I never thought it would happen to me Well, it finally happened. On Wednesday, I was assigned to write an obituary feature and a weather story on the same day. In news reporter circles, that’s known as a … Well, it’s not really known as anything, because reporters who get hit with that kind of […]
Mark LaFlamme
Posted inMark LaFlamme, sj-web
Street Talk: The fussy man's guide to Thanksgiving
I won’t lie to you. As far as Thanksgiving dinner guests go, you won’t find one worse than me. For one thing, I’m more fidgety than your 4-year-old. After five minutes of sitting at the boring adults’ table, I’m going to want to get up to look out the window. Or to go see what […]
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Posted inMark LaFlamme, sj-web
Talk of the town: There. Diagonally.
Regular air is just so 2005 So, to combat the horrors of cold weather leakage, I had my truck tires filled with nitrogen this week. Nitrogen! I had no idea that nitrogen inflation was even a thing until a certain wife mentioned it to me as I topped off my tires with boring old air […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Hot sandwiches and band-aids: Hard times at Speaker’s Variety
There was a time when I was eating, on average, five hot ham and cheese sandwiches from Speaker’s Variety every week. For one thing, the hot ham and cheese sandwiches from Speaker’s were spectacular. I’d ask Jim or Pat or whoever was manning the ovens that day to cook them a little extra so that […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme, sj-web
Talk of the town: Nope. Nothing wrong here.
Talk of the town? How in blue blazes should I know what the talk of the town is? I’ve been on vacation for two weeks. Thanks for noticing. All I can tell you is that the new “Halloween” is just God awful, the movie “Hereditary” is terrifying and the town of Unity celebrates Halloween like […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme, sj-web
Talk of the town: Is it Halloween yet?
Things that baffle me I’m just going to go ahead and say it. What’s the deal with individually wrapped coffee stirrers? This weird wave of stirrer prophylactics has taken hold at stores and coffee shops everywhere. I mean, I understand the concept of safe-stirring and all, but in the history of coffee, has anyone ever […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Not a ghost of a chance of running into spirits
Good evening, living people. Since Halloween looms and everything in the cold October world seems dead or dying, I thought this would be a good time to tell you about my experiences with ghosts. We’d have fun, you and I, huddled in the orange gloom of dusk exchanging our tales of skin-crawling confrontations with the […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme, sj-web
Mark LaFlamme: It was a night just like this
Cider house ghouls A storytelling cemetery walk in North Yarmouth advertises “cider, doughnuts and opening of the vault!” Can you say, yoinks! I can only guess what’s in the vault – the door of which will no doubt swing open with a chilling ‘creeeeeeee’ sound – but I’m going to go out on a limb […]
Posted inAndroscoggin County, Mark LaFlamme
The rise and fall of George Stanley’s empire of stuff | Mark LaFlamme
You can call Stanley a lot of things — eccentric, strange, more trouble than a house full of monkeys — but stupid isn’t one of them, Mark LaFlamme writes.
Posted inMark LaFlamme, sj-web
Talk of the town: The clock strikes thirteen
Important underpants news I regret to inform you that I will be retiring last year’s union suit, bought at Tractor Supply and worn with great pride and stinkiness throughout the winter season. It has been replaced with a Merino wool base layer that, while less stylish than the bright red union suit, should offer greater […]