The Effects of Surroundings

            Memoirs not only give the reader incite to the author’s life, but they also teach you about the people around them and the places they have encountered. Both Andre Dubus III and Michael Patrick MacDonald wrote about their rough childhoods and growing up in the rough neighborhood of cities in Massachusetts with a single mother providing for them and their siblings. While Dubus moved around and living in Haverhill and the other Mill Cities around there, MacDonald spent most of his life in Southie, a section of Boston that is highly populated by Irish-Americans. These men are only seven years apart in age so many of their experiences were happening at the same time. Both these amazing authors were shaped similarly by the places that they grew up, their families, and the other people around them.

            Dubus and MacDonald both grew up in rough neighborhoods and these places have become a big part of who they are. Andre Dubus III’s book Townie is named after who he was. The word townie was used to describe someone who grew up in the neighborhoods that he did and by putting that as the title of his book Dubus shows that the places he lived did affect him. If Andre Dubus III had not grown moved to these neighborhoods and had stayed in the first house described in the book with his parents still together he would be a completely different person. The rough neighborhoods made him change into someone who could protect themselves and the others around him. Drugs seemed to be a common factor among all the other kids in Dubus’s neighborhood and for a while he fell into the lifestyle as well, but eventually he changed his way of life, he would work out instead of going out with his sister. He became a fighter because of the places he lived and even today he still has to fight back the need to fight mentality he was once so proud of.

In his book All Souls MacDonald describes his life in one of the roughest neighborhoods in Boston, Southie, a place where people died often because of drugs or fights. While he was living their Whitey Bulger was just becoming a prominent role in society and his popularity was growing rapidly. At the time everyone in Southie thought that Bulger was helping to keep them safe even though he was actually doing the opposite. MacDonald was pulled into the world of drugs in Southie by his brother, and at one point was helping sell drugs to other kids at the clubs they would hang out in. But he realized the danger of drug dealing and the drugs themselves and decided he did not want to be a part of it. Michael Patrick MacDonald let Southie when he was old enough to provide for himself because of all the violence and corruption in the neighborhood, but he could not stay away for long. The violence in South affected him so greatly he  began to lead a gun by back program that would help make the streets of Boston safer, it took him a while but he eventually went back to Southie to help make it a better place. He held a memorial in a local church on All Souls Day, the day after All Saints Day, to remember everyone from Southie even those who had died honorably. This part of Boston became such a big part of his life he could not leave it behind broken, it changed how he would act for the rest of his life.  

            Both of these authors became who they are because of the part of town they lived and were raised in. Violence played a main role in both Dubus and MacDonald’s life. While Dubus learned to fight to protect others, MacDonald grew up to become part of a program that tried to decrease violence. Both men did what they thought they had to in order to survive in these rough areas and to keep their loved ones safe. Both men were subjected to drug use for a portion of their lives, but chose to move away from them to become the people they wanted to be. Haverhill and Southie played a large role in molding Andre Dubus III and Michael Patrick MacDonald into the people they are today.

            Without their families Dubus and MacDonald would be completely different people. Andre Dubus III was shaped greatly by his family. His father did not play a fatherly role in his life, he took the Dubus and his siblings out for food on occasion and later in life became more of a friend to them then a father. Without a father Dubus had nobody to teach him to do many things a boy his age should have known how to do, for example: throw a baseball. The partial absence of his father took a toll on Andre Dubus III, he believed that he had to step up in his family because he was the eldest boy. When Andre Dubus III came to the University of Massachusetts Lowell he said that the hardest part of Townie for him to write was his family, he originally tried to write the story of his childhood excluding his family members. He also mentioned that if he would have talked to his father about how hard his childhood was he probably would not have written Townie. After seeing his brother Jeb beat up in front of him and hearing about his sister Suzanne’s rape, Dubus decided that he needed to make a change in his life. He wanted to be able to protect his family and anyone else who needed protecting, so he began to work out until he was able to defend himself and others.

