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Last Voyage of the Sholokhov By Jim Provencher She was a scow really, a defunct dinosaur of the sealanes, shipping out of Vladivostock supplying quick cash flow for the Mother Country when the West had won and things were slow. An odd mix, the motley crew and cheap-fare cruise customers,…
Read More »Robert Frost in Amesbury, Mass. (1897-1898). Who Knew? Well, somebody knew about this but I didn’t even though I’ve been in Amesbury for eight years. Plus, I’ve studied authors of the region since reading Thoreau’s “A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers” in the 1970s. How did I miss…
Read More »A Classical Education By Stephen O’Connor A woman who I suppose was trying to impress upon me the extent of her minimalism once told me that she could live a perfectly happy life without a television or radio, without coffee and dessert, without wine, and without music. That final bit…
Read More »Lowell First to Protest – (PIP #66) By Louise Peloquin Journalists all over the globe have gone into overdrive covering the latest economic roller coaster rides. 101 years ago, price wars and currency issues made the news. L’Etoile – July 15, 1924 A gasoline price war is suggested ——- …
Read More »This month is the 50th anniversary of the occupation of Phnom Penh by the brutal Khmer Rouge fighters in Cambodia. I was a junior at the University of Lowell in Massachusetts reading newspaper articles and watching TV reports as what we called the Vietnam War expanded in the region. None…
Read More »The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons-Barron’s own blog. Safekeep, a debut novel by Yael van der Wouden, won the 2024 Booker Prize, and the award was well deserved. Set in the Netherlands in 1961, it focuses on Isabel, the only one of three siblings caring for the…
Read More »The Lowell City Council had a light agenda on Tuesday night so today I’ll step back from current city politics and share some history. I’ve long been fascinated by all the important events that seem to have happened over time in the middle of April. As is almost always the…
Read More »On Thursday, April 17, 2025, more than 100 people gathered near the Cambodian monument at Lowell City Hall to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Cambodian Genocide. Congresswoman Lori Trahan spoke at the vigil. Here is my transcript of her remarks: We gather here to reflect on…
Read More »The Liberty Pole Capping By Rich Grady I attended The Liberty Pole Capping in Bedford, Massachusetts, on April 12th. It was a first for me, but if I knew what I had been missing, I would have made a better effort to witness it before now. Here’s a description of…
Read More »Living Madly: Joann Fabrics Closing is Yet Another Assault on Women By Emilie-Noelle Provost This past February, Leonard Green & Partners, the California-based private equity firm that owns Joann Fabrics, announced that it was closing all 800 of the store’s retail locations. According to news sources, this decision was made…
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