RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

16th C. England: leaders worse than ours today by Marjorie Arons-Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog.

Hunting the Falcon:  Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and the Marriage That Shook Europe by historians John Guy and Julia Fox (husband and wife team)is a deeply researched tome larded with the tumultuous history of the reigns of Henry VIII, Francis I of France, and Charles V Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Hapsburg Empire, Germany, Spain, parts of Italy and the lowland countries.  Figuring prominently are all the era’s royal families, power brokers (including Sir Thomas More, Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell), and Popes Leo X, Adrian VI, Clement VII and Paul III.

For those of you who thought you knew this saga, much more is unearthed. Guy and Fox have conveniently provided a chart of key players covering the Tudors, the Boleyns, Henry’s Court, Anne’s Court, France, Italy, Spain and the Habsburgs. We are introduced to their spouses, their mistresses, their alliances, intrigues and betrayals. It’s sometimes hard to tell the players even with this score card, but, fortunately, there will be no pop quiz.

This hurly-burly is held together by the main threads of the book: Henry’s disappointment with the failure of Katherine of Aragon (widow of Henry’s brother Arthur) to provide a male heir; Henry’s infatuation with Anne Boleyn (educated in the courts of Austria and France), who held Henry at bay for five years; Henry’s scheme to divorce Katherine in defiance of the Catholic church and Katherine’s Catholic family; and, finally, his marriage to Anne. Just three years after Anne is crowned Queen, Henry’s frustration with her failure to produce a living male heir, her power grabs, and promiscuous court lifestyle comes to a head when Henry plots with Cromwell to trump up criminal charges against Anne.  She is tried before a biased jury of Boleyn haters and Henry loyalists, convicted of treason and beheaded on short notice. There are no spoilers here. You’ve heard it before.

What’s different is how the authors have brought fresh eyes to centuries of research and also uncovered new documentation through archival letters (some in Henry’s own writing). They also provide newsletters, acts of parliament, royal edicts and journal observations by members of the court at home and abroad. The personal intrigues are all intertwined with the turbulent histories of western European countries in the 16^th century, including Henry’s repeated attempts to ally with France to bring down Spain and the Hapsburgs as well as the multinational church battles among Martin Luther reformers and the corrupt papacy.

While the focus is on Henry’s pursuit of the falcon (Anne Boleyn’s heraldic signature), the book includes family histories predating Henry and Anne as well an epilogue that touches on the stunning reign of Anne and Henry’s daughter, Elizabeth 1. We are also treated to poetry by Thomas Wyatt and paintings by Hans Holbein, both significant figures at court during the period.

The authors’ wealth of details is remarkable. But, if you still want help in picturing these characters, you can watch Wolf Hall on PBS’s Masterpiece Theater, based on Hilary Mantel’s book of the same name and rooted in the same period portrayed in Hunting the Falcon. If you think gender relations are complicated in today’s politics, or that Donald Trump has carved new depths in vulgar and ruthless politics, or that the President-elect’s cronies and potentially lawless revenge crusaders  are historic, they pale in comparison to the manipulation, misogyny, conspiracies and capital crimes more than four centuries ago. This book is a tour de force and a must read for anyone who finds that period of history spellbinding.

Living Madly: A Cup of Kindness

Photo courtesy of Hamed Asad

Living Madly: A Cup of Kindness

By Emilie-Noelle Provost

You’ve probably seen the homemade signs hanging in stores and restaurants, the ones imploring customers to treat their workers kindly. As public-facing employees, waitstaff, store clerks, and baristas have borne the lion’s share of abuse dished out by belligerent consumers over the past few years, a problem that has become all too ubiquitous. It’s one of the main reasons, no doubt, that many retail establishments remain understaffed nearly five years after the COVID-19 lockdown was lifted.

It’s not just these businesses that have had ongoing problems with offensive behavior. People everywhere seem to have gotten mean. In nearly all walks of life, we have become intolerant of one another, of anything another person does or says that even marginally infringes upon the imaginary bubbles in which we seem to now go about our lives.

My daughter, an art teacher at a local elementary school, has told hair-raising stories about phone calls she’s had to make to the parents of misbehaving students. Along with other teachers at the school, she has been verbally attacked, subjected to misogynistic slurs, and physically threatened so many times that all phone calls to parents are now made by the school principal.

