LOVED the Globe Magazine’s 150th anniversary edition (March 6). I can’t remember the last time I read the whole magazine cover to cover. It was great to see the names of familiar reporters, columnists, and features. I still have so many recipes that I clipped from Confidential Chat (I was Pokey’s Bunny) and remember reading and learning from Ask The Globe, The Handyman, and Ask Beth. Thanks for the great trip down memory lane!

Our family moved to Maine in 1973, when I was 12. That August, I saw The Boston Globe with a story about a Logan plane crash, and Mom gave me the quarter to buy it at the store. When we moved to Augusta, my mom worked at Mr. Paperback bookstore, and brought home the Globe every day. When I left for college in Massachusetts, I got it delivered to my dorm room, and have subscribed ever since. Somewhere under the eaves of my house is a plastic, air-tight container with entire Globes from the Gardner heist; the first (and best) Red Sox championship in 2004; the first Boston Marathon I ran (2005), including the pages with my name and 5-hour finish in miniscule type; and, of course, 9/11. Mr. Paperback is long gone. Any time I drove by that Freeport convenience store, I’d remember with a smile buying my first Globe there. But that closed, too. The Globe, though, is still here. My subscription is digital now, but I still read it cover to cover every morning, as I have for the past 49 years.

I was absolutely fascinated and mesmerized by this wonderful edition of the Globe Magazine. I read it from cover to cover. Since I am 98 years old, I have been reading the Globe...well, ever since I could read. I remember many of the events depicted therein — the good, the bad, and the ugly. Hoping to enjoy reading the Globe for many more years to come.

Inspired by my grandfathers who kept WWI newspapers with their spy reports, I kept newspapers too: on the Kennedys, space race, moon landing, Vietnam. Scrapbooks from my high school years focused on basketball games (I was a cheerleader). When I started teaching college freshman writing courses, I supplemented textbook essays with news stories and commentary ... eventually eliminating textbooks. I still keep clippings: a scrapbook on the first year of coronavirus, another on Biden’s election/BLM, and a large scrapbook on live productions/play bills, reviews, from 1962 at Storrowton Music Fair to Shakespeare on the Common to Hamilton. Newspapers provide contemporary voices whatever the era — and each era has its own voice. We recognize ourselves.

Thank you for the “Hello, Dolly” paper doll feature (March 6). My mother, artist Betty Lane, was a fashion illustrator at the Globe, where she met my father. In the 1960s, my mother’s paper dolls gained popularity with readers who requested that their children be featured. She would incorporate their hobbies or pets in her drawings. She worked at our dining room table using a quill dip pen and black ink. The dolls were drawn on a heavyweight paper and a tracing overlay was placed on top. In the 1940s there were dolls in uniform. Bell bottoms and mini-skirts appeared in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Each of her three daughters appeared as a bride doll and many family children were featured, too. Her paper dolls are featured in digital archives at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. Each of my sisters has a packet of her originals.

I wish you would bring back the paper dolls in the Globe Magazine. I work as an occupational therapist in a school, and have seen a decline in children’s ability to use scissors. The paper dolls might be a fun way to entice practice!

Long before much of the current Red Sox Nation was even born, the American League champion Red Sox of 1967 breathed new life into a moribund franchise with a magical season unlike any other. Without those memories, Fenway might not still be standing and local baseball history might have been very different. Just one man’s vote for a missing homage to the ‘67 Sox in the wonderful, historical Globe Magazine 150th edition. Maybe there will be room in the 2072 edition?

I would have loved to have seen some acknowledgement of the changes in how the paper is actually put together. My father, Kevin O’Leary, worked in the Globe composing room almost his entire career, first as a linotype operator and later as a paste-up artist. My siblings and I got to see firsthand how a newspaper is put together from the ground up. I wonder if readers would be interested in such a historical piece. I know I would.

You forget the classified ad department at the old Globe building. As a Northeastern co-op student in 1965, I worked in this rather vast department with women answering phones, typing up ads, and putting them on a complicated conveyor belt. They came to our section, where we sat around a round table and wrote down the info on a huge sheet of paper, including the section (Help Wanted, Animals, Autos), and the linage, then put the ads into vacuum tubes to go to the typesetters. At the end of the shift that paper would go to the layout editor. The job was boring BUT I got to work inside that Morrissey Boulevard building and was fascinated to see it in Spotlight.

I’ll never forget the Sunday morning when I read the Globe story about priests molesting children. I’m not from Boston and I’m not Catholic, but I will subscribe to The Boston Globe forever because of the wrong that it made right.

The 150th anniversary issue was beautifully done and paid tribute to important happenings. I was disappointed, however, that figure skating was ignored. Tenley E. Albright, a native of Newton and graduate of Radcliffe and Harvard Medical School, deserved recognition for being the first American woman to win the World Figure Skating Championships in 1953 and the first American woman to win Olympic gold in 1956. And, surely, The Boston Globe covered the loss of the entire 1961 US figure skating team in a plane crash en route to the World Championships that year. Many of the competitors and coaches who died were Boston residents and deserving of having their accomplishments acknowledged.