            On the inside of the front cover in All Souls Michael Patrick MacDonald put the birth dates and, if relevant, the death dates of all of his siblings. His mother had eleven children, out of these eleven only six of them are still alive and well. MacDonald’s mother had to raise all of her children by herself, their father was never in the picture. MacDonald watched as many of his siblings became involved in drugs and even became part of the violence in Southie. His older brother Kevin began to work for Whitey Bulger selling drugs. His sister Kathleen got heavily involved in drugs and his brother Davy committed suicide at the young age of twenty-three. All of his siblings that passed away did not live beyond their twenties. Michael Patrick MacDonald’s youngest brother Stevie was sent to jail for murder when he was still just a child because one of his friends found a gun in the house and accidentally shot himself with it. Stevie was blamed for the death even though it was not his fault. MacDonald’s family suffered so greatly from all the violence in Southie that he tried to change the area that they lived in and make it a better place.

            Andre Dubus III and Michael Patrick MacDonald both had families with a lot of problems. Neither man had a father to depend on and both had siblings that were mentally unstable. While Dubus’s brother survived his suicide attempt and changed his life around, MacDonald’s brother did not have that chance. Both men had to take care of themselves emotionally as they grew up because their mothers’ were trying to provide for the family and had to deal with their sibling’s emotional trauma. They had to grow up before they should have had to so they could take care of themselves and their families. Both of these men took what happened to their families and tried to change the situations. Dubus tried to become stronger so he could protect them and MacDonald tried to free them from a life of violence.  

            The people in the areas that Dubus and MacDonald grew up in also played a role in making them into the people they are today. Clay Whelan, Dubus’s childhood bully, helped give Dubus the anger he needed to “buff up” as well as the people who stole the new bikes their mom’s boyfriend Bruce had bought them. On page forty-two of Townie Dubus describes the feeling of wanting to kill the people who stole the bikes. Andre Dubus III’s best friend Sam helped him work out and become the person he wanted to be. Together they would exercise, lift weights, and box so they could be strong enough to protect those who needed protecting. Dubus’s wife also changed him, he turned from a life of violence when he met her. When they were on the train and the drug dealers were walking up and down scaring everyone instead of fighting them like the old Dubus would have done he spoke to them. As Andre Dubus III grew up and the people around him changed, so did he.

            In Southie, Michael Patrick MacDonald was always taught that everyone who lived there was like family, the entire neighborhood was one large extended family. When violence broke out nobody told on anyone else because you did not “rat” on your family. Growing up MacDonald did not understand why people from Southie were killing other people from Southie if they were all supposed to be one big family. But even he had the family mentality. That is why even though his family had moved out of Southie MacDonald went back to save what family he had left. Whitey Bulger played a huge role in who MacDonald became even though the two never actually interacted. Bulger brought drugs and violence into Southie and pretended like he was protecting them from the very same things. Bulger’s actions played a role in the deaths of Michael Patrick MacDonald’s sibling and the death of many of MacDonald’s childhood friends.

            The people around us affect the people we become, and that is was happened to Dubus and MacDonald. Both men looked at the people around them and tried to change for what they thought was the better. They became the people that they are today because of the help and the hurt that the people that surrounded them were the cause of. Dubus used the bad people in his life to decide to change and the good to help him get to where he wanted to be. On the other hand, MacDonald looked at the people around him and how they were being affected and decided to change in a way that would help them. Both these men had help in changing who they were, but their changes also helped the other people around them. 

            Townie and All Souls are both memoirs about the lives of two great authors. They not only help the reader understand more about the authors themselves, but these books also help readers understand the places they have lived and the people they have encountered. Andre Dubus III and Michael Patrick MacDonald became who they are today because of the places they lived, their families, and others who became part of their lives as they grew up. If any of these aspects had been different as they grew up they might not have become the great men and authors that they are today. Their stories and their persons would be very different. The place they lived affected their families and caused many people to become part of their lives. These memoirs do an amazing job in informing the reader and in expressing the truth, not holding back the truth to make anyone else look better. 