I’ve heard similar stories from nurses, automotive technicians, pizza delivery guys, plumbers. Road rage incidents, hate crimes, domestic violence cases, even the number of murders have all increased at alarming rates in recent years. It’s enough to make a person wonder what the hell is going on, how on earth we got to this dystopian place.

For one thing, basic manners have gone out the window. Less than a generation ago, simple phrases like please, thank you, and excuse me were the oil that kept civilized society’s gears turning. In some cases, these niceties have been replaced by silence and apathy. In others, by pure venom—hatred-laced profanity and even physical violence.

At the beginning of each school year, my daughter takes time out of her art lessons to teach nearly every kindergartener in her classes basic manners, things that most of us learned almost as soon as we could speak. For some kids, it’s the first time they’ve heard please, thank you, or excuse me used on a regular basis. And it’s the first time many of the kids have been required to use them.

The slow death of mainstream media has led to the rise of dozens of far right- and left-leaning “news” outlets, platforms that have allowed, even encouraged, their consumers to construct bespoke realities in which anyone who fails to share a particular belief system is viewed as an enemy. This trend has rendered many people incapable of engaging in civilized debate, unable to see the benefits of considering another’s point of view.

This widescale intolerance has created an incubator for the type of loathing once reserved for the vilest examples of humanity—serial killers, pedophiles, Nazis— motivating its adherents to believe it’s acceptable to unleash their scorn upon any fellow citizens with whom they might disagree.

Perhaps worst of all, we as a society no longer engage in civic life the way we once did. For the first time in American history, fewer people are affiliated with religious institutions than those who are not. We don’t join clubs, throw block parties, play baseball, volunteer for charities, get together and hang out for no specific reason. A lot of people don’t even have friends. According to a recent article in The Atlantic, the number of people who say they have no close friends at all has quadrupled since 1990.

If we don’t spend time with people who are not like us, or with people at all, opting instead to dwell in the homogenous silos fostered by social media platforms, the meanspirited culture that has overtaken the country will only continue to get worse.

For a long time, I felt paralyzed by this. I did what most people do when they feel threatened or hopeless: As I went about my daily business, I stayed in my lane where I knew it was safe. Although I was always polite, I avoided interacting with anyone I could easily avoid.

Lately, though, especially since the election, this hasn’t felt right to me.

I’ve begun making an effort to be as nice as I can to the people I meet. I go out of my way to be polite to the employees working in stores and restaurants, especially to the ones who seem unhappy. I do my best to be patient and understanding when someone gets my order wrong. If I like a person’s shoes or hat, I tell them. I hold doors. I smile and say hello to as many people as I can. Almost everyone smiles back.

The other day, I got into a conversation with an older woman in front of me in a checkout line. She told me she was having a difficult time because Christmas is coming and her husband had just died. It’s not the kind of thing people normally tell strangers, but I got the feeling she needed to talk to someone. So, instead of just telling her I was sorry, I asked her about her husband: How had he died? How long had they been married? Did they have kids?

Her face lit up as she talked about him. By the time we left the store, she seemed a little happier, and I hoped I had made her burden just a little bit lighter.

Being polite and friendly requires very little effort. In fact, I’m convinced that being nice uses less energy than acting like a jerk does. When I make someone smile, some of their positive energy is reflected back to me. It always makes me feel lighter and more hopeful about the world.

Instead of making a New Year’s resolution to read more books or set aside more time to write this year, I’ve decided to do what I can to make the small part of the world I live in a little brighter. Hopefully, it will catch on.

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Emilie-Noelle Provost (she/her) is the author of The River Is Everywhere, a National Indie Excellence Award, American Fiction Award, and American Legacy Award finalist, and The Blue Bottle, a middle-grade adventure with sea monsters. Visit her at emilienoelleprovost.com.

Beat Scene Magazine Reviews Gargiulo Book

Charlie Gargiulo’s Lowell memoir, Legends of Little Canada, was recently reviewed in Beat Scene magazine, a UK print publication the covers the Beat Generation (Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, et al). Here’s the review, reposted with permission of Beat Scene:

Reading this new book one gets the feeling it has been around 60 years in the making. Written from the viewpoint of an eleven year old Charlie Gargiulo, living in ‘Little Canada.’ It’s around 1962. Now this is – or was, a distinct district of Lowell back then.