I was thoroughly enjoying the review of the last 150 years, until I came to the Charles Stuart piece. I am stunned by the blatant understatement that “Boston police turned Mission Hill upside down” to find Carol Stuart’s murderer, and the factually incorrect statement that police “found no suspect matching the description.” Black men were terrorized with, according to The Washington Post, more than 150 stop-and-frisk searches per day, public strip searches, and no-knock intrusions into homes. Two men apparently did match the description, or at least were arrested: Alan Swanson and Willie Bennett. Globe, your credibility has been seriously undermined.

I still have my original copy (March 1964) of The Boston Globe Cook Book for Brides (“Cooking from Confidential Chat: Four Reader Favorites”), pictured at right. Oh the memories it jogs, the successes and the “do overs,” the notes in the margins, lots of smiles and “yums” over the years. A treasure!

So delighted to see Sheryl Julian back. Uncomplicated, tasty recipes without pretense!

My husband and I moved to Massachusetts over 45 years ago from New York. Confidential Chat was the most wonderful, welcoming column! It was like making anonymous new friends who shared insights, helpful hints, recipes, and comments. Writers created the names they were known by. Several recipes shared in the Chat are family favorites to this day. A few of my chats were printed. I once sent a request for suggestions and advice about taking a family trip to Disney. Several weeks later, I was amazed to receive a large manila envelope in the mail filled with responses from kind “chatters” who took the time to write detailed responses. Confidential Chat simply felt like one big caring neighborhood; I miss it.

There was a wonderful section for children, NewsLine. It featured a news topic written so children could understand. And these student readers were invited to respond with their opinions. That feature was discontinued in 2001. There was also the Fun Pages: A class became special Boston Globe student reporters and researched a topic, and it filled an entire page of the Sunday funnies. This was discontinued around 2009. As a teacher I used both of these to get students to read, to think, and to write and to see the importance of newspapers. Included in this special edition was a 1903 headline, “Boys and Girls Should Read,” above a list of games and opinion pieces for children. Much has changed since 1903 but hopefully we will always have newspapers; the habit of reading a daily paper needs to start at an early age.

I was at the Beatles concert too that night—I was sitting two rows in front of Debbie Chase (“I Just Kissed Paul McCartney!”). I was waiting for the show to start when I became aware of some commotion. Debbie was making her way down the row until she finally collapsed into her chair, full of emotion, tearfully exclaiming she had met and kissed Paul McCartney! All the girls around her were going nuts with envy! My friends and I thought she was making it up, but the next day, I saw the article in the Globe about the concert and there was a big photo of Debbie with Paul and Ringo! I couldn’t believe it! I promptly cut out the article and added it to my Beatles scrapbook. I carried that around for 33 years, through many moves, until 1997 when our basement flooded and all my Beatles memorabilia was ruined. I am still heartsick that it happened. I was absolutely thrilled to see the photo again [in the anniversary edition]. What an amazing night for two 14-year-olds!

Did I miss mention of the Kingston Trio’s hit “MTA”?

Bravo to Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon (“A Message, Plus a Secret Message, For Puzzlers”). Enjoy a well-earned retirement.

“It’s been a great ride”? Yes, it has.

Glenn Rifkin’s poignant Connections piece about his decades-long friendship brought tears to my eyes (“Frank’s Bright Light,” March 13). I, too, have friends I’ve known since second grade and the military. We don’t see each other very often but we talk all the time and have had several reunions that were epic. Friends come in all kinds of packages and I loved reading about Frank. I hope memories of him make Rifkin smile.

Glenn, I wept for you today, and I am so grateful that you shared this poignant story of you and Frank. In his memory, and in thanks to you, I will adopt his pledge to never do anything that my dear friends wouldn’t enjoy.

I just read this essay and am holding back tears. I’m heartbroken for Glenn Rifkin and all who have lost loved ones to COVID-19.

This Connections hit home for me as I also lost my best friend of 56 years two years ago. She was diagnosed with cancer and died five weeks later. I too have an empty space as I feel there was no time to prepare for losing her. I try to honor our friendship by remembering the good times. Thank you to Glenn Rifkin for letting me know that I am not the only one who finds it hard to let go.

I am so sorry that, as the author describes it, a light has gone out. It is really tough now that we have known some people for half a century. I love that he plans to never do what Frank wouldn’t have enjoyed. He has left Rifkin with a great idea.

While William S. Haynes Co. flutes are at the top in the flute world, so are Powell and Burkart, with all three companies in Massachusetts (“Artisans of Music,” March 13). Players, whether professionals or amateurs, from all over the world come here for their instruments, be it flutes or piccolos.

I enjoyed the article very much and was happy that the magazine gave excellent coverage to these amazing artisans. I was perplexed, however, that the Von Huene Workshop in Brookline was not covered. The Von Huene Workshop is world renowned as a premier recorder maker and it is well known in early music circles.

Wonderful article about American craftsmanship and manufacturing.

Before the pandemic, Fisk organs hosted an annual open house. Models of previously created instruments were on display and a member of the staff gave a talk on the specifics of the models. The company also has a very large prototype that you can play and step inside to examine the innards. Hopefully it will reinstate this event.

What a beautiful and heartening story. Thank you to author Paul Mozell for writing and photographing it. The world needs uplifting things to think about.

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