Learning In Lowell

The city of Lowell is known for its role in history because of people, events, and places that are a part of this great city. Lowell plays an important role in educating the people who are lucky enough to visit or live here. This city brings many different types of people with many different interests and helps to teach them or get them started on an educated journey. The University of Massachusetts Lowell invited Piper Kerman to speak at the college to its students and faculty. Jack Kerouac, a famous author, lived in Lowell and is recognized by the Kerouac festival every year. They city of Lowell is home to many textile mills and museums like the Boott-Cotton Museum and the American Textile Museum. All of these things educate the people that run into them and leave them wondering and wanting to learn more.

Piper Kerman visiting the University of Massachusetts Lowell was a very interesting experience for me. Going in to listen to her speak I had assumed that she would talk mostly about her book, Orange is the New Black, and it’s growing popularity as a show on Netflix. I had never seen the show or read the book up to this point, but many of my friends had and wanted to go see her speak so I tagged along. I was interested to learn what Orange is the New Black is all about. When Kerman started speaking I was confused that I had been wrong in my assumption of the topic of her speech. While she did talk about her book and the show most of her talk was about life in prisons.

Kerman discussed her belief and facts about modern day prisons. She believes that there are too many people in jail for non-violent crimes and that eighteen years old is too young to be considered a legal adult and people of this age should not be sent to jails with people who are older. She also brought up the huge racial gap in jails with white people being a minority. I had not expected to actually learn about stuff like this when going to listen to Kerman speak, but after listening to her I wanted to learn more.

I decided to learn more about Piper Kerman’s book and show to see how it related to what she had discussed at UMass Lowell. I originally thought that the book was just a fictional story about life in a prison, but I learned that it was actually a memoir about Kerman’s time in a prison for women. I soon began to research more about life in prisons and how the people are treated and found many articles that seemed to agree with Kerman. Had I not been in Lowell I would not have heard Piper Kerman speak. Kerman taught me about life in a prison and made me want to learn more and research information myself.

The city of Lowell holds a festival in honor of the famous writer Jack Kerouac, who had lived in Lowell. Lowell High School participated in the festival and had students write poetry that was inspired by Kerouac. They wrote poetry about their lives and to be honest most of it was pretty bad. One that was better than most of the rest written by a boy who had the crowd snap, stomp, or clap to a beat and he read his poem to the beat that was produced by the crowd. We decided not to stay for the whole reading because it was getting kind of painful to listen to and was quite boring, but I was still impressed that the kids got up and read their poems in front of everyone and let them into private aspects of their lives.

I did learn something from this experience though. I wanted to see if these high school students had reflected on their lives like Kerouac reflected on his own life. I decided to finish reading Kerouac’s story The Mexican Girl, which I had not finished reading and was not really planning on finishing (Sorry). But I finished it and I learned that Kerouac had reflected on sad aspects of his life, but he did not really show any emotions along with his reflections like the students had done in their poetry. He left a girl he said he really cared about and said that he knew that he would not see her again, but acted as if he was not affected at all. Kerouac then went on the talk about his time in Hollywood, completely forgetting about the girl, or least he was pretending that he was no longer thinking of her. Going to this event put on by Lowell made me want to learn more about Jack Kerouac and his writing styles and techniques.

Visiting the Boott-Cotton Museum made me want to visit the American Textile Museum to see if I could learn more about the textile industry during the Industrial Revolution as well as other technology of that time. Both museums in Lowell are there to inform the people who visit about the textile industry mainly during this time period. While walking through the American Textile Museum I saw how the textile industry has grown over the years. This museum filled in the some of the blanks that were created by the Boott-Cotton Museum. Not only did it show textiles that were made during the Industrial Revolution, but it showed other pieces that were in fashion at the time and other types of machinery used to create clothing. The American Textile Museum showed textiles from before, during, and after the Industrial Revolution and expanded more on outside of textiles in Lowell than the Boott-Cotton Museum did.

