Menu
Patriots Day, 1970 By Mike McCormick The sky threatened rain when Jim Laprel, Val Danos, and I headed to Boston in my 1966 red Datsun on Patriot’s Day, 1970. Our Haverhill High School track coach John Ottaviani had excused us from track practice so that we could run in a…
Read More »(please click image to enlarge)
Read More »Isolation Scenes II By Doug Sparks ON AN EARLY Saturday morning in April, I wake up to snowfall. The sight saddens me, because I know how many people are looking to the earth for some transcendent message that will help make sense of our current situation. And it saddens me…
Read More »April Snow by Chath Piersath Saturday morning snow Intense white and shouting birds In a swarm competing for seeds and warmth. The night—dream-shaped flight, Forced to dig my own grave Where death sleeps, Cold feet slow to warm, My bones frost bitten, Aches in all my joints, Spasmodic jumps,…
Read More »Lowell artist and teacher Richard Marion keeps a day-book or journal with observations about life in the city. Following is a recent excerpt describing a walk near the Concord and Merrimack rivers. from “A Corona Day-Book” by Richard Marion April 16, 2020 . . . At the First Street memorial…
Read More »Read More »
We are all hoping to get through to the other side of this virus crisis. We don’t know what the conditions will be. More than 16 million people have filed for unemployment benefits–the real number of jobless people is much higher. There is much pain and suffering ahead in terms…
Read More »Blood on the Tracks By John Wooding The world is hurting. Tens of thousands are sick and too many have died. We are confronting a catastrophe, and there are few causes for optimism. In all of this, however, there are some small sparks of hope, one of which is our…
Read More »Influenza 1918 by Jane Brox Writer Jane Brox grew up in Dracut on her family’s farm. Now living on the coast of Maine, she is the author of several books including Here and Nowhere Else: Late Seasons of a Farm and Its Family, Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light (a…
Read More »The False God of Dow by George Chigas At the height of Cambodia’s economic and military power during the Angkor Period (ninth to fifteenth centuries), when a drought or disease threatened the kingdom’s prosperity and security, the ruler, believed to be semi-divine, a deva-raja or god-king, would summon his high…
Read More »