Longtime customer Cindy Wallick eats and has a drink while playing Keno at Pratty’s C.A.V. in Gloucester. Pratty’s C.A.V. in Gloucester has been a family business since Jimmy Pratt bought the place in 1986. He’d been working there since he got back from Vietnam, when it was still called Earl’s Cape Ann Vets. After this no-frills corner bar locked its doors during the pandemic last summer, some of the locals wondered if the place might be gone for good. But on a chilly Monday in December, a cluster of regulars huddled in the doorway, gazing out at Gloucester Harbor. They’d slipped out to grab a smoke, just as […]Read more >

The flag should "represent history, but also be aspirational,” said Elizabeth Solomon. A move to redesign the Massachusetts state flag arrived at an interesting time. Newspapers and social media feeds have been inundated with photos of flags and all their complicated symbolism. Rioters waved Confederate and American flags as they stormed the US capitol last week. Some used flagpoles to beat a police officer to the ground. Others wore imagery borrowed from flags on their clothing or painted across their bodies as they threatened the lives of hundreds. On Jan. 5, just one day before the insurrection, the Massachusetts Legislature […]Read more >