Mark LaFlamme: Alcohol: The forgotten drug epidemic

Street Talk: Where a substance like fentanyl is apt to drop a man where he stands in his dreamy nod, liquor takes its time; a cat toying with a field mouse before delivering the fatal blow.

Mark LaFlamme: A beloved fire investigator is leaving, and reporting will never be the same

Street Talk: At every fire scene I went to in Lewiston over the years, the first guy I looked for was Paul Ouellette.

Mark LaFlamme: Editors ain’t so bad . . .

Street Talk: Editors have the magic to make bad writing good and to make good writing better. When they're not sending you off to do stupid stuff, that is. 

Mark LaFlamme: Justin Butterfield’s dark night of the soul

Mark LaFlamme: Naked chickens and runaway bones. Now THAT’S a weather story!

Street Talk: Those of you who have been around a while will know I feel about writing weather stories — I enjoy them about as much as I would enjoy leprosy or a meal of boiled kitty litter. I'm not a fan, me. 

Mark LaFlamme: My secret newsroom weapon

Street Talk: I have Cathy to thank for the fact that I am married; that I ride a dual sport motorcycle; that I no longer waste my moolah on vile cigarettes. And that's not to mention the contributions she made to the craft of news gathering.

Mark LaFlamme: The unvarnished truth about the haunted well of Sabattus

Street Talk: The boy never spoke a coherent word again in his lifetime, as the story goes. When he spoke at all, he spoke in terrified gibberish of things no sane human mind could comprehend. 

Mark LaFlamme: How NOT to remove a bat from your house

Street Talk: By the time I pulled myself up and scraped the potting soil out of my ears, the bat was in the kitchen, flitting about in those crazy parabolas bats like so much.

Street Talk: Bad vibes in Lewiston, then and now

If you spend a lot of time in downtown Lewiston you don't require any kind of scientific study or earnest crunching of the numbers to reveal what your gut is screaming at you like a klaxon: tread carefully, brother. There is danger afoot. 

Mark LaFlamme: Obscura Cafe and other entities from alternate dimensions

Mark LaFlamme finds driving past Lewiston businesses looks a lot different than it used to.