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Simple John: Remembering a strange, sadly-missed friend By Malcolm Sharps [Ed. Note: Although this story from Malcolm Sharps is set in England, it has strong echoes of the Urban Renewal experience of Charlie Gargiulo as related in his recently published memoir, Legends of Little Canada, which was recently reviewed on…
Read More »The entry below is being cross postred from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. Did W. B. Yeats have it right? “Turning and turning in the widening gyre, The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.” Such are one’s fears today. The United States government is…
Read More »Tuesday’s Lowell City Council meeting ended in a concise 1 hour, 50 minutes, mostly because there were just two motions on the agenda. It’s true that two Councilors (Wayne Jenness and Kim Scott) were not at the meeting, but such absences have never caused those in attendance to curtail the…
Read More »Leo with Louis at L’Etoile (PIP#3) Louise Peloquin October always conjures up visions of Jack Kerouac. And so, it seems fitting to take a peek into the past at the link between Jack’s father and Louis Biron. It was at L’Impartial, the French newspaper Biron founded in 1898, that Leo…
Read More »PIP # 2 – “Judging us by our work” By Louise Peloquin The first Etoile peek into the past, posted on September 8th, jumped right into business nitty-gritty such as offering services, obtaining orders and paying bills. The New England Investment Company acquired L’Etoile in 1909 and went bankrupt after…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog. It started with three sites. Now there are three dozen more places where auto workers have gone on strike, seeking a better contract. They follow by months the many writers and actors striking the entertainment industry for…
Read More »The following was distributed earlier today as my weekly Substack newsletter on Lowell politics. If you’d like to receive this weekly update by email in the future, sign up here. **** In the opening pages of his 2012 book, The Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America, One Step at a…
Read More »I’ll lead the fall tours of historic Lowell Cemetery this weekend. The same tour will be offered twice: Saturday, September 30, 2023, at 10am Sunday, October 1, 2023, at 10am Both tours begin at the Knapp Ave entrance (77 Knapp Ave on GPS). The forecast for Saturday is for showers…
Read More »Legends of Little Canada: Aunt Rose, Harvey’s Bookland, and My Captain Jack Book by Charlie Gargiulo Review by Richard Howe I first encountered Charlie Gargiulo nearly 40 years ago, not in person but by reputation. Back then, Joe Tully was the Lowell City Manager and the City Council allowed him…
Read More »If You’re Interested in More, I Can Make You a Quotation By Malcolm Sharps Ever since I picked up advert jingles as a child, along with the theme songs from Mr Ed, the Pied Piper and Gilligan’s Island, and later at school I took in more weighty lines from poems…
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