Word
-
Summer Camp
First Winona Then Loon Pond
By: - Sep 14th, 2015Camp Winona, for rich kids, had all the perks. Joined Troop Ten at Chestnut Hill. That summer I turned down Winona to be with my pals at Loon Pond a Boy Scout camp for inner city kids. You got a Merit Badge just for surviving the summer and going home alive.
-
Best Tent
Not a Neat Freak
By: - Sep 14th, 2015Part of camp was learning to make beds and keep a neat tent. It was something that just didn't interest me.
-
Other People
Why Infinity Is Not
By: - Sep 13th, 2015The infinity of time and space is not. The only limitation is an ability to understand. For all else there's God.
-
Flynn Foundation
Built on Rockport Granite
By: - Sep 13th, 2015The Irish rebels, Edward, my great grandfather, and Patrick Flynn, members of Sinn Féin fled to Montreal in the 1920s. They made their way to Concord, New Hampshire then worked the quarries of Cape Ann. My grandfather, James, married Mary a Nugent of Rockport.
-
Tournament
Rocks Covered in People
By: - Sep 12th, 2015Catching the last of the beach as summer turns to autumn.
-
Alan Ginsberg
Howling in Harvard Square
By: - Sep 12th, 2015In 1997 as a part of the annual Lowell Kerouac Festival, with curator Linda Poras, we organized two exhibitions celebrating the Beat Generation. I met Alan Ginsberg for lunch in Harvard Square not long before he died. We talked about the best minds of his generation gone mad in the naked streets of boring Post War America. The Beats were an inspiration to hipsters growing up absurd in suburbia.
-
Outside the Lines
No Rules for Making Art
By: - Sep 11th, 2015The nuns told us to color inside the lines. Turkeys for Thanksgiving. Santa Claus for Christmas. In the fury of creation I never followed the rules. Not then and certainly not now.
-
When Phyllis Got Robbed
Dated Son of the Don
By: - Sep 11th, 2015We met during high school Saturday art classes at Mass Art. Later at RISD Phyllis dated Ray, Jr. the son of the Don.
-
Old Blue Eyes
Singer for the Dons
By: - Sep 11th, 2015By the time Sinatra played the Music Hall in Boston there wasn't much left of The Voice. But he had the chops to sell a song long after the pipes had rusted. Up close and personal I had choice seats in a special section of New England mafia royalty.
-
Blood
The Celtic Disease
By: - Sep 10th, 2015Hemochromotosis is a blood disease, manifested in middle age, that is unique to those of Irish/ Celtic heritage. It killed a cousin and may have been the cause of the demise of my great grandfather Patrick Nugent.
-
Nutcracker
Bathing in the Frigid Atlantic
By: - Sep 09th, 2015Taking a plunge in the cold Annisquam River.
-
Annisquam
Growing Up Absurd
By: - Sep 09th, 2015Growing up absurd in Annisquam. Merry prankster the progigal returned to read local poems at the Village Library.
-
Crosscurrents
Tracking Nugent Heritage
By: - Sep 09th, 2015The Nugents are more French than Irish it would seem. Tracking family history back to 930 AD in the village of Nogent in France.
-
Good Harbor Beach
Once Nugent Family Property
By: - Sep 09th, 2015The Nugent family homestead, rented from the Babsons in 1875, was abandoned and then torched in the 1920s. Of the clan of thirteen only George continued to farm. He bought a vast wedge of land that included all of Good Harbor Beach in Gloucester.
-
Harvest Moon
Pillow Talk
By: - Sep 08th, 2015Following my poetry reading at the Annisquam Village Library the cousins lingered. We enjoyed a rare gathering that was not a wedding or funeral. As the Irish tend to do we formed a circle and swapped outrageous tales. Topped by Kevin's account of the rigors of driving his dad, the cantankerous Judge A.E. Flynn, from Florida to his summer home in East Gloucester.
-
Woodstock
Back Stage Perks
By: - Sep 08th, 2015Ditching the car with Joey and Amber we hiked to Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York. There were a half million sitting through mud and rain at Woodstock. The fences came down but I had press credentials. We made our way back stage.
-
Susan Hall
Phantoms of the Opera
By: - Sep 07th, 2015During a holiday visit to New York critic Susan Hall treated me to nose bleed seats at the Met for Aida.
-
Soft Corduroy
Here Comes the Sun
By: - Sep 06th, 2015Sunrise red paints the topside of a white cabin cruiser.
-
Norman's Woe
On the Rocks Off Gloucester
By: - Sep 02nd, 2015Mostly the mega rich fantasy architects Sleeper and Hammond lavishly entertained their male friends. From the Castle is seen Norman's Woe which inspired Longfellow's Wreck of the Hesparus.
-
Manet
Quarrymen
By: - Sep 02nd, 2015Flynn ancestors landed in Canada. Worked quarries south to New Hampshire then Rockport.
-
Contrarian
Heed No Advice
By: - Sep 02nd, 2015While advice is well intended don't listen. Take the other tack.
-
Prodigal
Growing Up Absurd in Annisquam
By: - Sep 02nd, 2015Returning to the roots of adolescence in the social and political cul de sac of Annisquam.
-
Low Tide
Rooms with a View
By: - Aug 31st, 2015During our visit to childhood haunts they knocked down a building blocking the view. Improved at least for now.
-
Econo Class
Europe on the Cheap
By: - Aug 31st, 2015The thrill is gone traveling to Europe cattle car class. Replicating the steerage passages of our immigrant ancestors. Quality of life dim on el cheapo airlines.
-
Early Fall
Just a Correction
By: - Aug 27th, 2015Lazy last days of summer laced with agita. On the beach with an anxious eye on eroding nest egg out with the tide.
<< Previous Next >>