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The Happy Accidents That Make Us Who We Are 

The Happy Accidents That Make Us Who We Are

By Stephen O’Connor

It’s interesting to consider all of those serendipitous events which bend the tree of our lives to grow in a certain direction, or that set us off, for good or ill, on roads where we find our lives. I like to think about those happy accidents that worked out in a fortuitous way—Dylan’s “simple twist of fate,” which earlier or more faithful writers may have seen as the workings of Providence.

Recently, I watched the documentary Zero Gravity, which tells the story of jazz saxophone legend and composer, Wayne Shorter. As a boy, Wayne was called into the principal’s office and asked why he was skipping school. After all, he was a bright student with a lot of potential. The boy explained that he skipped school to go to the movies because he liked the music. The principal considered this and sent for the music teacher. It was agreed that Wayne would join the school band. He was given a clarinet, his first instrument. Who could ever have imagined that this simple solution would lead to fame, a brilliant career with the likes of Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and all the jazz giants? That he might win ten Grammy Awards, put out twenty-five albums, make guest appearances with Carlos Santana, Joni Mitchel, Steely Dan and others? Is it possible that this genius would never have been uncovered if the boy had not had the meeting with the principal?

In a similar way, I remember reading that Niels Bohr, the Danish theoretical physicist, became interested in science because an uncle gave him a compass for Christmas. He wondered how it was that the needle, no matter where he stood, pointed in the same direction. He was told that there are invisible magnetic fields that blanket the earth which the small device could detect. He was fascinated. The Christmas gift was the catalyst for an interest in physics and a world-renowned career.

Jascha Heifetz at the age of three was given a miniature violin by his father. It turned out to be a gift to the entire world. Amelia Earhart had no interest in flying until she attended an air show in Long Beach, California in 1920, at which her father convinced her to take a ten-minute airplane ride. It was an exhilarating and life-altering experience for Earhart. Three years later, she had her pilot’s license, and though it all ended in a sort of Icarian tragedy, for a while, as Edna St. Vincent Milay might put it, her candle burned brightly and gave a lovely light.

Last week I heard Scott Simon interview Anthony Hopkins on NPR. The iconic actor related how, at his school, the students were required to report to the assembly hall one Saturday night to watch the film of Laurence Olivier’s “Hamlet.” He said that as Olivier recited the lines, “Oh that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw, resolve itself into a dew,” he had an epiphany. “Something in me clicked. I remember thinking, ‘That is what I want to do in my life.’” Twenty years later, he was Olivier’s understudy at the National Theatre. When Olivier went into the hospital, Hopkins stood in for him in Strindberg’s “Dance of Death.”

It is not just the famous who experience the simple twists of fate that shape human lives. We all experience them. A chance meeting here. A small decision there. A moment when we happen to encounter someone or something that resonates in our deepest selves.

Geert Lernout is a Belgian friend from our university days at UCD in Dublin. Geert was raised speaking Flemish, but had also learned French and German. English is his fourth distinct language, and he speaks it well with a soft accent.

I asked Geert at what point he became interested in learning English. He answered that when he was fifteen or sixteen, he chanced to see Orson Welles’ Othello on TV. He had only a bit of “Beatles English,” but he found Welles’ soliloquies, though incomprehensible, the most beautiful language he had ever heard. As Anthony Hopkins would say, something clicked. Motivated study ensued. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of Toronto and became a university professor in Amsterdam and Antwerp, and one of the world’s foremost authorities on James Joyce.

We see a certain film, take a class with a certain professor, play for a particular coach, hear a musical performance, or encounter a talented practitioner of a craft or trade or art, or the art itself, and because of the timbre of our own natures at that moment in our lives, it is a transformative experience. My older brother Rory, while in high school, had to write a report on an American author. So it was that I began to read the note cards he had left on the desk in our room, and eventually, his copy of Walden. Within a year, I was totally immersed in Thoreau and considered myself a young transcendentalist. My world view was fundamentally altered. I honestly don’t know who I would be if I had not happened on those writings.

We’re left to wonder. Personal transformation, like love, is unanticipated. As the Beatles sang:

Had it been another day
I might have looked the other way
And I’d have never been aware

I daresay most of us have been lucky enough to encounter such books, such people, such events or such art. The result may not be the world fame of Wayne Shorter or Amelia Earheart, but it is a profound and consequential experience that leaves us changed, and perhaps even awestruck, as Keats once was in reading Chapman’s translation of Homer.

Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific—and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

The Rag Man

THE RAG MAN

By Rocky Provencher

My mother’s parents were English and French-Canadian. Both her parents were the first generation of each family to be born in the United States. My mother was born in Lowell. My father’s parents were both French-Canadian. My father was the in the first generation to be born in America, and he was also born in Lowell. My parents were married at Saint Jean Baptiste Church. I was born in Lowell too and baptized at that same church. For a while, we lived with my mother’s family on Cabot Street. Then, we lived near my father’s family on Middlesex St. in Notre Dame De Lourdes parish. And later moved to a third floor apartment on Merrimack St. in the block right next to Saint Jean Baptiste Church, where the Cabot Cash Market was on the corner. When I started school, we moved to the uptown end of cobble-stoned Market St., a six-family at number 629, not too far from the intersection of Market, Cabot, Salem and Adams Streets. I went to school at St. Patrick’s on Adams St. I always tell people that I am a French kid who grew up in a Greek neighborhood and went to an Irish school!

