As dormitory residents at Providence College, none of us paid much attention to weather forecasts. Since the classrooms, the gym, and the cafeteria were only a few yards away, snow had never been a problem. Until February of 1978, that is. The snow started falling by mid-morning. It was a welcome sight for most. Six weeks earlier a tragic dormitory fire had killed ten of our classmates and the heavy flakes falling outside the classrooms seemed to lighten the somber mood of those on campus.

By noon, however, we were in the middle of a major storm. My roommates and I walked off campus and soon were pushing cars through the drifts, helping commuters make their way home. It snowed all that day, through the night, and for most of the next day. By the time it stopped, nearly 4 feet of snow had fallen on the city of Providence. Nothing – not even snowplows – could move for days. We spent our time trudging through the neighborhoods adjacent to the college, offering snow shoveling services. There were many takers. Soon we had plenty of money but nowhere to spend it. The shelves of the local stores were all empty. Unfortunately, so was our cafeteria. Friday, lunch consisted of baked beans, canned peaches, crackers and water. Later that afternoon, Rhode Island National Guard helicopters loaded with food were landing in the parking lot, resupplying the college as if it were an isolated military outpost.

Sunday afternoon, the exciting yet erratic Providence College basketball team was scheduled to play North Carolina, the number one team in the country. Green Airport finally opened, allowing the visitor’s plane to land, and word went out that admission was free for anyone who could make it to the downtown Civic Center. Even then, days after the storm, the main road to downtown Providence was open only to snowmobiles and pedestrians. Everyone on campus walked the three miles to see the game, and what a game it was. Amidst signs reading Hi Mom, Send Shovels, the unranked Friars beat the best team in the country in the final seconds of a nationally televised game. It was a fitting conclusion to an unforgettable week.

On the other hand, it looks like President Obama’s re-election team will have the message, organization, and money in place by the summer convention to wage a strong campaign against whomever the GOP sends forward. The stock market and employment numbers are trending in a better direction for the President. The Clint Eastwood ad for Chrysler aired during the Super Bowl could have been a preview of the Obama for America campaign movie, othewise why all the angst in some quarters of the GOP establishment? Romney said don’t interfere with federal government support; let the carmakers fail. Bad call.

I’ll go back to what I wrote here some months ago. I don’t understand why the national Republicans didn’t start with stronger potential opponents to the President. Well, actually, I think I do understand. The “A Team” didn’t think the President could be beat, not really. Why else was there so much oxygen available for jokers like Trump and Cain? So now they have what they have, and the pundits are jabbering about drafting a new standard bearer.

Of course, Republican activists can say the Democrats were in disarray in 2008, with Hillary and Barack beating each other up through the late stages of the primary and caucus season. That was a horror show for weeks, but the Obama team steadily built its delegate count. In the public arena, the Democratic Party was working through an identity crisis. I think it turned out well, but that’s one voter speaking.

“It’s halftime in America. And our second half is about to begin.” A poet wrote that ad copy, I learned yesterday. Nice work.

Lowell Cemetery, headstone of African American Civil War sailor Walker Lewis “LANDSMAN US NAVY USS RHODE ISLAND MAY 7 1839 APR 18 1901″. Photo by Tony Sampas.

Somewhere between my awareness of our light grip on life, my empathy for the Syrian people, and my understanding of our never-ending quest for knowledge (the Great Satchmo had it just right when he said that our children would learn things that we would never know), I realized that I would never get that doctorate I wanted, never die filthy rich, and never be as smart as I wished I were. So I realized that I would have to settle.

There are a few things that I know. I know there is a God. I know that being born an American is the most important piece of luck in my life. I know that I will eventually take off of this mortal coil. So, I had to decide what was important to me. My love of Native American customs, and my love of history notwithstanding, I have determined that my wife and children are most important to me. I would like to say that that is normal, but in our society I might just be lucky in that I realize such a thing. I watch television and come to the conclusion that very few civilizations are as free and opinion-based as ours. Without those opinions, we would not be able to enjoy the freedom, which was purchased for us through the gift of military men and women. It puzzles me how we can just whittle away at those freedoms by not acknowledging the sacrifices of others.

I have two good friends who would, quite literally, give me the shirts off of their backs. We recently went fly fishing in New Hampshire and I caught my first trout. They took me into their fold, and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I find that I seem to have many friends, some closer at times then others, but all close at some point in time. I also found that I totally like fly-fishing. I had breakfast this morning with a man who deserves all of the credit he can get, but never would want to be named in an article. He was once a pro-football player, and he is a big man, both on and off of the field. He cheered for the Patriots in the Super Bowl and was just as disappointed as I was when they failed to win. That would be my take on it, they failed to win, they did not lose. A few plays, and they would have won it. But those New York teams are just bad luck to New Englanders. We forget that historically we surpassed the City of New York during the Revolution and have held our own ever since. So this curse of the “Babe,” and our willingness to admit that our millions of people are not equal to their millions of people are difficult for me to understand. During the Civil War, we lost 2% of our male population, and Massachusetts really put up a fight. Massachusetts always puts up a fight. Other states do not always fight with the ferocity of the Massachusetts citizen or politician. Look at the number of persons from Massachusetts who have run for the presidency and done credibly well. I include my brother-in-law, Paul Tsongas in that number.

