RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

Lowell Politics: Aug 16, 2026 (Title Theft)

The Lowell City Council met this past Tuesday evening; however, I was away and didn’t have time to watch the meeting, so I’ll write about it in next Sunday’s newsletter. Today’s topic is “title theft” the term used to describe the fraudulent transfer of real estate. The prompt for that topic was a recent Lowell Sun editorial, “Digital crooks looking to steal your property” (July 28, 2026, print edition) that brought useful attention to the issue but also contained a substantial misstatement of the law and an equally important omission. (I sent a Letter to the Editor to the Sun in response but haven’t heard or seen anything about it.)

While it’s important to be aware of the possibility of title theft, it is exceedingly rare. In my thirty years as register of deeds of the Northern District of Middlesex County, I only encountered three instances of it with only one of them being the type of crime contemplated by those who warn of title theft. (The other two instances involved fraud by a family member or a care giver.) Before addressing the Sun article and explaining some relevant legal concepts, I’ll start with brief summaries of the three real life deed fraud incidents I encountered. (With the caveat I’m just writing from memory and haven’t drilled back into the records for precise statements of the facts.)

****

The one true instance of “title theft” involved an elderly couple who lived in a suburban neighborhood. They had an adult child who lived in the region but not close by, although the child actively assisted in the care of the parents. Both parents eventually became disabled and relocated to care facilities and routine maintenance of the house was not done. Eventually, both parents passed away. Not ready to deal with the house, the adult child (the sole heir of the couple), held off on probating their estates. Real estate taxes on the house were paid, but not much else was done.

One day, a man walked into the registry of deeds and dropped off a deed to be recorded. The deed purported to convey this particular property from the parents to a third party. The deed contained what appeared to be the signatures of both parents, was notarized, contained the five or six other things required, and was accompanied by the necessary fee, so it was recorded.

At some point after that, the man to whom the property was conveyed called a local real estate broker and asked them to list the property for sale. Fortunately, the broker knew the history of the property including that the owners had died and that there was an adult child involved. Not knowing how to contact the adult child, the broker called the police who, because of frequent medical calls to the property in the past, still had the adult child’s contact information and got in touch.

The adult child immediately called the registry of deeds and spoke to me. Their story sounded credible and there was enough about the deed and other information I could find online to corroborate the adult child’s side of the story. I explained that while they should fully cooperate with the police who had promised to open an investigation, it was critical that they immediately hire a lawyer to file the necessary paperwork in court to begin unwinding the transaction.

A lawyer called me the next day on the adult child’s behalf. I provided copies of the deed that had been recorded and other relevant documents and explained all that I had been able to discover about the transaction. The lawyer promptly filed a lawsuit in Superior Court and obtained a lis pendens which is a notice of a lawsuit about the state of the title to property. Once the lis pendens was recorded at the registry of deeds, anyone who acted in reliance of that recent deed would be on notice that something might be wrong with it. Put another way, with the lis pendens on record, no legitimate buyer or lender would do business with the purported owner until the lawsuit was resolved.

Soon after that, the lawyer submitted affidavits to the court and obtained judgment in the form of a court order voiding the fraudulent deed. That order was recorded at the registry. With the fraudulent deed cancelled by the court order, the adult child was then able to probate their parents’ estates and dispose of the property however they wished.

I’ll explain some of the legal and procedural concepts involved in this story later in this essay, but for now let’s move onto a more common deed fraud scenario, one involving a family member.

****

Sometime in the 1960s, Mom and Dad purchased a home for themselves and their two children, a Son and a Daughter. Mom died at a young age, Daughter grew up, married and moved to another part of the country. As Son grew to adulthood, he remained in the family home with Dad. As Dad’s health declined, Son provided some level of care to Dad with both remaining in the home. Notably, Son had never held a job for very long.

Towards the end of his life, Dad went to a lawyer and had a will drafted and executed. The will left the house equally to Son and Daughter. However, the day before Dad died, he purportedly executed a deed transferring ownership of the house solely to Son. A few days after Dad died, Son recorded this deed at the registry of deeds.

