Here at the Sun Journal, we get requests all the time from people who are interested in following around a reporter on his or her daily rounds. Job shadow, we call the concept. It’s a term we made up ourselves and which you can never use without our permission. And don’t think we won’t notice […]
Street talk
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Street Talk: To give or not to give to the confidence man
It was the perfect panhandle. The man standing outside the grocery store, shivering in the cold, was neither too clean nor too grungy. He was polite but not gushing and his story walked that fine line between outlandish and plausible. “Hey, buddy,” he said, darting to and fro like an aquarium fish. “Can you help […]
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Posted inMark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Live free or live in Connecticut
It’s said that when Nathan Hale was about to swing at the end of rope in the fall of 1776, he held his head up high and told the hangman: “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.” Hale was from Connecticut. What do you suppose he would say […]
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Lewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme, The Franklin Journal
Street Talk: Get that soup away from me! I’m not sick!
Quick. Somebody cough on me. I need to catch the flu, quick. There’s big money to be made, and brother, I want in. The National Institute of Health is looking for people to spend nine days in quarantine so their flu symptoms can be studied. The prize: three thousand bucks. If you can’t muster a […]
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Mark LaFlamme, The Franklin Journal
Street Talk: The joy of sledding: Weeeeeeeeeeeeee. THUD!
Ah, the sounds of winter recreation. Cold steel skate blades carving up the frozen ponds. The hearty crunch of snowshoes breaking through virgin snow. And my personal favorite, the sounds of kids on sleds streaking down the steepest hills the area has to offer. Weeeeeeeeee! THUD! “He’s hurt bad! Everybody run!” Where I come from, […]
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Lewiston-Auburn, The Franklin Journal
Street Talk: No parking. We mean, like ever.
It’s a miracle nobody was killed. Judging from its position in the parking lot, the car must have fallen straight out of the sky, flipping once or twice before coming to rest at its weird angle across three spaces. Not only that, but the butt end of the car was sticking out into the travel […]
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Mark LaFlamme, The Franklin Journal
Street Talk: Learning to sashay in a bouffant wig for Halloween
As far as any of you can prove, I’ve only dressed up as a woman once in my life. I was 7 or 8 years old and Halloween totally sneaked up on me. I had wanted to go as the Six Million Dollar Man, but I wasn’t tall enough and I couldn’t find anyone willing […]
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Mark LaFlamme, The Franklin Journal
Street Talk: Dying of baseball fever as postseason approaches
Pass me a tissue, would you, friend? Or I could just use your sleeve again and call it good. I’ve been trying to think of things that are as sad as the end of baseball season. A child at a birthday party at which no one showed up? A kitten placed in a beach pail […]
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Mark LaFlamme, The Franklin Journal
Street Talk: Pull the blinds down on your way out
I’m not going to lie to you. I was a terrible paperboy. If you were on my route and wanted to skim the headlines before work, you were probably out of luck. I’d have it to you by noon, though, I swear. Maybe a little later if my bicycle chain broke or if I was […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Street Talk: I can help you with your many, many, many, many problems
Some weeks, I wish I had an advice column. No more wracking my brain for fresh ideas or fetching old columns out of the recycle bin and hoping nobody will notice. Remember the time I did that? No? Well, just forget I said anything about it, then. Yup, an advice column would be just the […]