Mitt Romney is the one person that President Obama did not want to face, and Romney, despite his moving from Massachusetts, is the scrappy political type. Like John Kennedy, he today, at this late date, decided to discuss his religion. As you know, he is a Mormon. Kennedy saved discussion of his religion for the West Virginia primary in 1960. It is too bad that religion has to play a part in it, but it always has, and probably always will. But, as an American, if not as a Democrat, it is refreshing that Romney, despite, or perhaps in spite of the fact that he is a Mormon, is being taken seriously.

Mr. Obama has accomplished a great deal, and I am grateful for many of the difficult stands that he has taken against a reluctant Congress. Just the death of Osama bin Laden would be enough to get a Republican re-elected, but Democrats, it seems to me, are kept to a higher standard. They have to cure the world’s ills. We have watched for the past few months how hollow you can be and still be a successful Republican candidate in the straw polls of Iowa, and as a former Iowan I know there is a lot of straw out there. Mr. Obama failed in his job the day he was sworn-in, I feel. I still disagree with the war in Afghanistan, I consider myself a veteran of the war to end the Vietnam War, and no, I did not wear long hair, I just politicked for those who ran as anti-war candidates. So, I was not that interesting. Some things never change. But,thanks to a high draft number, I got the chance to have the life I have so greatly enjoyed.

That was a crazy time. Forget Woodstock, children took over the country I felt, and their impact was felt in music, education, and the movies. It was cool to be a kid, and we still believe that was so. Despite the fact that they are in their eighties, we would still pack the Garden to see the Rolling Stones. Music was a force to be reckoned with. It went from a form of artistic expression to just a force.

The 5th. Congressional District played its part. It elected a man who would run for Congress, then the Senate, and then the Presidency. A man who once marveled to me that he got to sit in on a meeting with Red Auerbach. It was the starting point for a man who would be the youngest man to serve in the U.S. Congress the year he was elected, a man named Jim Shannon. It would be the starting point for a man who has changed the University of Massachusetts at Lowell, Marty Meehan. No other district in recent history has, I believe, turned out the number of winners that we have.

Therefore, I believe that we are all better for having been in the 5th. District. Sure, unemployment is up, but my mother assures me it is up in Florida, too. The economy is on the downswing, and I do not have any idea when it will be in the reverse again. But we get to live here. And that is a pleasure and a blessing. So, like Billy Joel waving Brenda and Eddie goodbye, let us wave the old 5th. goodbye and wonder what the new 3rd. will bring to us. Hopefully more of the same.

Would a 10 percent increase in the fare be justifiable? Maybe. But not the huge increase being proposed by the MBTA. Would a slight adjustment in the weekend schedule on the Lowell-Boston line be defensible? Maybe. But not the plan to wipe out weekend service.

The MBTA certainly got the public’s attention. There is passion around this issue. You could feel it in City Hall last night. The opposition was spontaneous. It was personal. It was professional. It was immediate. This is the kind of change that would hit people where they live. It would be bad for everyone who lives and works in this area, as well as for those who count on the public being able to easily visit and do business in the city and region. We need the train. We need late service. We need weekend service. And the cost should be fair and affordable.

The ads were mediocre, too. Except for the monkeys. The monkeys were funny.

Madonna was smart to go big with the drummers and choir at the half. And she’s for “world peace,” which is a good thing.

PS: I had missed the Clint ad for the carmakers of Detroit. After seeing the ad on Facebook, I give that one an A+. And I will refrain from any political commentary at this moment.

I haven’t been to the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum since the grand re-opening. Unfortunately, the Saturday hours start at 11 a.m., so all I could do was snoop around the edges. The expansion is substantial. The new contemporary-styled entrance is a startling update for what I’ve always known as a kind of period piece art-house. Designed by the renowned Renzo Piano, the new structure includes a long greenhouse facing the compact Evans Way Park. Bold plants and flowers are always a major draw at the Gardner. The whole complex looks fresh. I want to see it from the inside.

The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Wentworth Institute of Technology. Simmons College. Massachusetts College of Art and Design. These outstanding schools are shoulder-to-shoulder in the neighborhood. On the downtown side of the MFA, you see banners for Northeastern University. Bikes and bike racks abound.

