The City of Lowell and It's Unexpected Culture

       

  Over the past month, I have taken several trips into the city of Lowell, with the goal of finding out what the city has to offer. Coming from a small suburban town a few minutes away, I did not expect much of the city. While growing up, Lowell was always thought of as the “sketchy” town that wasn't safe, and that's all there was to it. However, through these excursions, I have to come to realize that Lowell is home to some amazing culture, and I am extremely excited to take part in it over the next four years.

          The first of the excursions I took into Lowell was to see the play, year Zero at the Merrimack Repertory Theater. It was a cold, rainy night and myself and three of my hall mates decided to dress up a bit, in shirts and ties, to watch the play. We thought why have any of these nice clothes if we aren't going to use them, and this was the perfect opportunity to do so. So, looking as we did, my friends and I hopped in one of our cars and drove to the theater downtown. We parked nearby and walked through the rain from there. Once we were inside, we found our seats and the play began.

          The play was about a Cambodian family living in California, and the struggles that they faced after their mother died. The family only consisted of a younger immature brother, who lacked guidance after his mother passed, and an older sister who was trying to make due with what she had, going to college while she was trying to step in as a motherly figure in the life of her younger brother. The only other two characters in the play were the sister's boyfriend, and their life long neighbor. The boyfriend was involved with some serious research at his university, with a bright future ahead of him, while the neighbor who was about the same age was just getting out of jail at the same time of the action in the play. Both characters Glenn, the boyfriend, and Han, the neighbor, ended up in competition to be the male role model in the younger brother's life. Eventually the younger brother sides with Han, and ends up doing some unsafe things with him. The sister too takes a liking to Han and she even breaks up with Glenn in favor of Han. They play ends with the sister, brother and Han together while Glenn remains out of the picture.

         The next excursion I took was to the Pollard Memorial Library, to see Greg Flemming give a book talk on his most recent, and only work, At the Point of a Cutlass. Originally, I intended to see a film at the Pollard Memorial Library's independent film night, but I and the three friends I was with got a little misguided on our journey and ended up in the wrong room. We sat there anticipating someone to stand up and introduce the independent film night, but as time went by, we slowly realized that we were not in the right spot. We searched online on our phones as soon as we became suspicious that ew had been sitting in the wrong room and quickly found out that we were about to hear an author, Greg Flemming, talk about his book. We read that the book had something to do with pirates so we figured why not stay and listen, as we all seemed to take an interest in that sort of thing.

          The title of the book was At the Point of a Cutlass: The Pirate Capture, Bold Escape, and Lonely Exile of Phillip Ashton by Greg Flemming. Flemming had been reading another book about piracy around the time of the 1700's and came across a brief account of Ashton's journey, and upon some further research, he realized that there had been no other modern written accounts of Phillip Ashton's amazing journey. The story goes like this: A young fisherman from Marblehead, MA named Phillip Ashton was on a fishing trip to Nova Scotia when his ship was taken over by pirates, captained by the infamous Edward Lowe. He and one other crew member were taken by the pirates and forced to be a part of their crew. His friend who was also taken didn't resist the pirate way of life, and quickly assimilated to their lifestyle and became one of them. Ashton, however, remained steady in not becoming a pirate, but was still forced to serve as one of the crew. He was beaten regularly, and after nine months he escaped when he asked to join a group of men from his ship on an excursion to a small uninhabited island where he ran away successfully. He lived on this island for two years, before eventually making it all the way back to Marblehead, where his local minister created the only other written account of Ashton's story, other than Flemming's. We all found that even though we did not end up at the film showing as we intended, the book talk was a great experience.

         The last excursion we attended, on the same night of the book talk was the opening ceremonies of the Jack Kerouac Literary Festival at Cappy's Copper Kettle, which was also in downtown Lowell, only about a 10 minute walk from the library where we had seen the book talk. We approached the bar and all four of us were hesitant to enter. We were all questioning whether or not we were in the right spot, but after two of us double checked online we we sure that we found the right spot. A little uneasy, because we figured it was a bar and we were under 21 so we might not be allowed in, we made our way inside and as soon as we walked in we were asked for our ID's. I told the man we were under 18 and were only there to see the Kerouac event, and he sent us in with a stern “no alcohol for you” and we went inside and found a table. We sat in the back of the bar room, and observed all of the people in the room.

          Once the actual event began, people would come up to the stage, and recite original poems about Jack Kerouac, sing songs dedicated to him, or read prose taken from some of his works that meant something to each and every one of the performers. Watching from the audience was quite the experience, as it was amazing to see how much one man and his work touched the lives of so many people. All of the people who got up to perform showed some kind of emotional connection to the work they presented, while also in some cases described how Kerouac's work actually influenced their lives.

          Through all of the events we attended, there were some commonalities that could be found in all of them. The most interesting of all of them was the unexpected culture that I managed to find in Lowell. Being from Westford which is a small suburban town about 20 minutes away from Lowell, I expected Lowell to be somewhat of a lower class city environment, where not much culture could be found. I came to find the exact opposite in each of my three excursions however. The audience of the play, while mostly students who were not there by choice, were all captivated by the play itself. To my surprise, most of the students I talked to after the play about it said they really enjoyed it as well. The book talk we attended showed us a great example of the lesser known events that go on in the city of Lowell, and opened up a door to me that I will be sure to take advantage of in the future. The opening ceremonies for the Kerouac Festival showed the most amount of unexpected culture to me. When I think of something happening at a bar, I picture a bunch of people drinking and not much else, but it was amazing to see how emotionally connected every one was to the performances that were happening on the stage.

          These excursions really opened up my eyes to the opportunities to experience the culture that can be found here in Lowell. My three friends who went to the book talk and Kerouac Festival with and I are all looking to go back out into the city to more of these events. We already have found another event at the library similar to the book talk we went to, and I'm sure well would all love to see any other plays and any performances like the ones we saw at Cappy's. While we may have been out of our comfort zone for some of the time spent on these excursions, I am definitely grateful to have been enlightened when it comes to what the city of Lowell has to offer to me.