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I just finished reading “War on the Run: The Epic Story of Robert Rogers and the Conquest of America’s First Frontier” by John F. Ross, the executive editor of American Heritage magazine. Rogers was born in Methuen along the banks of the Spicket River in 1732 but his family moved…
Read More »Downtown Lowell In this month’s official publication of the Lowell Council on Aging, there are suggestions for keeping cool, sfaety tips, a calendar of events and senior trips as well as the lunch menu for the month of July. There is a very nice profile of COA Board member Billy Sheehan …
Read More »In 1868, Lowell resident Charles Cowley wrote the “Illustrated History of Lowell”, a book filled with fascinating facts about our city. Here’s my fourth weekly compilation of “tweeting” from Cowley’s book: June 29 – On October 29, 1727 an earthquake caused walls and chimneys to fall throughout the Merrimack Valley…
Read More »All this writing and opinion-giving about our economic problems and what’s needed to get the nation out of the financial ditch sent me back to the writings of young Jack Kerouac in the collection I edited, “Atop an Underwood.” In 1941, when he was 19 years old, Kerouac wrote a…
Read More »I couldn’t resist the urge – this photo of Rachel Maddow – fellow resident of Massachusetts – not “in mufti” needs to be seen as “captioned.” Maddow with her crew and NBC correspondent Richard Engel is currently in Afghanistan where she will spend the next couple of days reporting in and from the field. The…
Read More »I always wished I had been born on the fourth of July…can you just image your birthday being filled with parades, fireworks and barbeques every year?. Who cares that the celebration is not for you…it doesn’t matter. It would be a blast anyway (excuse the pun). Below is a list…
Read More »Yankee Magazine arrived the other day. There are a myriad of stories and articles pertaining to summer in New England. Learn the history and “art of the sail” with Robbie Doyle a Marblehead sailmaker. Follow seasoned kayakers along the Coast of Maine’s Island Trail. Enjoy Rhode Island natives Casey and Garret Roberts’…
Read More »The web isn’t called “the web” for nothing. Like no other tool, the internet both displays and helps us plug in to the vast connectedness of daily life. In recent days the writers on this blog have put their words around the economy, the future of cities, university happenings and…
Read More »The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which…
Read More »Speaking of TIME magazine, the new issue has a spread about the summer reading lists of some well known people. Judd Apatow mentions “The Garden of Last Days” by Andre Dubus III, who teaches writing and literature at UMass Lowell. Apatow’s list also includes heavy hitters Dave Eggers and Dostoevsky.
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