I want to tell you about a time when was 6 or 7 years old and had the normal curiosity about life around me and what I saw. One day, I asked my mother “Why do so many ladies in our neighborhood wear black clothes all the time?” And she told me that they were widows, their husband had gone to heaven and that was their way to remember and honor them. I never had any problem with any of my neighbors, and these same ladies would often offer me home-made pastries and candy for some slight courtesy that I had shown them. I had some friends in the area and played in our small backyard or in front of my building. Not many people had cars then. No one in our building had one. My mother would walk to work at St. Joseph’s Hospital, and my father was picked up early in the morning to work at the Boston Naval Shipyard, and then was dropped off early in the evening. A neighborhood woman would watch me before and after school until my mother picked me up.

I don’t remember the first time I saw the rag man come by, but, as you know, a child is often off in his or her own world, playing and thinking of only him/her self. Every now and then something happens to capture, grab a child’s attention, and then the child will notice. There was nothing special about this particular day, and I don’t even know why I was home, but this is the day and that time the rag man caught my attention!

I must have been playing on the porch out front, or out near the street, when I suddenly heard such a clatter! I clearly heard a strong voice call out: “Rags, rags, rags, rags!” I’ll never forget that sound and the tone of his voice! I moved to the sidewalk and walked down the street to find out what was happening. “Rags, rags, rags, rags!” That voice getting louder and louder! And there! I could not believe what I saw! There, right in front of me, was the biggest creature I had ever seen closeup! A gigantic brown horse, clopping up the street towards me, pulling a great wagon with enormous, wooden wheels! And a wizened old man was holding the reins and yelling: “Rags, rags, rags, rags!” “Rags, rags, rags, rags!” I was fascinated! Never had I seen or heard such a thing! “Rags, rags, rags, rags!”

The rag man pulled tight the reins and halted the horse, and waited. Then, many neighborhood women, including the Greek women in their black clothes, brought out bundles of cloth of many colors, each bundle holding its own story. They lined up and patiently waited their turn at the scale. At his signal, each woman slowly stepped forward to hand their bundle of colors to the old rag man. He kindly greeted each lady and then turned to place the bundle onto his scales,slowly and reverently. He peered at the scale, noting the weight, and then reached into his pouch to count out his coins, and discreetly passed them to his customer, once again uttering kind words. Some women accepted them graciously and others seemed to quibble a bit with the old rag man. It appeared that he did right by them for each lady left quietly. I did not understand the language that they all spoke. All the while, the horse stomped and neighed impatiently, but did not move from his spot!

As I was watching, some young boys approached the old rag man with their own bundle of cloth. The rag man eyed them suspiciously. And when he took their offered bundle, he hefted it, seemingly to judge its weight, and then raised the bundle up over his head and shook it out. A number of rocks and brick pieces that were hidden inside the bundle tumbled and bounced out onto the street! He shouted at the boys and threw the bundle to the ground! But the boys had already begun to run away laughing!

Soon, when his customers were gone, the old rag man mounted his wagon, picked up the reins and, looking about, snapped the reins as he hollered to urge his horse to move out. Then the horse, the cart, and the man began rumbling and clattering forward once again. The rag man wheeled his horse around and headed back down Market Street towards the downtown area!

“Rags, rags, rags, rags!” He called once again as together they rolled off to collect more bundles of color from old widows and outgrown clothes from housewives in the neighborhood.

This is the day I remember when I saw the old rag man, my first recollection of a routine as old as time.

I can still hear him calling out:

“Rags, rags, rags, rags!”
“Rags, rags, rags, rags!”

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Rocky Provencher was born and raised in Lowell. He attended city schools from the Lowell Day Nursery through Lowell Technological Institute (now UMass Lowell). He spent his career working in Lowell’s mills and was a long time Lowell Folk Festival volunteer.

Music & Beer for Two

This intriguing piece of art recently came to my attention. “Music and beer for two” sounds like fun, but the fact that the standing figure has three tankards in their hand is the first of many mysteries about this print.

To be fair, the full version of the above illustration is shown below and offers more information:

Flipping the card over, we find that it is a vintage advertising card for a long-departed downtown Lowell candy store, W. E. Pearson’s Confectionery, at 37 Merrimack Street.

Here’s what Mr. Pearson wrote in the above advertisement:

I have made for the Holiday Trade a large assortment of PURE Candies, Candy Toys, Animals, Baskets, Canes, Broken Candy, Mixtures, Nut and Fruit Candies, Caramels, Chocolates, Bon-Bons, Tree Ornaments, and all kinds of pure, wholesome Sweets. Fill up the little stockings and Make Christmas Merry.

