Larry the K's Lineup

  LINK TO THE STORY WITH THE POEMS AS A RELATED STORY: https://www.thesunchronicle.com/news/local_news/relay-for-life-of-greater-attleboro-scheduled-for-saturday/article_b142b49b-c998-594f-a5f0-2da6a442b7a4.html The second in-person event of the Relay For Life of Greater Attleboro, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, is almost here, as we’ll be holding a celebration of our Slam Cancer poetry-essay event from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, June 26 in Balfour Riverwalk Park in Attleboro’s downtown. The night will feature the authors of the poems and essays about how cancer has affected them reading their submissions, and you can preview those submissions by clicking this link to the poems as they appear on The Sun Chronicle’s Website (thesunchronicle.com). This story ran in The Sun Chronicle on Thursday, June 24. LINK TO THE POEMS DIRECTLY: POEMS:  https://www.thesunchronicle.com/communities/slam-cancer-local-residents-impacted-by-disease-share-poems-and-essays-about-their-...

  The return to the track for the Relay For Life of Greater Attleboro was a hopeful, inspiring moment on Saturday evening as about 50 survivors and about 200 people helped make the drive-thru and walk-the-track event a success. After being forced to hold the relay virtually last year, it was pure joy to have this very important fundraiser for the American Cancer Society back on the track at Norton High School. It was especially moving to see the luminaria --- candles lit in honor of cancer survivors or in memory of cancer victims --- back on the track, and the rain held off until three minutes before the three-hour event was set to conclude. We raised more than $54,000 so far, and the fight against cancer will continue on Saturday evening, June 26 at the Balfour Riverwalk Park in downtown Attleboro, when the relay, in partnership with the Attleboro Public Library, holds Slam Cancer, a celebration of the poetry-essay event that was held in April. Ma...

  Here’s a reminder that the Relay For Life of Greater Attleboro will mark its 23 rd year of raising money for the American Cancer Society by holding two smaller in-person events this month: a drive-thru relay from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, June 19 at Norton High School and a celebration of the relay’s “Slam Cancer” initiative, held in conjunction with the Attleboro Public Library, from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday, June 26 at Attleboro’s Balfour Riverwalk Park. Both events were planned with the latest American Cancer Society (ACS) guidelines for in-person events, including mandatory mask-wearing out of deference to the cancer survivors who will be in attendance. First event The drive-thru relay on June 19 will feature a chance to walk the track to view the luminaria, which will be lit in honor of cancer survivors and in memory of cancer victims. The schedule: A survivor-only experience from 6 to 6:30 p.m., after which participants will be able to stop at stations, including one to bid on ra...

When all is said and done, your Boston Bruins got booted from the Stanley Cup playoffs because they were outmuscled and beaten by a bigger, and better team, similarly to what the St. Louis Blues did to them in beating them in Game 7 in the 2019 Stanley Cup Finals. The New York Islanders’ defensemen were bigger, their forwards more precise in their shooting and, above all, their goalie, Seymon Varlamov, was almost impossible to solve after Islanders coach Barry Trotz yanked Game 1 starter Ilya Sorokin, starting with Game 2. Meanwhile, the Bruins' starting goalie, Tuukka Rask, who was injured and not at 100 percent, was a shadow of himself after Game 3, and the free agent to be may have played his final game as a Bruin. But then again, maybe not as on Friday, Rask told the media that he has a torn labrum in his hip and needs surgery that will likely keep him sidelined for the 2021-22 season until at least January, possibly February. Which begs the question that after Bruins coach...

One of the most annoying terms --- and there have been at least a dozen (“we’re all in this together,” Zoom meetings, Zoom anything, remote learning, flatten the curve, social distancing, keep 6 feet apart, etc.) that the pandemic has bequeathed us --- has been “in-person event.” After all, before the pandemic, an event to which people were invited to attend tacitly implied that the event would be of “in-person” variety. That was a no-brainer. Sure, there may have been some virtual meetings held due to long-distance considerations, but a road race meant actually going to the starting line, a fundraiser meant walking the distance, a marathon meant running 26.2 miles, a 5K meant running or walking 3.1 miles ---and the Relay For Life, a fundraiser for the American Cancer Society, meant going to a local school or field for about 18 hours to walk the track in tandem with team members. But that was before the world shut down in March of 2020. Last year was a very bittersweet year for the-...

  You would think that having a 100 percent chance of not getting a severe case of COVID-19 or a better than 80 or 90 percent chance of not even getting infected with COVID-19 would be incentive enough to get vaccinated. Not to mention doing your part to increase the percentage of those vaccinated in order to bring a complete end to the pandemic in the United States. But it seems that for some foolish --- make that for way too many foolish people --- getting vaccinated to preserve your health and that of others isn’t enough of a reason to get vaccinated, which has forced many states and locales to offer incentives ranging from gift cards and so-called “vax” lotteries to trips and scholarships. If that’s what it takes to have people act responsibly, then so be it. But like so many things in the pandemic that have needlessly turned political, the whole issue of getting vaccinated, like wearing masks earlier, should have never become political. After all, the vaccinations were...

  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...