History

Since the birth of this website in March 2007, I have posted for each year (except 2010 for some reason) a Year in Review article that tried to capture the most important local events of that year. For the coming week, I will repost each of these annual reports with…

Today we venture into the field of International Relations, a rare topic for this site. The prompt for writing is the departure of Angela Merkel from the office of Chancellor of Germany, a position she held for the past 16 years. As I’ve written previously, I have an interest in…

The following was first posted on December 7, 2017. U.S. Navy photograph of battleship Arizona sinking after being hit by Japanese air attack on Dec. 7, 1941. National Archives photo. Today is the anniversary of the surprise attack by the Japanese navy on Pearl Harbor. By the time the attack…

November Football Memories By Dean Contover The first Lowell High School game I attended was when I was a young boy living in New York City with my parents. In November 1958, my relative George Tsanezakos and his friends came down from Lowell to stay in our home. They were…

I delivered the following remarks on November 11, 2018, at the Greater Lowell Veterans Council Veterans Day ceremony at the Lowell Memorial Auditorium. The Lessons of History By Richard P. Howe Jr. Thirty-eight years ago this Wednesday – November 14, 1980 – I boarded a plane at New York’s JFK…

Dedication of Vietnam Memorial – November 1982 By Dean Contover We left Lowell, Massachusetts, on November 10, 1982, at about 6:30 p.m., headed for the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans monument in Washington, D.C. We decided to stop overnight in Atlantic City and then go on to Washington the next…

“I Hear You Lima Charlie—How Me?”:  A Radio Transmission From The Jungle War By Bill Crawford The electric crescendo overhead went strangely silent as the thunder and lightning gave way to the drumbeat of rain on the rusty tin roof. The Hawk feverishly spun the dials on his old field…

  Visiting With Two Very Special Veterans By Steve O’Connor (Originally posted on May 24, 2009) In the following essay, originally read on UMass Lowell’s Sunrise program on WUML, Steve O’Connor remembered a day spent with two very special veterans, Edwin Poitras and Jack Flood, both of whom survived unsurvivable circumstances…

An American in Paris By Louise Peloquin On September 16, 1940, the US passed the Selective Service Act allowing the draft of eligible men for military service. Hence, Laval U. Peloquin, one of nine children born to French-Canadian immigrants Joseph and Marieanne, was plucked out of civilian life and deposited…