Magnesium Nights and Hummingbird Mornings (Isolation Scenes III) By Doug Sparks One: Landlines On Thursday night, I got a call from my mother’s assisted living facility. She is running a fever, I was told. They are testing her, again. My mom has had dementia for over a decade. When it…
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Ill Wind by Jacquelyn Malone The wind whines wild and compulsive, spreading instability across the land. Shamelessly it contradicts itself, whipping—demented—in one direction, then reversing itself along an already trashed path. No one can forecast a steady state: the wind, a pompous blowhard, has no firm compass, diving into low…
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“Flowers for Heroes: North Bank of the Merrimack,” a new colored drawing by Richard Marion from a sketch made while walking near Bridge Street in the Centralville neighborhood (April 2020).
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Historian Paul Hudon sent us the latest from his Diary in the Time of Coronavirus. This week he invites readers into his room overlooking Pawtucket Falls on the Merrimack River. Diary in the Time of Coronavirus By Paul Hudon *26 April, 2020 Lord Manor, where I write this, sits on…
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(web photo courtesy of juneautours) Glacier by Tom Sexton We stood on the deck of a ferry at dawn fifty years ago and felt the cold breath of a glacier that was mirrored in the icy water. Harbor seals disappeared as we approached. When the air…
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Malcolm Sharps is a writer living in Hungary. His account of leaving England is familiar to anyone who has lived in an industrial city whose economy has been upended, something that people living in Lowell experienced during the 20th century. This is Malcolm’s second appearance on RichardHowe.com. The Leaving of…
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On the Thirtieth Day of Isolation (Covid-19) Marie Louise St. Onge Just over four weeks now, no store no pharmacy no haircut no meetings no movies no museum no protests no handshakes no hugs no gym simply solo walks along the shore. Respite indeed when I pull in…
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Jack McDonough, a returning contributor to our blog, lives in Tewksbury, Mass. His writing is included in the anthology of the first ten years of RichardHowe.com, HISTORY AS IT HAPPENS: CITIZEN BLOGGERS IN LOWELL, MASS. (Loom Press, 2017). For many years he wrote and edited publications in the UMass Lowell…
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This is the second week of “virus” diary entries by Paul Hudon of Lowell, scholar and teacher and keen observer of the locale and wider world. He is the author of The Valley & Its People: An Illustrated History of the Lower Merrimack and All in Good Time, a book…
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