A few months later, Daughter called the registry of deeds and asked who owned the house according to registry records. I spoke with her, told her of the deed from Father to Son, and sent her a copy of it. Before getting off the phone, Daughter insisted that the deed had to be fraudulent. I urged her to contact the police and to give the investigating officer my contact information, but more importantly, to hire her own lawyer to take appropriate civil action to protect her rights in the property.

When I was in law school, my teacher for Wills and Trusts, a nationally respected figure in that field, one day told us, “You learn a lot about a family when the surviving parent dies.” By that, he meant that siblings often disagree with the disposition of property by their parents. That observation of human nature is well-known to anyone in the legal field. So, while I didn’t dismiss this claim out of hand and sincerely urged Daughter to pursue it, nothing about this situation distinguished it from many other calls I had previously received from heirs disappointed by a parental bequest.

Except this one turned out to be different. Daughter was persistent, both with the police and with retaining her own lawyer. The lawyer filed a lawsuit seeking to void the deed. At the trial, Daughter’s lawyer got the notary public who notarized the deed to admit that he did not personally see Dad sign the deed. Notary was a friend of Son who came to Notary with the document, which was already signed, assured Notary that the signature was Father’s, said Father was feeling poorly that day, and asked Notary to notarize the document so Son could get it recorded. Notary complied and Son recorded the document.

Also at the trial, Son testified that Dad did in fact sign the deed just the day before he died and that everything he told Notary had been truthful. The judge didn’t believe him and ruled that the deed was void which meant that property ownership would be controlled by the will. (I assume Daughter included a claim for money damages against Son as part of this lawsuit, otherwise he would still end up with half the property notwithstanding his wrongdoing, but I don’t know for sure.)

A postscript of this case: About a year later, investigators from the Massachusetts Attorney General’s office interviewed me in preparation for a criminal trial against Son for fraud. I heard nothing further about it until I randomly encountered one of the people who had interviewed me. They volunteered that Son had pleaded guilty and had been sentenced to a short (but still significant) sentence of incarceration.

****

The final case will be brief. It involved an elderly person in poor health who had moved from the home they owned into a long-term care facility. Elder had distant relatives who were in touch with Elder during their lifetime, but no family members that seemed especially close. Shortly before Elder died, a neighbor who had assisted the Elder in the care and upkeep of the home, came to the care facility accompanied by a notary public and had the Elder sign a deed that conveyed the property to Neighbor. The notary witnessed this and notarized the deed. Neighbor brought the deed to the registry of deeds and recorded it. Although the deed recited that Neighbor had paid $100,000 for the property, Neighbor had not done that by the time Elder died shortly thereafter.

Heirs of Elder vigorously questioned the propriety of this transfer. The police investigated and charges were brought against Neighbor. I don’t have the outcome of the criminal case documented; however, I found a deed on the registry of deeds website from several years after all of this took place. In this deed, Neighbor conveyed the property back to the lawyer for the estate of the deceased Elder. The deed states it was done pursuant to an agreement in a Middlesex Superior Court case, citing a criminal docket number. The property is now owned by an unrelated third party.

While we know what happened to the real estate, I don’t know for sure the ultimate disposition of any legal case, criminal or otherwise. However, I believe the prosecution’s theory was that at the time the deed was executed, Elder, because of their medical and mental state, was unable to exercise free will and that Neighbor had imposed their will on Elder.

I’ve been a lawyer for 40 years now. Regrettably, the only thing I see that’s unique about this case was the criminal prosecution because instances of elders being unduly influenced by family members, friends, care givers or others, are not as rare as we would like them to be.

****

So, those are my stories. What’s important to know about the relevant law and procedure?

First, Massachusetts law is quite clear: a forged deed does not convey title. Consequently, in the first two scenarios described above, neither deed conveyed legal ownership of the property to the grantee shown on the deed even though the deed (1) looked legitimate, and (2) had been recorded at the registry of deeds. This is a BIG DEAL and is almost always omitted from advertisements and editorials that warn of title theft. It should also ease the concerns of those who worry about falling victim to this type of fraud.

