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As UMass Lowell is in the midst of a Division One basketball game with Duquesne University this afternoon at the Tsongas Center, we are reminded that on this day – December 21, 1891 – the game of basketball as designed by James Naismith was first played at what is known today as Springfield College in Massachusetts. ON THIS DAY …
Read More »This essay was first heard on the former “Sunrise” radio program of WUML, 91.5 FM, at UMass Lowell. Executive producer Chris Dunlap assembled writers in the area for the daily essay feature, a popular component of the morning public affairs show. I shared this essay with readers of this blog for…
Read More »On this snowy night, from Alaska comes a poem with a snowy owl, courtesy of our desk in the West manned by Tom Sexton. Here’s a Lowell memory for our readers. For those who don’t know, Tom Sexton is a distinguished alumnus of Lowell High School and former Poet Laureate…
Read More »The Christmas Fruitcake: An Ageless Tradition by Henri Marchand A note from the author: Like its subject this essay has been around, appearing first as a Sunrise radio essay, re-wrapped as a “Guest Column” piece in the Sun and showing up on this blog for the past few years. At…
Read More »Along with Henri Marchand’s “fruitcake” essay, the re-appearance of this poem has become part of the Christmas tradition for this blog. I wrote the first draft of this poem in 1976, and worked on it on-and-off for a long time. I had in mind the extensive outdoor lighting displays in Dracut (the…
Read More »Linda Biehl of California was the first Greeley Scholar for Peace Studies at UMass Lowell in 2008. She was on campus and in the community for three weeks, meeting people, talking, sharing her remarkable, inspiring, and challenging story. Her daughter was a casualty in the sometime violent struggle to end…
Read More »Our Merrimack Valley sister city of Lawrence, Massachusetts has been much in the news lately. Still struggling, the city weathered a mayoral campaign earlier this Fall that saw the toppling of the controversial administration of William Lantigua. It took a recount and some oversight from SOS Bill Galvin’s elections office…
Read More »Kerouac wrote that he “always considered writing his duty on earth.” Merrimack Valley Conference writer and sportsman Jay Atkinson has an essay about the endurance of Jack Kerouac in today’s Boston Globe. We’re waiting for Jay to have a regular Sunday column on words and books in the Globe. He’s…
Read More »Thanks to the more than 50 people who attended today’s Lowell Social Media Conference at LTC which was a co-sponsor of the event. Planning has already begun for the Second Annual Lowell Social Media Conference with a target date of the first Saturday in December. This morning began with a…
Read More »We have a new poem by Tom Sexton of Lowell and Alaska and Maine.—PM . The Last Sunday Train Little did I know back then when I walked beside my father to the old North Station, after Warren Spahn and Johnny Sain pitched a doubleheader, that the Boston Braves would…
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