At 10 a.m., I merged with a crowd that had formed at the Huntington Street entrance to the Museum of Fine Arts, which has been lifted into the orbit of destination museums around the world courtesy of the $500 million expansion that the staff and patrons accomplished smoothly and swiftly. As good as the MFA has been for all the years I’ve gone there, the new-and-improved version makes you proud to be a museum member and a resident of the state. This is not sedate excellence that you take for granted any more. The place has pop and sizzle and wow now even as you can find yourself alone in a gallery with profound objects and images. That happened to me yesterday when I wandered into a gallery in the contemporary art area that featured a sublime display of wood sculptures by Ellsworth Kelly, a 1948 graduate of the Museum School. These were rough and smooth boards and slightly curved planks presented like the crown jewels of lumber—reflections on topography and geometry.

Earlier, when I had circled the museum while waiting for the doors to open, I was thinking, This is a big stone box full of beautiful things. That’s what you find here and there in civilized places. We put certain beautiful things within walls and under a roof to protect them, so we can visit them occasionally to be inspired, to move our emotions, or to study and learn from. When the doors were unlocked, dozens of people were already lined up to go in, all kinds of people, on their own, as couples, with kids, in groups from schools or clubs, all of them wanting to see what is inside.

Dale Chihuly, “Lime Green Icicle Tower”, MFA Boston (web photo courtesy of hubreview.blogspot)

February, 1862 was all about the severe weather - “A vicious winter had stranded local rail traffic in deep drifts and in one instance frigid temperatures actually cracked the wheels of a locomotive.” And of the dispatches about actions of the 27th  at Roanoake Island in North Carolina and the later information of  “their friends and loved ones, who were fighting and dying in one of what would become a string of “Glorious Union Victories” over the next few weeks both in North Carolina and the west.” And of important social issues in a series on emancipation written by United States Senator Charles Sumner as well as their editorializing on the side of Catholics who were protesting a Protestant-backed bill in the Legislature to force them to read the King James version of The Bible in school. The editorial argued: “These narrow-minded Protestants do not see their course justifies Catholics in the same abuse of power whenever and wherever they find themselves in the majority.”

This chronicle is well-worth a read to get the flavor of life in western Massachusetts at that time and of how their local military men were faring in their Civil War battle.

Link to the article here: http://www.masslive.com/history/index.ssf/2012/02/civil_war_february_1862_1st_battle_of_the_27th_massachusetts_a_glorious_victory.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Time, it is often said, passes quickly. It seemed to for Passaconaway, the wise man and Chief of the Pawtucket tribe. Like many rulers, he wanted to make sure that, in his passing, there would still be peace and tranquility among the many tribes in the Pentucket confederacy. Therefore, he picked his own son, Wannalancit, as his successor. He did this before he got sick because he wanted to spend his last years in peace. He gave up his new religion, Christianity, and went back to what he grew up with and knew.

He held a grand banquet at Amoskeag Falls in what is now Manchester, NH. Many were invited and many came. He cautioned his friends and his son, saying, “Take heed how you quarrel with the English. Never make war with them.” He seemed to sense the resolve of the English, and did not want to go to war with them because of that resolve. He referred to them as the “Sons of the Great Spirit.” He also said that the Great Spirit had cast his light upon them. “Listen to my advice,” he said, “and remember it and live.” It appeared that the people in the Banquet Hall were listening intently.

The local chief was now called Nobhow or Numphow. In his final days, Passaconaway helped him by getting the English, the Massachusetts legislature, by General Court order, to give to the Pawtucket the lands of Manchester, Londonderry, Litchfield, Merrimack, and Bedford in New Hampshire. These lands were often called, at the time, the “Pine Plains.”

Some Native Americans submitted to the English in the Act of 1656, which further defined their boundaries and saw the rise to power of Major General Daniel Gookin, who became Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Massachusetts. These Native Americans had submitted themselves in allegiance to the English. For his part, Gookin acted as a judge to the Native Americans. He “had the power of the County Court” over his charges. He could and did dispense justice. If something could not be decided, it was sent to, and handled, in Boston.

The rules laid down by the English Courts were relatively lengthy and exact. Native Americans could keep their soil, unless an Englishman wanted it instead. Land could only be given under a licensing procedure of the Court. The Native American could have no alcohol, except for medicinal purposes. Since most medicines of the time consisted of a high percentage of alcohol, medicinal purposes arose fairly frequently.

Passaconaway died as an old man, without power or prestige. He died poor, in spirit and monetarily. He had done what he said he would do, he had kept peace with the Englishmen. By the time he died, liquor laws were easily overcome, and powwows, witches, and wizards were prohibited. It is said that the last Native American left Lowell upon its inception in 1826. Whether or not that last Native American was Passaconaway, or whether Passaconaway had died by that time, we do not know. But he was the last great chief of the Pawtuckets and he deserves to be remembered.