BUT even though title does not pass to the fraudster, the true homeowner is still left with a legal and paperwork mess to resolve. As illustrated in cases one and two above, it was the person harmed who had to hire a lawyer to file a lawsuit to get the fraudulent deed declared by the court to be fraudulent. This hardly seems fair but that’s the way the system works. Once the court case is filed, if the facts are like case one above (the stranger drafting a completely fictitious conveyance), the case should be resolved quickly since it’s unlikely that the wrong doer will show up to defend against the claim. On the other hand, a case like number two above which involves an interfamily dispute may require a full trial and would therefore take longer to resolve.

In either case, the legal fees incurred by the innocent property owner would be substantial. Including a claim for money damages in the lawsuit or seeking restitution in a criminal prosecution look good on paper, but both of those would take time to adjudicate and, more importantly, wrongdoers usually don’t have assets to pay such judgments.

Something that might help the innocent property owner is title insurance. When you buy real estate and finance your purchase with a mortgage, your lender requires you to obtain title insurance. For a one-time payment, title insurance protects against financial loss resulting from defects in a property’s legal title. Almost everyone who has bought or refinanced a home purchased title insurance at the closing, although amidst the avalanche of documents that are signed at the closing, few realize title insurance is included. Critically, there are two types of title insurance policies. The mandatory one, a lender’s policy, covers the mortgage lender to the amount of the loan. The second one, which is optional, is the owner’s policy which covers the equity in the property. Since it’s optional, buyers might be tempted to forgo it given all the other closing costs, but you should always opt for an owner’s policy of title insurance.

However, whether title insurance would pay a lawyer to represent you in a case of deed fraud that arises after you have become the owner of the property depends on the fine print of the title insurance policy. Some cover it; some do not.

Legislators interested in this issue should explore making coverage of title theft defense and loss mandatory for all Massachusetts title insurance policies even if that increases their cost. (However, because title theft continues to be so rare, it is unlikely to gain any legislative momentum since other public policy issues have higher priority.)

Regardless of who pays for a lawyer, receiving early warning of title theft is critical. The best way to get that is by signing up for the free Consumer Notification Service offered by the Massachusetts Secretary of State. Once you create a free account, you enter information about your property. Then, anytime a new document that affects that property is recorded at the registry of deeds, you get an automated email about the new document so you can check it out. This system doesn’t prevent a fraudulent document from being recorded but it does give you immediate warning of it.

One thing to keep in mind when it comes to recording documents at the registry of deeds; real estate ownership and finance is a huge part of the U.S. and global economies. In that context, the speed with which transactions can be processed and recorded is critical to the smooth operation of that system. While you could create a document recording system that reduced the changes of fraud – say, by requiring all sellers to personally appear at the registry to sign their deed – the entire real estate system would grind to a halt and chaos would ensue. I do think technology can provide greater safeguards, but the scale of the problem must be big enough to warrant the investment. However, because title theft continues to be so rare, that’s unlikely to happen.

Finally, regarding the Sun editorial, the omission was that a forged deed does not convey title, something I covered above. The misstatement of law dealt with something called a “quitclaim” deed. The editorial asserted that quitclaim deeds are “not usually used for traditional home sales” since they do not carry the same protections as other forms of deeds. That may be the case elsewhere, but in Massachusetts a quitclaim deed is the standard type of deed used in nearly all conveyances, and it carries all needed protection. (What is called a quitclaim deed elsewhere is a deed of release in Massachusetts.) I mention this in case anyone reading the editorial panicked when they saw they had a quitclaim deed since that is exactly what everyone who owns a home in Massachusetts has.

****

This week in my Seen and Heard column, I mentioned a NYT business column that urged caution in putting too many assets in the stock market which may be dangerously inflated due to AI investments; commented on another NYT article about the US granting Saudia Arabia access to nuclear technology; highlighted a profile of an artist who is “helping Trump reshape Washington;” recommended a recent Bob Sullivan Substack column about him interviewing Tony Bennett and Allen Ginsberg on consecutive nights; and the unstated Lowell connections in a Boston Globe article about Mount Auburn Cemetery.

