Larry the K's Lineup

  I’ve said for years now that Holocaust education should be mandated for all high school students and find it mystifying that such isn’t the case in Massachusetts. (A bill has been pending in the Massachusetts Legislature for a while, and has to this point gone nowhere.) But it’s not just the younger generations who have to get educated about the Nazi horrors against Jews and other non-White, non-German people before and during World War II: Constant remarks and actions by adults and companies show the urgency of Holocaust education. Two particularly recent egregious examples include Republican Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s latest comments in which she compared the Nazi’s persecution and murder of 6 million Jews, which included forcing the Jewish people to wear Stars of David before they were shipped off to the gas chambers, to people either urged or mandated to wear masks during the coronavirus pandemic, and-or being asked for their COVID-19 vaccination status. ...

Wednesday night’s thunderstorm that rocked parts of Massachusetts, including the Attleboro area, was a sign that summer has arrived in earnest as the noise freaked out our pets. We expected that from our dog Buddy, a Shih Tzu-Pekingese-mix who despises thunder and lives to bark at it --- and that's exactly what he did for about 90 minutes. He barked non-stop, from the time the thunder was just a faint, far-away noise until it was right over our house, preceded by brilliant lightning capped with a booming noise and buckets of rain. But what we didn’t expect was to have to search for our indoor cat Cooper for a good half-hour as he had seemingly gone AWOL in our house. We conducted a thorough search. We looked in all the closets, our pantry, where he’s been known to hide for a while, under the beds, in all of the nooks and crannies of our basement, in our garage --- and he was nowhere to be found. For a few minutes, we thought that the little guy might have somehow escaped outsi...

After being forced to hold a virtual event in 2020, the Relay For Life of Greater Attleboro will hold a pair of smaller in-person events in June. These events are vital toward the efforts to raise money for the American Cancer Society after the coronavirus pandemic severely affected both the relay and the fight against this insidious disease. The events will be important, not only to raise money to help one of the non-profits that was severely affected by COVID-19’s limitations and lockdowns last year, but also to renew community awareness for the need for people to get screened for various cancers, procedures that were largely ignored a year ago as the pandemic raged. So, consider attending either or both of the events, and-or to donate to the cause at www.relayforlife.org/greaterattleboroma . This column was published by The Sun Chronicle of Attleboro, MA on May 18, 2021. The Attleboro Public Library, in conjunction with the 23 rd annual Relay For Life of Greater Attleboro to...

  The pandemic has been tough on everyone, and that includes our pets. Here, in a lighthearted column that I wrote for the May edition of Jewish Rhode Island of Providence, R.I., I try to get into the minds of our pet cat Cooper and pet dog Buddy, to see how the pandemic has affected them. Enjoy, and have a few chuckles, which we can all use. If the column doesn’t bring a smile to your face, then you may need a booster vaccination humor shot. This column was published in the May edition of the Jewish Rhode Island of Providence: When I last discussed our pets two years ago --- our cat Cooper and our dog Buddy, a Shih Tzu-Pekingese-mix --- the world of pets was much different in the BC (Before COVID-19) era. The big thing, of course, is that our pets, like millions across the country, have become spoiled by having their adult “parents” around pretty much 24-7. But I was curious about how they’ve been coping with everything and so, as a salute to Jewish Rhode Island’s annual pet...

  I admit it: I became sad, and upset all over again, at Rhode Island legislators for fumbling the proposal for the new Pawtucket Red Sox stadium, when I read the stories this week about the opening of Polar Park for the inaugural Worcester Red Sox season. That’s because, it shouldn’t have happened that way. Not at all. Had then-Gov. Gina Raimondo gone to bat for the stadium proposal instead of doing nothing when then-House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello flexed his czar-like powers to kill the proposal for the Slater Mill stadium, PawSox mascots Paws and Sox might have been helping fans celebrate the new stadium in Pawtucket instead of participating in the WooSox home opener and hobnobbing with national anthem singer and legend James Taylor. That’s because, as PawSox diehards know all too well by now, Rhode Island punted, and caved to Mattiello and the ghost of Curt Schilling’s 38 Studios fiasco. That bad memory was enough to fuel the negative talk against a new Pawtucket stadium, ...

This past Mother’s Day represented another touch of normalcy as both of our daughters joined us for the afternoon and a relaxing dinner at home. In the afternoon, I walked on my cul-de-sac with my older daughter, a teacher, and my wife, while my younger daughter, who just finished her sophomore year at Johnson and Wales University in Providence, rode her bike with the next-door neighbors, whom she hadn’t seen in quite a while. We were soon joined by three others, who were walking their dogs, and the scene just seemed so “normal” --- and a much-welcomed change to the way we have been operating for so long, which was to avoid everyone and stay isolated --- which in turn led to a ton of depressed people who didn’t feel good about anything they’ve been doing for the last 15 months during the pandemic. Later, at about 6 p.m., my older daughter and I drove into Attleboro to pick up dinner at one of our favorite Chinese restaurants. We opted for take-out and had a very enjoyable dinner at...

  It seemed incredible at the time that President John F. Kennedy --- just 20 days after Alan B. Shepard Jr. became the first American in space with a 15-minute suborbital flight a mere three weeks after the Russians beat us by putting cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into orbit on April 12, 1961, --- would commit us to going to the moon by the end of decade, but that’s exactly what he did. The nation was still celebrating Shepard’s feat --- which occurred 60 years ago today, on May 5, 1961 --- when Kennedy boldly, and some would say foolishly, made what at the time seemed like an impossible promise. Shepard’s flight --- the first in the Mercury program that established America’s manned presence in space --- was a long way off from the Apollo 11 flight a little more than eight years later; indeed, the lunar rockets and capsules hadn’t even been conceived yet, let alone designed or built. But that’s what Kennedy did, because he believed in the country’s ability to embrace science and t...

If you didn’t know the hell that we’ve all lived through over the last 14 months or so, my half-hour walk on my cul-de-sac in North Attleboro, MA, on a sun-splashed Saturday afternoon wouldn’t have seemed like anything out of the ordinary. After all, on May 1, seeing some activity on the street would have been expected. But on this day, just as we’re desperately hoping that the return to normalcy being promised by Gov. Charlie Baker really happens --- and that the health scolds don’t snatch it away from us similar to the way that Lucy always pulled the football away from Charlie Brown --- it was a rare day to feel optimistic, for a few reasons. Not one but two families with young children were having birthday parties ---  celebrations that those kids were denied last year due to the COVID limits that turned us all into depressed, isolated recluses. Balloons were tied to one family’s mailbox as guests parked their cars  to celebrate together for a few short hours, while ...