We did not have a tour guide going through the American Textile Museum like we did when we walked through the Boott-Cotton Museum so it was harder for us to learn in depth about the objects that were on display. But since we had recently been given a tour that gave us information about textiles I found it was easier to understand the exhibits than it would have been if we had not previously been to the other museum. Unlike the Boott-Cotton Museum the American Textile Museum showed both old fashioned and modern clothes side by side to help the patrons of the museum to understand how they have changed over time. Together these two museums in Lowell helped to get me better acquainted with Lowell’s history and help me understand the textile industry as a whole.

Together all of these events and places in Lowell enlightened me to many aspects of life I did not previously know about. Without Lowell I would have never looked into Orange is the New Black or probably have even heard of Jack Kerouac. I would never have learned how a writer like Kerouac could affect how students writes and portrays themselves to other students. Though I had previously been to the Boott-Cotton Museum, without moving to Lowell I most likely would not have ever visited the American Textile Museum and get a better understand of the textile industry over the years. The city of Lowell has educated me greatly over the past few months. 

A New Home

Part I:

Throughout my last year of high school my mother slowly packed items that I would need to take with me when I left Gloucester.  Our basement begun to fill with blankets, sheets, a television, a fridge, and everything else I would need to take with me. Things I would need to take with me to a place that I did not even know the location of yet.

Finally, letters began to come in the mail and by April I had decided on the location of my new home. I was going to be attending school at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. All the packing began to make sense now that we had somewhere to bring it all too. But I still had to leave most of my stuff behind. I had my clothes and other essentials, but my decorations and old pictures were left in my room. I had other decorations for my new room and not enough space for the old ones as well.

As summer came and went my room began to become more and more bare. Most of my clothes and necessary things were being put in boxes and for the last two weeks I had very few wardrobe options. It felt like my stuff had moved before I had.

Saying goodbye to my life in Gloucester was hard, but I knew that it was not a permanent move and I would be able to go back and visit. I was leaving behind my family, friends, job, and my home. Once in Lowell I would no longer be able to smell salt in the air everywhere I went, or hear the annoying seagulls cawing as I drove through the town. I would have to adjust to a new way of life, and I would have to do it by myself.

Though Gloucester is a city, it has more of a small town feel because of the relationship between the citizens. You cannot walk down a street in Gloucester without being stopped and chatting with at least two people you know. I was afraid to live in a bigger city like Lowell; where I would not know anybody and I had been warned not to wonder the streets by myself like I had at home.

Not a day went by that I did not see members of my family or my friends. My cousins and I would often spend Sundays at my Grandma and Papa’s house for “bista zugu”, better known as spaghetti to people who do not know the Gloucester Italian slang. My friends and I would meet up most nights after we all got out of work and have movie nights or go to Lighthouse Beach and just hang out and enjoy the cool summer night. I was terrified to leave it all. What if I couldn’t find friends at school like my friends at home?

Finally Move-In Day arrived. We borrowed my Auntie Beth’s minivan and stuffed it to the brim with everything I could possibly need. My life was going to change drastically. My mother would no longer be in charge of cooking me dinner every night, doing laundry for me, and cleaning up after me. I now had real responsibilities. I was extremely nervous, but when I arrived at the University of Massachusetts Lowell I realized that so was everyone else.

The first weekend I was at school, my roommate and I were sitting in our room with the door open and some kids came in and asked us if we wanted to go out with them, we said yes and went out to the common room to wait for them. We soon learned that they wanted to go to a Frat Party, and when another girl came out and asked us to go to the Silent Disco at University Crossing with her and her friends we jumped at the new opportunity.

These girls have become our best friends at school, and though they are not my friends at home, I love them too, just in a different way. Now everything seems to be falling into place, and Lowell is starting to seem more and more like home. I have friends that I see all the time and when the weather is nice we spend time outside walking through Lowell. Quite a few times we have walked the River Walk or walked to downtown Lowell to visit some shops.  

Living in Lowell is starting to become very similar to living in Gloucester. Though it’s not the ocean, I can still see and hear roaring water every day. I can go for walks, as long as I am with at least one other person, and enjoy certain parts of Lowell. I have learned that not all of Lowell is the bad place that people have warned me about. I am adjusting to my new life in a new city with all new people and I love it.