‘Frost Land’ by Paul Marion

Frost Land

On the small balcony with purple morning glories and magenta zinnias in pots, I see two eagles flowing west to east, lower to higher, doing whatever they do at a time like this, but definitely showing themselves off in a faded blue flannel sky with a muted sun on a day with rain due. Layered into the distance are the various greens of woods and forest, barely Maine past rolling New Hampshire just off the coast, the greens softened by a damp atmosphere which also tamps down the sound of an occasional truck and the housing construction below on a main road.

With one eye on the eagles, I’m reading a 1946 compilation, 1965 21st printing, of the poems of Robert Frost introduced casually for the average reader by community organizer Louis Untermeyer, the tireless anthologizer of the 20th century, his Bob Frost coming to us in a brisk profile, highlights of the path to Famous Frost, like Famous Seamus of Ireland later:

born in San Francisco; rebel father’s early death there; mother-led return to New England roots territory, mill city Lawrence on the Merrimack River (echoes of cultural cousins Anne Bradstreet, J. G. Whittier, and H. D. Thoreau); in and out of college; part-time jobs teaching, doing factory shifts, and news writing; then a farm in Derry N.H. thanks to a grandparent; ten years of crops and poultry (with poetry on the side); ten years in the dirt before earning his way out of agriculture; selling the land to finance a last-ditch attempt to get noticed as an author by sailing to England with wife Elinor and four kids; walking into a London book publisher’s office and getting a deal to launch his first collection of poems, then another one, the second being “North of Boston,” which lifts him into literary orbit in his late 30s; followed by return to America and the late start of a career. World War I has begun. He steps off the ship and is the talk of the book world in New York City.

On his way forward he collects four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry, teaches on numerous campuses, endures brutal family tragedies, makes a friend of a young President from New England, and achieves a commemorative U.S. postage stamp after passing in 1963.

Frost is still the codeword for “poet” in most of today’s America, more than Whitman or even Dickinson for mainstream recognition. “The Road Not Taken,” “Stopping By Woods…” “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” All this in the 75 cents paperback bought in a shop with “used books,” from a time when a regular person could get 200 pages of Frost’s poems for less than a dollar. Almost free. And still in circulation. In his own way he is all around us.

Paul Marion (c) 2026

Music! Music! Music!

Music! Music! Music!

By Leo Racicot

The very first music concert I attended was at Freedomland, an amusement park in The Bronx. My sister, Diane and I, were in White Plains, New York visiting our aunt, uncle and cousins for three weeks in the summer of 1962. One of the acts we saw at Freedomland was The Chad Mitchell Trio. One of the members of that folk group was John Denver though Denver hadn’t yet become John Denver. If I close my eyes, I can still see the fresh-scrubbed college look of these guys singing their hearts out in three-part harmony.

The very first rock/blues I saw was James Montgomery Band on North Campus just outside Costello Gym. Joe and I went together. It must have been about 1970. Up till then, we’d only heard that type of blues roots music on the radio. Hearing it performed live was a thrill. We felt modern and part of our generation. The Band continues to tour in 2026.

It was around this same time that I fell in love with singer Judy Collins; I’d picked up her album, Who Knows Where the Time Goes in a Stuart’s record bin — and listened and listened in my bedroom, the sun and a light summer breeze lifting the curtains in the window as Judy’s crystalline clear soprano lifted itself to the sky. Her music captured me as has no other and I’ve lost count of the number of I’ve been blessed to see her live in many different venues. I was so taken with her, I’d bring friends with me to hear her: David McKean out in Tanglewood at Collins’ Berkshire Music Festival performance in 1968. Joe, at Hampton Beach Casino around the same time. I’ll always remember seeing her at Suffolk Downs; we audience sat on the grounds, the smell of horse dung permeating the air as Collins, lovely vision in prairie dress and guitar, sang, her eyes closed in reverie through most of the concert. A night of pure magic. Judy, at age 87, continues to tour the world, her pristine, ethereal tones miraculously still reaching for the heights.

