If I look deep within myself with unalloyed honesty, I’m not sure I ever completely forgave my brother for giving me an ice scraper for Christmas. Don’t get me wrong: As ice scrapers go, it was just fine. It had the little teeth on the edge to rip into ice and there was a nice […]
Street talk
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world
A tip for you smart shoppers: All I want for Christmas this year is a one-way ticket out of Looneyville — a fast flight out of this goofy dystopian landscape that feels like equal parts George Orwell, Philip K. Dick and Dr. Seuss. You know what I’m talking about. Somehow we all woke up in […]
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Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Three questions for Christmas
It’s a miracle. A Christmas miracle. Just when I thought I was to come up empty in a search for this week’s column, an epic rant lands in my newsroom telephone mailbox. In this message, a fellow named Daniel poses three questions on the nature of the holidays — questions that I am to research […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Please stop staring at my naked brain
It was a sunny Thursday afternoon and Dr. Douglas Henry was looking deeply into my eyes. So deeply, in fact, that he could see the lightning-storm array of blood vessels at the very back of my eyeballs. “Looks like you have a little freckle back there,” he said. A freckle on the back of my […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: The Great Debate
It was just a few hours until the presidential debate and I was excited as a wound-up puppy dog in a room full of legs. The hype had been unreal — it was like Mayweather versus Pacquiao all up in here — if Mayweather had triple-advanced super pneumonia and Pacquiao was a platitude-spouting bored guy […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Live and uncontaminated by bull
Some days, I hear my reporter’s notebook weeping from the depths of my back pocket. For two decades, he was the perfect solider, rounding up details about fires, murders and downtown scrums, gobbling up awesome terms like “fracas,” “brouhaha” and “donnybrook” and then unleashing them upon our readers. Pile driver in Kennedy Park? Into the […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
On tonight’s episode of ‘Street Talk Dickering’
I met the guy in the darkest parking lot available along Route 4, a place where weeds have long grown over what used to be a thriving parking lot. I killed the engine and waited, listening to the solemn ticking from beneath the hood. Somewhere nearby, an owl hooted uneasily. Crickets chirped and frogs croaked […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Your questions are important to us
Well, it’s mid-April and that means it’s time to open the old mailbag. True, I’ve never actually answered letters in this column space — but I’ve always meant to and just you shut up. I can do it if I want. Here are some questions I’ve received lately. Thoughtful, intelligent questions asked by people who […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Cream, sugar and shame in my coffee
I was having a sit-down interview with a 70-something woman one recent afternoon when she offered coffee for me. “How do you take it?” she asked. “Cream and sugar.” The woman looked at me a moment over the top of her spectacles. “Geesh,” she said. “What a sissy.” My shame is great. It’s one of […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Street Talk: Street affrays and lewd cohabitation
Oh, the fun I could have had. If I had been a newspaper reporter at the turn of the previous century, I would have worked for free. Back then, Lewiston was but a young city, with childlike dreams and childlike enthusiasm for all that the wild world had to offer. Or something. It was just […]