowell recites “A Visit from St. Nicholas.” Finally, there’s…

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Oranges at Christmas

Here is another of our Christmas classics: Paul Marion’s “Oranges at Christmas.”  Oranges at Christmas By Paul Marion This week, my wife, Rosemary, bought a bag of small navel oranges at Market Basket, the first of these babies for the season. When I opened the plastic bag the twelve baseball-sized…

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Can We Honor a Native Son?

This essay was initially published in The Lowell Sun on December 14, 2020.  Can We Honor A Native Son? By Suzanne Beebe              Jack Kerouac is a world-renowned writer. He opened new avenues for American writers of the 20th century. He was central to the Beat Movement of the 1950s…

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