It was a sunny Thursday afternoon and Dr. Douglas Henry was looking deeply into my eyes. So deeply, in fact, that he could see the lightning-storm array of blood vessels at the very back of my eyeballs. “Looks like you have a little freckle back there,” he said. A freckle on the back of my […]
Street talk
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: The Great Debate
It was just a few hours until the presidential debate and I was excited as a wound-up puppy dog in a room full of legs. The hype had been unreal — it was like Mayweather versus Pacquiao all up in here — if Mayweather had triple-advanced super pneumonia and Pacquiao was a platitude-spouting bored guy […]
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Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Live and uncontaminated by bull
Some days, I hear my reporter’s notebook weeping from the depths of my back pocket. For two decades, he was the perfect solider, rounding up details about fires, murders and downtown scrums, gobbling up awesome terms like “fracas,” “brouhaha” and “donnybrook” and then unleashing them upon our readers. Pile driver in Kennedy Park? Into the […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
On tonight’s episode of ‘Street Talk Dickering’
I met the guy in the darkest parking lot available along Route 4, a place where weeds have long grown over what used to be a thriving parking lot. I killed the engine and waited, listening to the solemn ticking from beneath the hood. Somewhere nearby, an owl hooted uneasily. Crickets chirped and frogs croaked […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Your questions are important to us
Well, it’s mid-April and that means it’s time to open the old mailbag. True, I’ve never actually answered letters in this column space — but I’ve always meant to and just you shut up. I can do it if I want. Here are some questions I’ve received lately. Thoughtful, intelligent questions asked by people who […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Cream, sugar and shame in my coffee
I was having a sit-down interview with a 70-something woman one recent afternoon when she offered coffee for me. “How do you take it?” she asked. “Cream and sugar.” The woman looked at me a moment over the top of her spectacles. “Geesh,” she said. “What a sissy.” My shame is great. It’s one of […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Street Talk: Street affrays and lewd cohabitation
Oh, the fun I could have had. If I had been a newspaper reporter at the turn of the previous century, I would have worked for free. Back then, Lewiston was but a young city, with childlike dreams and childlike enthusiasm for all that the wild world had to offer. Or something. It was just […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn
Back in the day, tipsters weren’t friends — and we liked it
There’s this guy who has been feeding me news tips like clockwork for 20 years. Problem is, none of his tips have ever been any good. “Iceland,” he’ll say to me on one of our occasional meet-ups. “They’re tossing the bankers out on their keisters up there in Iceland. You didn’t hear that from me.” […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: How to shop for a new girlfriend without getting crushed by a Yule log
Shopping for your new girlfriend? Sweet. Here’s a piece of advice for you: that thing you have in your hand right now? Put it down. Put it down and walk away or it’s going to become a big, old thing and your Christmas morning will be filled with screaming and acrimony, instead of Johnny Mathis […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: At college campuses, it’s ‘The Crucible’ all over again
The world has gone nuts. There’s hardly anything more that needs to be said about it. The world is crazy, and it’s apparently out of our control now to bring it back. In Missouri, a group of students stomping their feet and screaming about phantom insults was enough to force a president and chancellor out […]