The great Joni Mitchell was a favorite in those days, too. I listened endlessly to her many hits. When it was announced she’d be participating in the Boston Concerts on the Common Series in 1983, I talked Diane into coming along. (I was forever dragging my poor sister to concerts of performers she wasn’t a fan of, especially if their gigs proved to her why she didn’t care for them. This concert was the one that’s become notorious in music history; Mitchel was not in a good humor that night; she stopped the music more than once to scold an inattentive audience and sang only a couple of numbers before storming off the stage. After a long absence, she was coaxed back but only made it through a couple of more songs before storming off again. I don’t think the concert lasted more than half-an-hour. Diane was incensed when the announcer stated unequivocally that “No refunds will be given”. This bothered Diane no end and years later, whenever Mitchell’s voice came on the car radio, Diane would rail, “That was an outrage; they should have given us our money back!”  In 2000, Joe and I decided we’d give Joni another chance. We saw her at Boston’s Seaport Pavilion. She was older, her voice richer, smokier and well-worth our worship. And — she didn’t flee the stage once, stayed for more than the standard two-hour concert time. An unforgettable evening…

I’ve been around a long time; I can’t possibly list here all the singers and bands I’ve seen.  Some of the more memorable ones come to mind….

I’ve had a lifetime of adoration for Julie Andrews ever since I saw her in The Sound of Music when it first came out in 1965. So indelibly did she captivate me that I walked downtown to The RKO Keith Theater a dozen times to watch that movie. So, when, in 1987, I saw she was to appear in person at New York’s Westbury Music Fair (Andrews never appeared too often, if at all, in person), I didn’t hesitate, bought a ticket on impulse. More than a few people over the years have been skeptical (if not downright disbelieving) that I traveled from Boston to Westbury to see Julie Andrews in concert in a raging blizzard. They also doubted that an international supernova like Andrews would appear in a small circle-in-the-round theater on Long Island. But appear she did. It was November, 1987 and though the snow was looking ominous, I was determined to see the divine Julie in person, even if it meant taking my life in my hands. I would go anywhere for her. And did! The concert was, to say, a thrill. To be able to see this superstar in-the-flesh, not two feet away from me was extraordinary, to say the least. In a gown made of the finest silver, Andrews sang all her hits. One number stuck with me all these years; her rendition of Lerner and Loewe’s Come to Me, Bend to Me from Brigadoon.

I don’t think I’ll ever get over the first time I saw Bette Midler perform on stage. Never before or since have I seen such energy displayed. She was a tornado of performance; The Divine Miss M sang, danced, twirled, even conquered Hawaiian bolo balls with aplomb. That girl never sat still for one second except to stop and sing a heartbreaking ballad or two. In fact, in those early days, pre-fame, even when theater venues weren’t even a third full, Midler worked her tail off, gave it her all, 150 percent, as if she was performing at Madison Square Garden. As with Judy Collins, I’ve lost track of the number of times I’ve seen her over the years. After that first concert, the real shock was seeing her in the lobby, post-show. She appeared as this very tiny lady, hardly five feet tall, dressed primly, the archetype of a 1950s librarian, pill box on her head, ribboned cameo at her throat, not a bit like the tsunami I’d just seen decimate an audience a few minutes before.

Equally riveting was Nina Simone at Symphony Hall in 2000. I’d always liked Simone’s musical stylings but wasn’t prepared for the full Nina Simone in-person experience. To call her performance intense would be an understatement of the highest order. Her stage presence was theatrical, extremely moving, spiritual. I left the hall in a state of ecstasy, floated home on a cloud of Joy.

You don’t hear too much about them happening anymore but in the 1970s and 1980s, it was common for a performer to stage a pop-up, impromptu appearance around Boston. These were unscheduled gigs, unannounced until the last minute. If you were lucky, you’d be in the right place at the right time. I saw the great Richie Havens at The Prudential Center, seated outside some shops, singing his heart out in his trademark bass tones. I caught Cindy Lauper & Arlo Gurthie on The Esplanade, again just out-of-the-blue. Two dynamic performers, as the song goes playing real good for free.

