Mark LaFlamme

Sun Journal

Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal reporter and weekly columnist. He's been on the nighttime police beat since 1994, which is just grand because he doesn't like getting out of bed before noon. Mark is the author of eight published novels and rides a dual sport motorcycle everywhere he goes. Unless it's winter, in which case he just sulks a lot.

Latest

Published
February 13, 2019

Auburn couple find love in the mud

Pair bonded over Toughest Mudder event, with friendship blossoming into relationship.
Published
February 13, 2019

Police investigate shots fired in Lewiston

A section of Green Street was closed between East and Sylvan avenues.
Published
February 13, 2019

Mark LaFlamme: The five (or so) stages of a head cold

Your head feels as though some cruel sadist has stuffed a hose in each of your ears and pumped it full of pea soup.
Published
November 13, 2018

Hot sandwiches and band-aids: Hard times at Speaker’s Variety

There was a time when I was eating, on average, five hot ham and cheese sandwiches from Speaker’s Variety every week. For one thing, the hot ham and cheese sandwiches from Speaker’s were spectacular. I’d ask Jim or Pat or whoever was manning the ovens that day to cook them a little extra so that […]
Published
November 9, 2018

Speaker’s Variety: 83-year-old store owner attacked

LEWISTON — An 83-year-old store proprietor was back at work Friday night, nearly a week after her arm was broken during a scuffle with a shoplifter. At Speaker’s Variety on Spruce Street, Patricia Speaker was behind the counter, working alone in the store she’s run for nearly four decades. “I’m sorry I can’t make any hot […]
Published
October 16, 2018

Mark LaFlamme: The rise and fall of George Stanley’s empire of stuff

For about a week, I talked to George Stanley just about every day. On the first day, as we discussed the Craigslist scam that led to a frenzy of scavenging on his property, Stanley quoted a line of Latin to describe his plight. A day or two later, he offered Thomas Wolfe’s most famous line, […]
Published
October 11, 2018

George Stanley assesses the devastation after bogus Craigslist ad prompted a frenzy of looting

GREENE — At George Stanley’s place on Route 202, there are almost too many doors to count: garage doors, doors made of fencing and doors constructed of plywood and nails. On Thursday, working in the driving rain, the 71-year-old Stanley moved from one door to the next, assessing the damage and the losses. “This […]
Published
October 4, 2018

Bogus Craigslist ad leads people to loot Greene property

“Free!” the Craigslist ad read. “Come one, come all, everything on the lot is free!” So enthusiastic was the advertisement it used the word “free” five times in the headline alone. The problem: The ad was bogus. The lot in question, a sprawling building surrounded by a mad jumble of free-floating items on Route […]
Published
December 17, 2017

Staying warm: What’s in YOUR underwear drawer?

I have to confess: Last weekend, I spent a considerable chunk of time running around in a pair of my wife’s nylons. Pantyhose, that is. I squeezed into those suckers with grim determination, like a man trying to shove 10 pounds of raw meat into a 5-gallon bag. Worth it? Hardly. All day, I was […]
Published
March 12, 2017

Coffee complexities: Have we gone too farruccino?

Somewhere, at some point in time, an unknown person walked into a Starbucks coffee shop and placed the following order: “I would like a double ristretto venti half-soy nonfat decaf organic chocolate brownie iced vanilla double-shot gingerbread frappuccino with foam whipped cream upside down double blended, one sweet’n low and one nutrasweet. Light ice, please.” […]

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