. No, I don’t hang out with discarded crucifixes, portraits of Protestant bigwigs from long ago or aged Torah scrolls. Instead, like the Christians in the catacombs, I gather with other fallen people who are trying to recover their lives. Luckily, these fellow sufferers are carriers of wisdom, always pithy and sometimes funny. Over the years, I’ve collected some of that wisdom, and would like to offer it now.
New Hampshire’s roads and bridges belong to all of us. They are built and maintained with public money. Boston Express receives public subsidies. When these public goods are not meeting our needs, we need to speak up and let the public officials who are in charge know.
I don’t mean it’s unlikely I’ve been working that long, for I suspect some of you see me as a great-grandfatherly figure, a doddering old fool who’s lucky not to have oatmeal on his chin and his address pinned to his windbreaker in case he wanders away. No, it’s the newspaper reporter business you may find unlikely.
Celebrating education and putting the “unity” in community is what the annual CelebratED festival at Veterans Park is all about, and that’s what Saturday’s strong showing of students, parents, and educators reflected.
Perkins alleges she was unexpectedly released by New England College, in Henniker, in April during an online meeting “in a humiliating and crude manner,” according to her lawsuit. She alleges her firing was the culmination of a campaign of misogyny and a culture of gender bias among certain top officials at the school she led for more than a decade.
For those who may not be familiar with the premise of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” it is set sometime in the not-so-distant future, following a violent civil war in the United States fought over ideological differences. Birth rates have plummeted due to environmental indifference and increased rates of STDs, and the far-right religious fanatics—many of whom posture as Christians—have established their own country named Gilead.
Very Reverend Jason Jalbert, Rector and Pastor of Saint Joseph Cathedral, blessed the opening of the new Cathedral Gift Shop, which held its grand opening and ribbon cutting on Sept. 23. Located in the parish rectory at 145 Lowell Street, the gift shop was established in response to the closing of the privately-owned Cathedral Church Goods.
One of my favoritest of favorite days, though, comes next Saturday. Hope for New Hampshire Recovery’s annual Recovery Festival is at Arms Park September 30 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Arms Park is a new and much, much larger space than Veterans Park, the festival’s previous site. Taking up space about two-thirds the size of a football field, the festival has grown from a trade show for businesses in the treatment-recovery industrial complex to become a genuine gathering of the recovery tribe.
The next volunteer training begins October 16, 2023, and will take place on Monday & Wednesday evenings. The training is 18 hours long and FREE to attendees. Classes will be held in person at the VNA, 1070 Holt Ave., Suite 1400, in Manchester, with the option of attending remotely.
You can see Sandeep Das perform Sept. 23 with Symphony NH at Nashua’s Keefe Auditorium.
Earlier this month, local artists gathered at Diz’s Café as part of an effort to create greater collaboration between Manchester’s art community and its downtown businesses.
The world is filled with folks who are very smart, but who accomplish little, people who are very strong, yet move little, and humans who are very charismatic, but change little. I honestly believe, and believe it with every fiber of my being, that attitude accomplishes more than ability.
Two events – Sept. 21 at The Rex, and Sept. 23 at Veterans Park – to celebrate and elevate education in our city! Join in!
It looks to be a beautiful fall weekend! Get yourself out and about to enjoy the weather!
As I was writing the above, sitting at a table at the front of Hope, the place where members congregate for cards or chess or conversation, a woman I’ll call Carol sat down next to me. I greeted her with some sort of jackassery, and Carol looked into my face, hers slowly melting. On the verge of tears, she told me she hurt. Clearly, this wasn’t a headache or an ingrown toenail. I asked her if she wanted to walk down to my office so we could talk in private. She nodded.
Geared toward families with children of all ages, the Seacoast’s Original Touch-a-Truck features construction equipment, fire trucks, a race car, coach buses, oil delivery trucks, landscaping equipment, limousines, emergency vehicles, and more, to look at and sometimes climb on and explore. The event also features food, kid-friendly activities, a raffle, demonstrations, roaming railroad rides, giveaways, and much more.
I needed peers, not professionals. I needed to be surrounded by folks who knew and understood me almost instantly—and who still seemed to like me. I did not need a DSM diagnosis of Alcohol Use Disorder. I did not need to explain myself to someone who’d never been within a thousand psychic miles of me. I needed recovery, and recovery was all around me.
Distance is the major disruptor of relationships. It can be either a tearing experience or a liberating one. It offers an opportunity to remake yourself. To start from scratch and associate with those whose views and personalities are new and different. The result, however, is that it makes it easier to leave behind what and whom you have, indeed, left behind.
Two days ago, I lost a friend to overdose. That’s a sentence I could have written dozens times over my time at Hope Recovery. I could also write of the thousand or so people I’ve met here who are still in recovery. They go to meetings, work a program of some kind and stay away from drugs and alcohol. Still, the losses mount and my heart gets broken.
A recent (August 18, 2023) U.S. District Court ruling denied a request to copyright a piece of digital art because it had been created without human input. The Copyright Office was ruled to have acted properly because the work was created without any human involvement.