I know that I will never forget the time I have spent and will spend in Lowell at the University and in the rest of the city. And I know that I will feel similar anxiety about leaving here that I felt about leaving Gloucester to come here. Lowell has become a home to me, no matter where I end up, this city will always be home.  

Part II:         

Without by Marisa Silver tells about the movement of a seven year old girl from her home in Cleveland, Ohio to New York and her experience with the big move. I chose this piece because I felt as though I could relate to this story in my own way with my move from Gloucester, Massachusetts to Lowell, Massachusetts. Though she was just a child at the time, I shared similar feelings about making a move to a completely different environment than the one I had grown accustomed to. Like Silver, when I moved to Lowell I was upset about leaving my life behind, but I also felt excited about the new life I was about to create. Silver structured the essay in a way that started with thoughts of moving, to taking baby steps in the process, and finally to moving. She incorporated stories throughout the essay that take place in both Cleveland and New York and she tell her readers about the emotions that were involved with the move. I tried to follow her structure, but I strayed in some senses because my story does not involve tragedy of losing my belongings forever. Though I felt like I lost many things and I was separated from many of my belongings for long periods of time, I will eventually get my belongings back. I did not lose everything forever without any say in the matter. Marisa Silver lost her childhood, all the physical reminders of it had been lost in the fire. I was only leaving my childhood behind for a couple months at a time.

My story incorporates Lowell and explains my feelings about the city. Originally I was nervous to live in Lowell because I thought it was going to be a dangerous and scary place to live and being completely different from my home in Gloucester. I was listening to others opinion of the city and believe what they had to say. But, as I explain in my essay, when I got to Lowell I got to know the city for myself and began to form my own opinion. I had gone on adventures through Lowell and have learned about the different places of the city, just like I have done back home. I know that weekdays after school hours students from Lowell High School go to the area outside of the Boott-Cotton Mills and breakdance and hangout with their friends. I know that there is a little bakery downtown that has amazing cupcakes. I have learned that bubble tea may be the most delicious thing ever. I have learned a lot about the city by moving to Lowell. In my variation of Without I explained how my views of Lowell changed and how I began to love this city as much as my own. With my essay I did not only want to write something that was similar to Marisa Silver’s piece, I wanted to explain my connection to Lowell and show that your experiences in a place can change your opinion of it.

As Lowell Grows

There are not many cities in the United States that are significant in our countries history, and are still remembered for their achievements. Lowell is one of these few cities. Throughout the years the city of Lowell has been known for many things. As time went on Lowell has developed and changed into the city it is now. Originally, Lowell was known for playing a prominent role in the Industrial Revolution, but it soon became known for its population of Cambodians. Eventually Lowell’s popularity grew because it became the home to the University of Massachusetts Lowell. People come together from all over to learn and become a part of the greatness that Lowell has become.

            Lowell is best known for its role in the Industrial Revolution. The people of Lowell used the Merrimack River to create energy that ran textile mills such as the Boott-Cotton Mills. For over one hundred years thousands of people would work around fourteen hours a day to create fabric for people all over the country, making only about three dollars a week. People flocked from all around to the mills for work, thinking they could send money home to help support their families. The Boott-Cotton Mills have been turned into a museum meant to educate people on what was going on in Lowell during the Industrial Revolution. Kids from all over are brought to the mills to learn about this time period.

I am from Gloucester, MA and every year in elementary school we would drive an hour to these mills to learn about the history of Lowell. We would learn about the working conditions, the reason people came to Lowell, and much more. Recently I visited the Boott-Cotton Mills and I relearned all the things that I learned when I was a child, but I have grown up, and now I truly understand what happened in these mills. The working conditions were terrible, there were many injuries, the employees had to work exhausting hours and made very little money. But the city of Lowell does not cover up the bad that happened in the mills, it fully educates the many people that travel here to learn about the mills. Millions of people across the country knows about the city of Lowell because it was such a major player when the United States started to evolve.

