Author: Sam Baltrusis
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EDITOR’S NOTE: God shots
Looking back at the issues I’ve produced as the editor-in-chief of Spare Change News, I’m surprised by the nuggets of wisdom hidden within the profiles of our vendors and other homeless men and women featured in the pages of our bi-weekly newspaper. I call them “God shots”—those moments of clarity that leap from the page…
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Emotional wounds
My mother was 15 when she met my biological father at a swimming pool in Florida. They married soon after and she moved us to his home in Chicago when I was a baby. He drank a lot and my mother thought she could somehow change him. She was wrong. My father was older than…
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EDITOR'S NOTE: After the Storm
A few days after “snowmageddon,” Cambridge’s Harvard Square is slowly getting back to normal. Jon Denning, one of Spare Change News’ younger vendors, greets me as I pass his usual spot in front of Qdoba. He’s smiling. “Man, it’s not so bad tonight,” he says, alluding to the below-zero temperatures he’s endured for the past…
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Valentine's Day
It’s the Thursday night before Valentine’s Day and, as I walk home from my office at Spare Change News, I witness an assault of a young, homeless woman in front of the Harvard Square “T” station entrance. She’s clutching a red suitcase and has a bruise on her face. It looks like she’s trying to…
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WICKED SMART: Amy Poehler receives the 2015 Woman of the Year award
For hellraiser Amy Poehler, there’s no place like home. Well, kinda sorta. “When I was growing up in Burlington, Harvard University used to be a group of buildings we threw rocks at on our way to a real job,” she muses on stage while receiving the 2015 Hasty Pudding Award from the Hasty Pudding Theatricals…
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EDITOR’S NOTE: God bless you
The night before Blizzard Juno wallops our city, I’m running around Harvard Square looking for one of our younger vendors, Jon, to make sure he’s OK. The forecast looks scary, and people like our newly elected governor, Charlie Baker, are slinging around words like “historic” and “snowmageddon.” I find Jon shivering in front of the…
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Time to make a difference
How did I get involved with Spare Change News? It came to me in a dream. After spending the summer doing research for my fourth book, Haunted Boston Harbor, I became obsessed with the historical back story involving the rusty, old bridge connecting Quincy’s Moon Island and Boston Harbor’s Long Island. “Mayor, tear down that…