Madness! Remember how I groused about how there was no mad rush at the stores on Christmas Eve? And how I wondered, all sad and confused, about where all the crazy holiday traffic had gone? Yeah, well I found it. I found it on New Year’s Eve in the form of horn-honking rage on the […]
Mark LaFlamme
Mark LaFlamme: Knuckleheads and knuckle sandwiches
Back in the day, as a rule I’d go to every downtown fight I heard about over the police scanner. It’s not that I’m a fan of random violence, mind you. No need to write that angry letter to the editor. I tend to prefer fisticuffs in the boxing ring, on the hockey rink or […]
Talk of the town: Cash me outside, yo
The diet begins I am saddened to report that Talk of the Town has been placed on a pretty strict length limit of about 425 words. What that means for you, the clearly deranged reader, is that I will no longer be in here going on and on and on about nothing at all. Nope. […]
Mark LaFlamme: It was the night before Christmas and I got nothing
So, I was desperate for column ideas on a Monday afternoon that also happened to be Christmas Eve. No brainer, right? I’d just head to the stores, behold the eye-bulging madness of last-minute shopping and let that column write itself. Maybe it would be a hair-pulling, eye-gouging brawl in the toy aisle over the last […]
Mark LaFlamme: Can we get on with it, already?
“The sun is the same in a relative way but you’re older; shorter of breath and one day closer to death.” Pink Floyd A very wise teacher back in high school once advised me to never wish away time. I found it to be very profound advice, indeed, and I fully intended to plan my […]
Mark LaFlamme: Mushroom for improvement
Shrooms A plan is in the works to lure a mushroom factory to Auburn, which city officials promise would make the area the mushroom capital of America. That sounds pretty exciting and all, but to gain that distinction, Auburn is going to have to bare knuckle fight Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, which currently holds that title. […]
Mark LaFlamme: The Magi strike again in downtown Lewiston
The dude on Park Street was having a great deal of trouble holding onto whatever it was he was trying to carry. It looked like either an oversized toaster oven or an undersized TV and it kept slipping from his grip like a greased fish. He tried carrying it in front of his waist, but […]
Mark Laflamme: A heart full of unwashed socks
Fight for your right to nude up While advising a police officer out on a routine call at the start of the week, an emergency dispatcher passed along that the homeowner “believes it’s her right to answer her door unclothed.” She’s right, too. Why, the Second Amendment alone addresses “bare arms” and I think if […]
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 […]
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 […]