            Lowell, MA is the home to the second highest population of Cambodians outside Cambodia. Second only to Long Beach, CA. The Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell recently put on Year Zero, a play about two Cambodian siblings living in Long Beach. The two siblings had to deal with losing their mother and growing up earlier than they should have to. The older sister had to leave her studies at Berkeley to make all the arrangements for her younger brother, as well as deal with other problems going on in her own life. She had to struggle with the loss of her mother, taking care of her brother, packing all of her mother’s things, as well as dealing with her own personal problems. The little brother also had to deal with the loss of their mother, bullying at school, and wanting to get out of Long Beach. The two children knew little about their mother’s life in Cambodia and as the play went on they are slowly told about their family history and the traumas their mother had to face.
This play taught its viewers a lot about Cambodian culture and the Cambodian Genocide, the reason so many Cambodians moved to places like Lowell and Long Beach. Since there is so many people of Cambodian decent in Lowell this play also taught us about many of the people that live here, their culture, and what they or their ancestors had to go through to get here. The population of Cambodians in Lowell is a big part of what Lowell is and Year Zero taught the many students, such as myself, about the city we had just moved to. It helped show us what was outside the borders of UMass Lowell, off the campuses. Going to see the play got us off campus making us venture into Lowell to get the theatre, so not only did we learn through actually watching the play, but also by our trip to get there.

            The University of Massachusetts Lowell is a Division 1 school, making people travel from all over to play here and to watch the events that are going on. Many students have been recruited from other states to play for the many sports teams we have. I attended a women’s volleyball game and on the roster it showed that many of our players are from states on the west coast. Most of the girls came from Nevada, California, and Arizona, states where volleyball is big. Even though our team lost, the fans in the crowd cheered loudly until the very end, supporting their players. On a Friday night match over two hundred fifty students and non-students came to watch our team play. Similarly at a women’s soccer game there was about two hundred fifty viewers. Once again the crowd was cheering loudly the entire game even though our team lost. Some of the people in the crowd even learned the roster of the opposing team and were trying to distract them as the game went on. Many people come out to see our now Division 1 teams play.

 But hockey is our most popular sport by far, at the game this past Friday night verse Boston College there were about two thousand four hundred students and the rest of the stadium was completely filled. The Tsongas Arena seats about sixty-five hundred people, and many people could not find seats. The line to get into the building wrapped around the Tsongas Arena, and was still their even after the first period ended. People did not even care that they were missing the beginning of the game if it meant that they would be able to see some of it live.  Students, citizens of Lowell, alumni of both schools, and people who just enjoy watching hockey came to Lowell to watch us defeat Boston College 5-2. The crowd was going crazy throughout the entire game, chanting and even taunting the other team. Our school and Division 1 sports teams bring people to Lowell and bring out the good of the city.

            The city of Lowell is known widely because of the textile mills, our Cambodian population, and the University of Massachusetts Lowell. It has adapted greatly since the Industrial Revolution into what it is today. People across the country know of our city for many reasons, and although it has not always had the best reputation I believe that it is changing for the better. Our cities reputation is changing slowly over time.  Our university is helping to change the city and bringing good publicity here, our sports teams are bringing our city into the media for good instead of the bad that sometimes comes out of it. Throughout the years Lowell has grown and become what it is today, and it will continue to grow as time goes on into an even better city. 

A Walk Through History

            If it weren’t for sheer boredom I may have never got to experience Lowell’s Canal Walkway. My friends and I did not know what to do one night, so we decided that we would go for a walk. We roamed around aimlessly and ended up finding the path that runs parallel to the canals that made Lowell a major player in the Industrial Revolution. It was calm and quiet as we walked down the path, the only noise was the sound of the rushing water. It contrasted with what the canals were originally used for. They used to be home to the textile factories that polluted the air with noise. The Lowell Canal System was enlarged and grew rapidly in 1821, at the very beginning of the American Industrial Revolution. This canal system was home to ten major textile mills and helped make Lowell one of the most widely known industrial cities of the time.