The folk blues singer/civil rights activist, Odetta, was a favorite of mine from the 1960s when I first heard that magnificent voice, a voice coming at you like a locomotive. I saw her at Harvard’s intimate Paine Hall, at Newport Folk Festival a couple of times during which the Zoom lens on my camera captured a favorite photo I’ve kept for years. One cold, wintry night strolling around Harvard Square, I heard a familiar voice pouring out of Club Passim. I said, “I know that voice”. When I peeked in the window, there was Odetta, her power filling the room, knocking the walls down.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t exactly a concert The incomparable Vanessa Redgrave gave at Boston’s Orpheum Theater In April, 1982. I attended a pro-Palestinian fundraiser featuring Redgrave in a one-woman show. She was riveting. No one else was on-the-bill but from my seat, I could see a man hovering in the wings and said to myself, “That fellow looks like Tennessee Williams”, never in a million years thinking it could be the playwright himself. But it was! At the end of her program, Redgrave said, “Now, we have a very, very special guest speaker. Mr. Tennessee Williams”. Williams advanced to center stage and read from one of his essays the subject of which was the freedom of the artist to speak out about political and social causes and concerns. I was over-the-moon, as was everyone there that night. This story continues — I was filing out of the theater when I ran into my friend, Jane, who worked for the theater management. She said, “Would you like to meet Miss Redgrave?” and pulled me by the hand into the wings. Redgrave was BIG, gave me and others a very lusty, masculine “How do?” handshake. It was then I heard someone say to Williams, “So brave of you to do this, Tennessee” to which the tiny, little writer who had appeared so shy on stage just moments before replied, “Let’s see what kind of blankety-blank mess I’ve gotten myself into this time!”

Rosemary Clooney. The name still resonates. One of the enduring singers to emerge from the Big Band era. I grew up on her music; my parents and relatives were older so that type of music was always on the radio, the record player. When, in 1993, Rosemary came to North Shore Music Circus in Beverly, I was hot to see her. By that time, she was quite large. She was also quite frail. She performed her two sets perched on a stool, center stage. The voice was as strong as it had ever been, singular, sassy. The phrasing as perfect as when she’d started out decades before. One of the great voices. She delighted the audience with three encores. In return, they gave her five standing ovations. They didn’t want to say goodbye.

Whenever I liked an entertainer and his/her work, I’d go to great lengths to see them perform in-person. I was single and anyway, none of my friends shared my musical tastes. I could never get anyone to go with me anywhere so — off I’d go, near or far, to see someone whose work brought me joy. I’ve seen Bette Midler in New York, Las Vegas, San Antonio, Toronto, Providence & Miami, Judy Collins in practically every state in the nation, made my way through a raging blizzard to see Julie Andrews. But for me, the most memorable was the time I, a very green, very shy, scared young man went all the way to New York City to see/hear the truly mesmerizing Miss Peggy Lee. When I got off the bus at Port Authority, I made my way (only God knows how) to the Midtown address listed on my ticket and ended up, to my dismay, in a dark, dirty alleyway. Newspapers and other debris were flying around the windy passage, and I thought, “This is a good place to get murdered or mugged.” The only door I saw was a corroded, old door with a hand-written sign that read ENTER HERE. Nobody else was in the alley with me, no long line of ticketholders, no ticket takers, nobody to ask anything of, no nuthin’. Hmmmm. As The Divine Miss M used to say, “I’m not making this up, you know!” I don’t mind telling you I was one Nervous Nelly as I walked up to the door, hesitantly pulled the handle and yanked. I know now that New York’s many dark alleyway doors open up onto a wonder world of surprises. But this was the first time I experienced this big city phenomenon. For, what opened to me when I flung wide the door was a blinding World of White. Everything was white! The supper club was white. The tablecloths were white. A white cloud of tulle hung in the supper club sky, white lights twinkling throughout it. Peggy, herself, when she emerged, was white. Her hair was white. Her gown. The frames of her sunglasses — white. I thought I died and went to White Paradise. Suddenly, a hush fell over the club. The lights went down. The orchestra went up. Peggy Lee began to purr Fever into her white mic. Peggy was White Hot!

