WOKE COLUMBUS By Stephen O’Connor It’s 1492. Christopher Columbus is leaning on the taffrail of the Santa Maria, writing in his log. He raises his head, brows knit, looking toward the horizon as he polishes the lens of his telescope with a lace handkerchief. Finally, he tucks the handkerchief into…
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Time to Find the Best Donuts By Chris Geggis Figuring out the best donut shop, that is not one of the multitudes of Dunkin’ Donuts in the Lowell region started out innocently enough. I had a meeting in our office building at Connector Park in the Spaghettiville conference room. I…
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The infrastructure that supports urban living has long been of interest to me. We turn a faucet and clean, safe water flows out, as regularly as the sun rises each morning. Making that happen was a great achievement of government, one of many that we often take for granted. But…
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In today’s Trasna we have three poems by Clonmel writer, storyteller and farmer, Joe Whelan. In the poems below Joe brings the reader full circle, from his Uncle Davie in “My Uncle’s Coat”, and the farm at Harney’s Cross where he spent happy childhood summers, on to the experience of…
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The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. What do Doris Kearns Goodwin, Sy Hersh, Mitch Zuckoff, and Steve Kinzer and other illustrious authors have in common? They’re all high on “The Greek Connection: the Life of Elias Demetracopoulos and the Untold Story of Watergate.” Goodwin…
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1990 Friday, Jul 27, 1990 – Saturday, July 28, 1990 – Sunday, July 29, 1990 The first Lowell Folk Festival, after three iterations of the National Folk Festival in Lowell, was a great success. The South Common remained the site of the evening performances, but Boarding House Park was added…
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The National Folk Festival was founded in 1934 in St. Louis. Since then, it has been run by the National Council for the Traditional Arts. The Festival moves from place to place, typically spending three consecutive years in one location. That was the case in 1987, when the National Festival…
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Lowell’s Greek Community Featured in Upcoming National Park Exhibit “The University of Massachusetts Lowell, in partnership with Lowell National Historical Park, announces the opening of an exhibit on the Greek community in Lowell, Massachusetts, titled ‘Acropolis of America: The Greek Community in Lowell 1874-2020,’ on August 1. The temporary exhibit…
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How I came to have an autographed photo of John Lewis By Jacquelyn Malone My admiration—indeed, my awe—of John Lewis goes back to the 60s when he was hardly out of his teens. His first civil disobedience event occurred in Nashville, Tennessee, the place I consider my hometown (though I’ve…
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