You may recall the writer who so dominates Beat Scene magazine, a chap called Jack Kerouac, writing with a passion about this area. He didn’t invent it for novelistic purposes; it was a real place where thousands of people, often ‘French

Canadians’ made their home from home. Tightly knit streets, you might say it was densely populated, a community where people knew each other. Lowell is a little like this, even today. People came to live and work here from all over. The textile mills were a big draw, offering steady employment. Jack Kerouac’s mother worked in them. The Greek section, the Portuguese area, the Irish sector and so on.

Charlie Gargiulo paints us a vibrant picture of his ‘Little Canada.’ His escapades, his fears on moving there as a young boy. It could be tough, for kids it was their patch. Newcomers often had to prove themselves, get integrated. Young

Charlie ran the gauntlet, faced down the few bullies and made a lot of friends. He tells a wonderful story, much happiness, the camaraderie of his pals, their gang, the street games. All in an area so close to the big church where Jack Kerouac worshipped and confided in the Parish Priest Father Spike Morrissette. That church, coincidentally, now out of use, a mini cathedral, but destined to become a Jack Kerouac cultural centre.

“For the next month, everyone in our gang felt like a death row prisoner counting down the days to execution. Minus the getting executed part. Each day felt sadder and sadder, especially when we found that Ronnie and his family were not only moving away from Little Canada, but also from Lowell. His dad had rented a place about fifteen miles north in Nashua, New Hampshire. ”

Charlie was a comic book lover and one of his special places was Harvey’s Bookland. Harvey was a well liked good hearted character for Charlie and his pals. Well loved by all – anyone who liked used bookstores – I’ve bought a few things there myself A thoroughly decent guy. His bookstore survived into the 1990s.

Legends of Little Canada is a book – wonderful storytelling as it is – on a mission. To put right the wrongs of the early 1960s when ‘Urban Renewal’ raised its ugly head. When Little Canada was – block by block – demolished – stealthily by greedy builders

and a compliant Lowell Council – and the enclave was no more. It all happened by degrees. Families were dispersed to other regions of Lowell, other towns, Worcester, Lawrence. Friendships never given a second thought, just chasing the dollars.

As an eleven year old boy Charlie Gargiulo displays a remarkable awareness of the wrongs that are being perpetrated by powerful organisations. But in with all that are his boyhood, his pals, his beloved aunt, his mother –

the nagging absence of a father who vanished but who – Charlie hopes – will one day return. That

understanding of what happened to Little Canada has stayed with Gargiulo. An example of this is when as a by then young man – when I first encountered him in Lowell, he fought against a repeat of local demolition in The Acre’ – another district of Lowell, home to working people, long established. He formed ‘Coalition For A Better Acre’ and they beat off more corporate schemes and ‘The Acre’ was saved. It has been his life’s work. He loves Lowell. And he loves helping the working people of the place even more.

Now all these years later he feels it was time to change the narrative, the spun story of how the destruction of Little Canada was all for the good. Charlie sees the callous destruction of a community and the lies and this is his story. It needed to be written.

****

Legends of Little Canada is available online from Loom Press and in person at lala books on Market Street in downtown Lowell.

The Measure of Love

Please welcome our newest contributor, Rich Grady:

The Measure of Love

By Rich Grady

My wife, Lauren, and I grew up in the same town – Braintree, MA – with many of the same friends. We were planning to make the rounds of family and friends in other parts of the country and explore the backroads of America during the “golden years” of our retirement. We never got to make the trip, first due to COVID in 2020 and 2021; and second, because of the cancer that attacked and killed her in 2022. Lauren’s death took the wind out of my sails, but the trip stayed on my mind as something we both wanted to do; and somehow, I knew I would measure myself by it.