_______________________

Arlo Guthrie

Cyndi Lauper

James Montgomery Band

Joni Mitchell: Boston Concerts on the Common

Judy Collins in 1968

Julie Andrews

Odetta at Newport Folk Festival

Peggy Lee

Tennessee Williams

The Chad Mitchell Trio

Venessa Redgrave

Seen & Heard: Vol. 32

A weekly report on things I’ve read, heard and seen since last Wednesday. 

Article: “AI’s Market Dominance comes With a Warning” by Jeff Sommer, New York Times, July 12, 2026 – This is the “Strategies” column in the Business section. Despite relatively high inflation driven by tariffs and the war with Iran, the stock market is booming. Most experts attribute this to hopes for artificial intelligence. “Huge sums being funneled into A.I. infrastructure have bolstered returns . . .” The risk is that if those bets turn out to be wrong, the drop in the stock market will be severe. “If the enormous expectations for A.I. aren’t met, those remarkable portfolio returns could suddenly disappear.” The author’s advice is to widely diversify your investments which is difficult given how much everything in the US and around the world seems tied to A.I. My lesson in the wisdom of diversifying came with the collapse of the housing bubble in 2008. I didn’t have a lot of money to invest but half was in an Index 500 stock mutual fund and half was in bank CDs. The return on the stock dwarfed the bank interest and I kicked myself for not shifting that money somewhere with a better return. Then the bottom dropped out of the economy. Overnight, I lost half the value of my stock fund while I still had the same amount of cash in the bank. True, the stock has regained its value since then and has appreciated considerably, but there is no guarantee that will happen. 

Article: “US Eases Rules in Nuclear Deal for Saudi Arabia” by David E. Sanger, et al, New York Times, July 23, 2026.The announcement of a deal selling advanced nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia by the US, technology that might allow that country acquiring a nuclear weapon received so much negative attention that the President added new conditions to the already signed agreement, sabotaging it in the process. My first point: this illustrates why countries will be so hesitant to negotiate anything with the U.S. unless absolutely necessary. Why make concessions to reach an agreement when the agreement is likely to be abrogated by the President if it is poorly received? Second point: Why are U.S. leaders (of both parties) so indebted to Saudi Arabia? After all, Osama bin Laden was Saudi as were 15 of the 19 hijackers in the 9-11 attacks. I’m not saying we should be overtly hostile to Saudi Arabia, but neither should we treat that country as our closest and most reliable ally. 

Article: “He is Helping Trump Reshape Washington” by Zachary Small in New York Times, July 27, 2026. The subheading for this article is “Matthew Taylor, an artist and political strategist, is a cultural czar of sorts for the White House.” I had never heard of this guy but this article portrays him as the moving force behind much of the whitewashing of American history emanating from the White House. Enough said. 

Substack: “When Allen Met Tony, Revisited” by Robert Sullivan, August 1, 2026. A Chelmsford native who formerly wrote for Sports Illustrated, Time and LIFE, Bob Sullivans shares wonderful longform prose pieces with us for free via his Substack newsletter. A recent piece recalled his experience interviewing on consecutive evenings the singer Tony Bennett and the poet Allen Ginsberg and the connections between the two. It’s a wonderful, detail-rich piece of writing that was a pleasure to read.

Article: “What Mount Auburn Cemetery teaches the living” by Joan Wickersham. Boston Globe, July 31, 2026. This essay on the Op-Ed page is by a frequent visitor and neighbor of this famous garden style cemetery in Cambridge. She explains that whether you are interested in gardening, nature, history, biography or architecture, there is something for you in this cemetery. I feel the same every time I visit Lowell Cemetery which is modeled on Mount Auburn. When Lowell Cemetery first opened in 1842, there were no public parks in this region. On Sunday’s residents would come to Lowell Cemetery to enjoy the beautiful natural setting and to have a picnic. While I haven’t seen anyone dining within the cemetery recently, there are many who routinely enjoy it. If you’ve never been, you should go someday, park your car and just wander around to soak everything in.