Here’s a photo of the store:

I’m not sure what happened to Mr. Pearson or his store, but the variety of sweets he offered would have made it a regular stop on my holiday shopping trips.

Fortunately, we can still purchase candy and much else at another store just around the corner from the former home of Pearson’s Confectionery. That would be Pop Cultured which is now located at 58 Prescott Street in the former Tutto Bene Wine & Cheese Shop (which was operated by the late Richard Rourke). Originally located in Mill No. 5, Pop Cultured is primarily a gaming and novelty shop, but it also sells candies, art supplies, and collectibles. In fact, it was Pop Culture’s proprietor, Renee Mallett who sent me the Music & Beer for Two card.

This all serves as a reminder of the fine tradition of shopping downtown, one that is still alive and well today.

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For more information about Pop Cultured, check out the store’s website. The store is at 58 Prescott Street but on the canal side of the building, so entry is made from the street through the passageway to the canal walkway.

Louvre Update

Louvre Update

By Louise Peloquin

Eight pieces of jewelry worth an estimated $101 406 800, including items belonging to Emperor Napoléon III and his wife Empress Eugénie, were stolen from the Louvre’s Apollo Gallery at 9:30 AM on October 19, 2025 shortly after the museum opened to the public.

Some of the stolen jewels

The news made global headlines. A few days after the heist, three suspects were incarcerated and a fourth was caught on November 25^th. Despite police intelligence efficiency, the bounty is still nowhere to be found leaving art lovers flabbergasted at how the Louvre could so easily be violated. Barely a month and a half after the burglary, questions arise about the security measures in the world’s most visited museum.

European news outlets have covered the astounding account of two young Belgian pranksters who snuck by security guards to illicitly hang up their own picture in the Louvre’s Salle d’État and then post the whole adventure on TikTok.

Theirs was a minutely prepared strategy. At 5:04 PM on November 15th, Neal and Senne were waiting in front of the museum. Contemplating its masterpieces was not their objective. Far from it. The practical jokers had concocted the insane plan to hang up their own “tableau” next to the Mona Lisa. Before succeeding, they knew that the road would be fraught with obstacles.

The first was getting through security. The jokers expounded: “We fabricated a frame that could be assembled like Legos. In order to pass through the security screen, it had to be dismantled into several pieces then reassembled. We also brought the rolled-up canvas.”

Neal and Senne faced another hurdle. Since the spectacular October 19th Louvre theft, Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez had instructed all prefects to reinforce security in and around cultural institutions.

“Security was increased because of this robbery” the TikTokers pointed out. “The guards separated us because we had a bag. We were hoping it would pass through the scanners without them noticing. When our bag was being scanned, Neal pulled it through the machine.”

Once Neal and Senne cleared security, they proceeded to reassemble the frame. The personnel was on the prowl causing the two Belgians to lose quite a bit of time. As soon as the frame was put together and the canvas placed inside – a portrait of the two young men – all they had to do was hang it on the wall. The chosen location proved to be another complication. “We wanted it next to the Mona Lisa” they playfully announced.

“After having inspected the Salle d’État, the mission seemed impossible” they noted. The attentive guards and the large crowd of visitors forced them to turn back. Furthermore, speakers were announcing the obligation to exit the premises at 5:30 PM.

It was precisely in the midst of this brouhaha that Neal and Senne succeeded in displaying their “work of art.”

“We quickly hung up the frame. It was impossible to put it next to the Mona Lisa. Too many guards around. But still, we got it in the same room!”

On November 17th, 2 days after the TikTok feat, the Campana gallery, dedicated to antique Greek ceramics, was closed to the public for an indefinite period of time. Laurence des Cars, President of the Louvre, had already sounded the alarm about “the dilapidated state of the museum” and about “the distressing deterioration of some areas.” She pointed out the “fragility” of the Campana gallery’s nine rooms, located on the second floor of the south wing, whose last renovation dated back to the 1930’s. The area had been monitored for several years but recent technical studies revealed the weakness of several beams supporting the 3rd floor. Consequently, closing the entire gallery was deemed necessary,  a “precautionary measure” to protect both the artwork and the public. The closure is forcing sixty-five museum agents to vacate their offices.

Campana gallery room

In January 2025, French President Emmanuel Macron announced a plan for a “New Renaissance of the Louvre” prioritizing the “refurbishment and revitalization of the Sully quadrilateral.”

Sully quadrilateral

The Louvre’s “New Renaissance” is in gestation but developments are already seeing the light. On November 19th Laurence des Cars announced that a police precinct would open inside the Louvre.

Here’s hoping that the most visited museum in the world may be “reborn” like its neighbour up the river, Notre Dame cathedral. (1) In the meantime, tourists are far from being put off by the recent events. On the contrary, access lines are longer than ever and visitors are eager to take selfies not only with Mona Lisa but also with an Apollo gallery background. Nothing triggers curiosity and excitement more than a bit of drama, “n’est-ce pas?”

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1. For a glimpse of “reborn” Notre Dame, click the following link:

https://richardhowe.com/2025/05/16/notre-dame-revisited/#comments