I'm really excited to bring to you my conversation with Erika Pen. Erika is a rising sophomore at Salem State University. 

In our time together, Erika and I discussed her life growing up in Lowell, stories about her parents, her passion for service, and her experience as a freshman in college during the pandemic.

Erika and I discuss her project "We Are America" and also Aaron's Presents. 

You can find Erika at erikascoolishblog.

I really enjoyed this conversation with Corey. Corey is a born and bred Lowellian and is now running for City Council to represent Centralville. During the conversation, I was impressed with his humility and his interest in helping real people. Corey worked for the City of Lowell for a number of years and also worked for the union, first as a shop steward, then vice president, then president. It was his work with the union that activated his interest in helping people, a passion he wants to expand to the whole city.

If you want to learn more about Corey, you can check out his website, his Facebook page, and his Instagram account. 

In this episode, I chat with Bill, a 35 year veteran of the USPS who walks a mail route on Christian Hill. Before this route, Bill worked in Shaughnessy Terrace in Lowell. Bill was also one of the first park rangers in Lowell when the National Historical Park opened. This is a great episode about growing up in Lowell, about family dynamics, and about knowing your neighbor.

Hello everyone, 

Thank you so much for your patience over the past few weeks while I worked on the podcast workflow. 

This is a great conversation with Timna of Life as a Maven. If you're not familiar with her work, you really should check out her Instagram. Her feed is covered with beautiful fashion, amazing food, and great locations that aren't too far afield for anyone in Lowell. 

She arrived in Lowell about 15 years ago to attend UML and has been a Lowellian since then. 

In our conversation, we chat a bit about her work and inspiration, but then spend a lot of time discussing the pandemic and the politics of being a woman of color in a public space. 

This was a hard episode to edit because chatting with Timna is so easy and natural, it was hard to cut anything!

Hey everyone, 

When I started the podcast, I expected to publish twice a month. However, based on feedback from listeners and the general demand, I decided to publish every week, which seemed like a great idea at the time.

Fast forward 6 weeks and the processes and tools I'm using to record, edit, and run the podcast aren't working great. So, I'm taking this week to finish a few interviews, to do a bunch of editing, and to make sure the workflow is sustainable. 

I'll be back next week with new guests and a longer queue of great episodes. See you then!

I'm excited to bring you a conversation with Gordon Halm, founder and executive director of the African Community Center of Lowell.

The African Community Center of Lowell (ACCL) was founded in August 2016.  On October 29th the same year, there was a ribbon cutting ceremony to commemorate its founding.

You can learn more about the ACCL on their website, www.acclowell.org or their Facebook Page.

If you're on Instagram, you've likely seen a post or two by Andy Nazzaro. Andy founded Andy's Local Spotlight in April 2020 as a way to use his marketing skills to help businesses who were struggling due to the pandemic. 

What started as a fun passion project grew quickly and Andy discovered a need to help small and local businesses with their social media identity. 

In this episode, we discuss Andy's indirect path to a degree in Marketing and an MBA, we talk about trends in restaurants, and complain about the pandemic. 

If you want to find Andy, he's on all the social platforms:

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

Today, you'll hear from Cruz Ricker, the Director of Real Estate at Coalition for a Better Acre (CBA). Cruz and I had a great conversation, so good that we journeyed down some rabbit holes. This gave me a chance to try something new: I did much more editing and rearranging of this conversation than the previous episodes. I'd love to know what you think about the format. Feel free to send me a note here or a message on Instagram.

Cruz Ricker came to Massachusetts to attend Mount Holyoke college. After graduation, she joined the IBEW as an electrician, dealt with a layoff in 2009, and decided to pursue her Masters degree at Harvard.

To learn more about Coalition for a Better Acre, you can visit their website.

Here's some background info on Pat Nee.

If you didn't believe that Lowell could have had a monorail, here's a picture and a video from Lowell NPS.

Here's a little into to the Hale-Howard neighborhood. 

You may have seen Geoff fly fishing around the Lowell canals. In this episode, Geoff tells me how he came to Lowell, how he was inspired by the canals to start fishing (something he'd never done seriously before), and how his passion quickly grew into a business. 

Make sure to check Geoff out at www.brackishflies.com, on Facebook, and on Instagram.

Special thanks to PJ for being our first guest, for his generosity in finding the time to do this interview, and for the ongoing support of this project. 

In this interview, PJ and Eric discuss how his people got to the Lowell area, his influential grandfather, how someone with no experience in brewing came to open a brewery, and more. 

You can find more info about Navigation on Instagram.

Please visit our homepage for more information about the podcast and learn how to be a guest on an upcoming episode.

Thanks, 

Eric