It’s been a while since I wrote about my Sunday walks. This morning I was back in Back Central or, as I like to call it, “the Garden District.” Every house, it seems like every house anyway, has something growing, from heavy-duty dark-red roses in front yards and flowers in…
John Whelan and Donna He’bert: The Irish-French Connection will perform Wednesday, June 23, at 7.30 pm, at Immaculate Conception School Hall, 218 East Merrimack Street, as part of Lowell’s Franco-American Week. The performance, honoring Lowell’s French-Canadian and Irish-American heritages, is sponsored by Lowell National Historical Park. All are invited for…
Don’t miss the most exciting book launching event of the season. Dave Daniel’s “Coffin Dust” and Steve O’Connor’s “Smokestack Lightning” will be in the spotlight on Friday, June 25, at 7 pm until whenever at the Old Court at the corner of Central and Middle streets in downtown Lowell. Most…
This recent SUN story by Dennis Shaughnessey is about my uncle Tom, Thomas Brady. Somehow I missed it in the paper on Wednesday, but my brother mentioned it tonight, so I looked it up. We had a crowd of first cousins when I was growing up, and all the uncles…
A selection of the letters exchanged by Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg between 1944 and 1963 has been published by Viking Penguin. Bill Morgan, long associated with Ginsberg, and David Stanford, who worked on Kerouac projects at Viking (he was my editor at Viking for “Atop an Underwood,” too), co-edited…
In the Globe today there’s an article by James Sullivan about a new book whose author was fascinated by baseball cards while growing up in Vermont in the ’70s. The title of the book is “Cardboard Gods.” I was a big baseball card collector as a kid and into the…
Tomorrow morning (Saturday, June 12, 2010) at 10 am, I’ll be leading a tour of historic Lowell Cemetery. We start at the Knapp Avenue gate which is right next to Shedd Park. There’s no charge and the tour takes about 90 minutes. Please consider joining us.
One of my favorite names of “lost” places or businesses in Lowell is Sweetland Garden. I never went there, but I remember the name from my youth. I’ve heard people talk about it. I think Nancye Tuttle of the SUN years ago wrote a story about the teenagers who used…
Give the Woodstock chant, “No rain, no rain, no rain,” for RiverFest tomorrow. Events start at 12 noon with the ribbon-cutting for the Concord River Greenway Park behind the Davidson Parking Lot opposite Lowell Memorial Auditorium. Activities include bluegrass, soul, rock, and other kinds of music; kids stuff like crafts…
Poet Tom Sexton has a new book due next March: “I Think Again of Those Ancient Chinese Poets.” The publisher is University of Alaska Press. Watch for Tom to be in the area next spring for a reading or two.