It was hard to believe that the water rushing past us was once part of something so big. These canals were the reason thousands of people moved to Lowell in search of a job and a way to help their family. Now they just seem to be something that is there, they have no purpose but to be observed and create beauty in this city.  Even the graffiti seemed to make this walk better. As you walked and looked at the ground you could read the phrase, “the creative adult is the child who survived.” Or the spray paint on the fence that read: ignorance. As we got closer to this particular graffiti it got harder and harder to read, because of the holes in the fence. This graffiti added to the atmosphere of the Canal Walkway, it made everything seem better. Even the heart engraved into the tree, which usually would have annoyed me, seemed like a work of art.

We were just going out for some fresh air and to find something to entertain ourselves, and we just happened upon this beautiful place. It seemed so strange that when a women walked by us walking in the opposite direction she asked if “it was safe up ahead” for her to continue walking. She said that she walked the path every night on her way home from work, but she was always worried. It did not seem like a dangerous place, it made us forget that we were still in Lowell, a city in which you are cautioned about walking around. Lowell does not have a reputation for being a safe city and when we moved into school our RA’s told us to make sure we stuck in groups when we walked around at night. It seemed so strange that we were still in that dangerous place, that we had not been transported somewhere else.

Continuing down the path, we saw panel with informational blurbs about the constructions of the canals, the mills, and the Canal Walkway. They give information on what was happening during the construction and on the improvements in the mills. One panel describes a newspaper article from 1848 and tells about the creation of the stone wall that runs along these great canals. He described it as, “a most splendid piece of workmanship.” The work on the canals intrigued everyone in Lowell at this time. Another panel gave diagrams of the turbines that powered the many mills that lined these canals and showed how improvements were made on them overtime.

We walked all the way along the canal, dodging spiders webs that seemed to be everywhere and getting bit my mosquitoes, which being allergic made the cold night worse for me, but we eventually came upon the Boott-Cotton Mills, a place I had been to many times as a child for field trips in elementary school. It was weird that this place made me miss home, it connected me back. These mills were a part of my childhood even if they were not close to home. In this building, along this canal, hundreds of people worked and produced fabric. There was once a working turbine that powered the entire building with just mechanics, there was no electricity involved. This canal was once someone’s life source, they depended on the water flowing give them work so they could support their families.

The canals in Lowell spread in many directions, and I decided to explore more of them. One Walkway runs parallel to Father Morissette Boulevard, making it less of a path and more like a sidewalk. I was disappointed because I was once again hoping for the feel of being transported somewhere else when adventuring along the Canal Walkways, but this branch did not give that vibe. It did bring me to the Wannalancit Mills. These mills, like the Boott-Cotton Mills are still giving tours, but a lot of it has been transformed into offices for UMass Lowell. Rationally I know that Lowell could not have preserved and changed all of its old mill buildings into museums, but it still saddened me that this piece of history had been mostly destroyed.  

When I revisited the Canal Walkway to take pictures I realized that it was not as magically as it once seemed. Cars were honking as students crossed the road when they were not supposed to, construction work was going on, there was a sense of chaos in this area that I had thought was serene.  I could now picture the loud textile machines that would be running further up the canal. The quote that I had wanted a picture of was washed away by the rain, the path seemed to have changed. But as I kept walking, moving away from the activity of the city, it still seemed to retain its charm. It was becoming a place for me to go and relax and get away from the stress of school.

But this path is part of history, and it is part of Lowell. People travel here to learn about the mills and the people that were apart of them. . A news article from the Lowell Sun revealed that the city got a grant to develop new parts of the Walk and to fix up the older parts. The Canal Walkway is a place people can look and remember what the center of life in Lowell was like almost 200 years ago. And the city of Lowell embraces it. They want people to learn about their city, they are still expanding. No matter where you are from in the United States, it is almost guaranteed that you will learn about Lowell’s role in the Industrial Revolution in a history class. Living here you seem to forget that the city placed such an important role in history.

Walking from East Campus to North Campus everyday does not show you the true heart of Lowell. Its times like our little adventure that connects us to the city. It helps us remember what we are a part of and teaches us more and more about the city. Our walk was just meant to get us out of our dorms, but it showed us what Lowell used to be and taught us some of its history.