“Coke constantly on hand”

This 1870’s ad for the Lowell Gas Light Company is a pretty good example of how the meaning of words may change over time. In this case, the product advertized was a by-product of the coal gasification process that yielded the illuminating gas that was used to light the city’s…

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Cold Common

Cold morning. Glove-cold. Bright clear sky. The blue-disc sun is warming if you step into its 98-million-mile-away rays, exactly, but otherwise the air is frigid. This is weather for staying in. I didn’t see any random walkers in the South Common Historic District. One man in a jacket over hooded sweatshirt…

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Another Day

The sunrise sky over the Concord River glowed like a tutti-frutti candy cane this morning if you were lucky enough to see the brief display just after 6 a.m. At the South Common it was quiet except for a few people moving through on their way to someplace else. These…

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E. J. Dionne on GOP Pessimism

For all you Superbowl fans and others who’ve seen the Clint Eastwood “Halftime in America” ad , don’t miss Washington Post opinion writer  E. J. Dionne’s take today in “Clint, Rick and the limits of pessimism.” Dionne reminds us that “Franklin Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton all understood that Americans…

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