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Little John and the Sherwoods Rocked the House By Paul Marion “. . . the most exciting and memorable days of my teenage years . . . .”—David Arsenault When “Light My Fire” was number one nationwide in August 1967, the Summer of Love, the Doors played the Commodore Ballroom,…
Read More »Orchardist and artist Linda Hoffman writes about fruit in this post from her blog on May 31. Blueberries on the way. And here’s her latest post from June 7 about the way water moves on Old Frog Pond Farm in Harvard, Mass. Early Morning Pond View, 2020, watercolor (Linda…
Read More »Haverhill Student Protests/CSN&Y (1970) By Mike McCormick My mind swirled as I drove to Haverhill High School one early May morning in 1970. The day before, a group of classmates had begun protesting President Nixon’s April 30 decision to expand the Vietnam War into Cambodia. Another set of classmates, including…
Read More »The Over-the-Hill Soccer League (2005) By Stephen O’Connor On Sunday morning, August 28th, some three thousand-five hundred soccer players, ranging in age from 30 to 70 kicked off the Fall 2005 season of The New England Over-the-Hill Soccer League. The men make up one hundred and ninety-six soccer teams from…
Read More »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 »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 »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 »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 »Stephen O’Connor’s new novel is This Is No Time to Quit Drinking: Teacher Burnout and the Irish Powers. A House in Carlisle by Stephen O’Connor I’ve often asked myself if I am envious of those who can afford to live in Carlisle, or if it is a better place to…
Read More »When the Most Famous Woman in America Lived in the Merrimack Valley By Juliet Haines Mofford At the height of her fame and literary skill Harriet Beecher Stowe was an Andover, Mass., resident. Averaging a book a year for nearly 30 years, she wrote nine during the dozen years she…
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