The brawl didn’t last any more than 20 seconds. That’s all it took for the handsome young athlete, Matt, to succumb to the hard-driving fists, elbows and knees of the brawny street punk, Steve-O, who lived in the city’s seedy south end. When it was over, Steve-O helped Matt to his feet and the two […]
Street talk
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Not today, rabies
LISBON — You’ll never hear Mr. James Ross bragging about killing the rabid fox with a meat cleaver in his kitchen. It’s a London-esque tale of quick thinking and self-preservation, but the 82-year-old isn’t crowing about it because the way he sees it, the ending is a sad one. “I’ve lived with animals all my […]
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Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Looking for a graduation do-over
At every high school graduation I cover for the paper, I meet that same kid. He’s the handsome guy, chronically smiling in his cap and gown, who always has a perfect answer at the ready when I ask about his plans. “Well, tonight a bunch of us are heading to Old Orchard Beach, where we […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Ransacked: Broken glass and shattered faith
It wasn’t so much the break-in itself as it was the wrath of it. “There was glass everywhere,” the woman reported. “It was on the floor and all over the bed. All the drawers were open and clothes had been thrown everywhere. It was a disaster.” And it wasn’t just the bedroom that had been […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: The casket, the keg and Lynyrd Skynyrd
Rusty was always specific when it came to funeral planning. “Man,” he’d say, whenever the topic of mortality arose at the midnight end of a pit party — which was like, always. “When I go, screw the flowers and all of that sad stuff. Put a keg on the lower lid of my casket and […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Sympathy for the dope sick
The aching is intense and it is everywhere. It’s there in your legs, humming like a million angry volts. It’s in your back, too, a constant band of pain you can’t put out of your mind for even a few seconds. It’s hard to say which is worse, the roaring ache in your bones or […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme, sj-web
These are the words they don't want you to read
For many years now, I’ve had great fun inserting certain words into my news stories and columns in order to make an editor’s head pop off. Great fun, I say. On a quiet day, you can actually hear the delicious sound of cranial detachment as the editor in question stumbles upon the verboten word. POP, […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme, sj-web
Street Talk: Don't mess with Jesse
The very moment I heard Jesse’s name uttered at the scene of the crash, I knew I had a big story on my hands. It is news when anybody gets hit by a car, but this was Jesse Kontoes lying there in a heap on the cold, slushy street. This was a local icon. A […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: OJ Simpson and the memory hole
Late afternoon, June 17, 1994. I was just three months into my spanking new journalism career when I walked into the newsroom to an unsettling sight. All of the editors, typically splayed out at manageable distances around the newsroom, were standing in one spot in the middle of the room. Managing editors, copy editors, daytime […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: No prescription necessary
The woman was a ragged mess, her nerves jangled, her guts in a knot. She was having problems with one of her grown children and it left her frantic. Unsettled. Paralyzed at times with gnawing fears of the creeping unknown. A few years beyond 80, she went in desperation to her local pharmacist, in search […]