Following is a quote from a former director of Canada’s national arts agency. I would differ slightly in saying what he did because artists don’t have a monopoly on dreaming or creativity. Engineers, scientists, teachers, nurses, detectives, parents, soldiers, public administrators—people in all positions in life, old and young, are capable of…
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Opening Day ceremonies for the Callery Park Little League, spring of 1970. Mayor Dick Howe Sr at bat; City Councilor Leo Farley behind the plate. Bounded by Stevens, Parker, Wilder and B Streets, this park had been known as Highland Park for generations but it was renamed in the late…
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Caritas Holy Family Hospital in Methuen pictured on far right of second row. From the 2nd Floor / St. Raphael’s wing at Holy Family Hospital – A Caritas Family Hospital – located in Methuen in the Merrimack Valley, I’m reading yet more articles in today’s Globe about the Cerberus proposal to…
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During the week of September 18, 1938, no one in Lowell was worried about a hurricane. The public’s attention was focused on two things: Germany was about to invade Czechoslovakia and on that Tuesday (September 20) voters would go to the polls for the state primary election. Lowell voters were…
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I met Robert Reich in Lowell in 1981. Anyone who attended the annual Lowell Conference on Industrial History (LCIH) that year, when he was invited to comment on one of the scholarly papers, remembers how he stole the show with his brilliant, insightful, brief remarks about the relationship of government and…
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NYTimes columnist Timothy Egan today writes about the “summer home” owned by all Americans, by which he means the vast tracts of public land and majestic national parks around the country. Lowell’s national park is about a place held in common by Americans, too, as well as an idea: the…
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A note in today’s Globe about a vintage postcard exhibit at the Boston Public Library, reminded me of the value of post cards as historical and cultural documents. While this exhibit focuses on early 2oth century Boston, the millions of cards in the hands of private collectors and in local…
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From the UMass Lowell Office of Public Affairs: “First-year students are officially welcomed to the university community at Convocation on Tuesday, Aug. 31 at 10 a.m. at the Tsongas Center at UMass Lowell. The keynote speaker is Bill Strickland, winner of a MacArthur Foundation ‘genius grant’ and more than 10…
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I was astounded to find an Op-Ed by Paul Wolfowitz in today’s New York Times. The content of the piece is unremarkable – he suggests that we should use South Korea as a model for our future involvement in Iraq – but his mere presence in the newspaper is what…
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The National Park Service has opened a $27 million visitor center overlooking the famous “Old Faithful” geyser at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. Today’s NYTimes reports on the “cathedral to the shrine of nature.” We can be proud that Lowell is on the same distinguished list of important American places…
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