The other motivational factor, which is what prompted the current timing, was the condition of a childhood friend, Greg. He lives in Chicago, and is dealing with advanced stage Parkinson’s disease; and like me, he lost his wife. His twin brother, Mark, is great about keeping people connected, and he had organized a Zoom call in late 2023, during a Celtics game. There were six of us on the call – all friends since childhood, growing up in close proximity to one another – and three of six were dealing with terminal disease. John was battling Stage 4 esophageal cancer; Ken was 7 years into a battle with a type of blood cancer that has no cure, multiple myeloma; and then there was Greg, our friend with Parkinson’s. During the call, knowing that he and John were in the poorest condition, Greg, in his raspy voice, said, “Well, John, the race is on.” John died in February of this year, 2024. After that, Mark, myself, and the other “healthy” friend, Matt, made a plan to visit Greg. My plan was to drive, but Matt and Mark were going to fly.

When I got to Chicago, I picked up Matt at Midway Airport – he flew in from Santa Fe on a one-way ticket, and would ride shotgun with me for his return trip. We rented an Airbnb for our time in Chicago. The next day, we went to O’Hare Airport to pick up Mark, who was going to stay at Greg’s while Matt and I visited during the day. Mark lives in Braintree, MA, in the house that he grew up in. Next year, we’ll all be 70 years old – born in 1955 – and have already lost a number of our homies, so I was glad we were doing this trip while we still could.

We spent a couple of full days and a morning hanging out at Greg’s. We met his 24/7 home care person and his humongous Great Dane, Archer, who was like having a small horse in the house. When Greg used his “Archer voice,” you could hear him loud and clear – otherwise, his voice was very soft and hard to hear, enfeebled by Parkinson’s. We’ve all known each other since elementary school, through junior high, high school, and college – a lot of formative years together. At Greg’s, we didn’t miss a beat as the mischievous glint of youth returned for a couple of days, suspending the implacable advance of age and infirmities while we swapped stories and laughed and laughed some more – good medicine and a special tincture of camaraderie to cherish. To see the way Greg lit up when we were reminiscing about how the only homerun he ever hit was on a pitch served-up during a Little League game by none other than yours truly, well that was life-affirming.

We hung out with Greg for a few special days when tales of past glories brought flashes of vigor; and then it was time to go. Matt and I brought Mark back to O’Hare for his flight home, then we were on our way to Santa Fe. He was to be my navigator and radio tune-meister for the next 8 days on the road to Santa Fe, to get him home to his wife.

We stopped at a funky grocery store to pick up some cheese, bread, and water to sustain us for a few days, supplementing the supply of Cortland Apples that I had brought from home – they were one of Lauren’s two favorites, the other one being Macoun. My favorite used to be MacIntosh, and I still like them; but I find myself often opting for things that Lauren liked, or listening to music that she liked, and even reading books that she liked. We were married for 45 years, and together as a couple for longer than that, but I still want to get to know her better. She would have enjoyed this trip, and the apples!

We drove north to Wisconsin, then west to the Mississippi River. We crossed into Iowa and visited Effigy Mounds National Park, adjacent to the Mississippi on the west bank. We took a walk through the hilly and wooded park to see the earthen mounds constructed by indigenous people 750 to 1400 years ago as burial mounds and ceremonial sites mostly in the shape of bears, who they saw as protectors of the earth, but also other animals and shapes – connections between the natural world and the spirit world.

At the crest of the hilly trail was a beautiful overlook of the Mississippi River where we ate our lunch and soaked up the spirituality of the place. Matt and I talked a bit about how our respective spirituality evolved over the years, both starting with a Catholic upbringing, and then gaining awareness of other faiths and their respective beliefs and common themes. After Lauren died, I read a bunch of books on theology and philosophy, trying to better understand life and death. I think the one that resonated the most was written 700 years ago by an anonymous author pondering the nature and existence of God, concluding that it was an unfathomable mystery. I think death is like that, too, and there are moments when our spirits might not distinguish between the living and the dead and exist in a continuum. Sitting on a rock, watching the Mississippi River flow south, I felt Lauren’s spiritual presence, even with the reality of her physical absence.

I was on the road for 30 days, visited 22 states and 11 friends, and logged 7200 miles – that’s one way to take measure. But the measurement that matters most – the infinity of love – is boundless and timeless, glimpsed in the glow of “the light I hold before me.”

Now the song is nearly over
We may never find out what it means
Still there’s a light I hold before me
You’re the measure of my dreams
The measure of my dreams

(From “Rainy Night in Soho,” by Shane MacGowan, 1986)