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A couple of fiscal matters from Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting warrant discussion. The first was a transfer of $1.1 million from the FY24 Certified Free Cash Account to the Lowell Police Department “to support various equipment needs.” As a reminder, “free cash” – which is the source of these…

Houdini: Recalling A Legend By Henri Marchand Harry Houdini died on Halloween, one-hundred years ago at the age of 52.  In those short fifty-two years he took the world’s imagination by storm and in so doing became an astonishing American legend.  Although he is best known as a magician and…

Review of “Boarding School Blues” Book by Louise Peloquin Review by Charlie Gargiulo “Boarding School Blues” is a fictionalized memoir by Louise Peloquin about Blanche, a 13 year old girl from a very traditional and loving French-Canadian family in Lowell whose life takes a dramatic turn when she is sent…

Sweet Remembrances: Halloween Candies of the 1950s and ‘60s By Leo Racicot Part of the magic of trick-or-treating for kids in the 1950s and ’60s was the different kinds of candy we’d find when we got home and dumped the contents of our trick-or-treat bags on the bed or the…

A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday.  Book Review: Sword Beach: D-Day Baptism by Fire by Max Hastings (2025). Hastings is a well-known British journalist and military historian. This book details the experience of the British forces at one of the five beaches on…

Celebrating UMass Lowell Library By Louise Peloquin From 4 to 6 PM on October 20th, the UMass Lowell Library and Alumni Relations held an open house and gathering at the O’Leary on 61 Wilder Street. At 4:30, Senior Vice Provost of Academic Affairs Julie Nash spoke to the 200-odd guests…

On Tuesday, the Lowell City Council voted to borrow $3,373,000 to purchase the Senior Center Property at 276 Broadway. The memo that accompanied the proposed loan order laid out the rationale for the purchase which I’ll summarize below after some historical context for this transaction. The city long-ago owned this…

Vanity in the Space Age Stephen O’Connor Gazing out of the window of the Apollo space craft, Neil Armstrong had an epiphany. “It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out…

Prayers, Pies and Prizes By Leo Racicot I’d be lying if I said our mother looked forward, as did so many of the parents of our Saint Patrick’s School classmates, when the school year rolled around to school community-related activities such as raffles, school fairs, bake sales, paper drives. As…

A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday.  Author Interview: Min Jin Lee on CSpan’s America’s Book Club hosted by David Rubenstein. Lee is a Korean immigrant who came to the United States with her family at age 7. She did well academically, graduated from…