Today is the beginning of Lent, and the portals are closed on all things gay and frivolous, leaving the observers of the Lenten season in a land of pious thoughts. For the 40 days following Ash Wednesday, all Catholics will bear in mind and govern their habits according to the church they belong to, whether Roman Catholic, Episcopalian or other creed of lesser importance. Members of other churches also observe the season to a certain extent but not as rigidly as those of the other communions. With members of foregoing churches, Lent is regarded as a most solemn season and things frivolous and gay are barred.

50 years ago, 1957

BOSTON – Some 4,500 longshoremen in five New England ports will strike at 8 a.m. tomorrow, Daniel J. Donovan, international vice president of the International Longshoremen’s Association (Ind.), said tonight. The ILA tonight ordered an Atlantic Coast strike of 45,000 dock workers from Maine to Virginia.

PORTLAND – A longshoremen’s strike here tomorrow would find only one cargo vessel in port, the freighter Noutsi loading 9,000 tons of scrap iron for Japan.

Dockers in five New England ports, including Portland and Searsport, were scheduled to strike at 8 a.m. tomorrow in line with the Atlantic Coast walkout of 45,000 longshoremen.

25 years ago, 1982

• The courts are using more imagination in devising punishment for law breakers. In Berlin, N.H., this week, a man convicted of cruelty to four puppies, which he abandoned at the city dump in sub-zero temperatures, was sentenced to spend two nights at the same dump, without shelter.

• In a few households, the newspaper is no longer fetched by the proverbial dog, but by a “retriever” of a different sort – a home computer terminal. Electronic newspapers are probably years away from capturing a significant portion of the market, and some media analysts doubt that they will succeed at all.