1) Looks like a nice day. Conditions look to be mostly sunny today with highs in the mid 40s early on, according to Weather Underground. Temps will drop to the upper 30s in the afternoon, with possible wind gusts up to 35 mph. At night, prepare for some chilly conditions as lows around 17 are forecast, with the wind sticking around to add injury to insult.
2) Lake Q 5k. We’ve got just the thing to help burn off all those Christmas calories: a five-kilometer jaunt around Wakefield’s beautiful Lake Quannapowitt. Join local harriers of all ages and the Mystic Runners Club for their weekly , starting at 6:45 p.m. Runners are advised to arrive early to register.
3) Johnny has gone for a soldier. Families are invited to come to the meeting room at the Reading Public Library at 1 p.m. for a look at what Reading was like during the Civil War. After a brief introduction, Everett and Ginny Blodgett will lead the group to Laurel Hill Cemetery for a tour of the Civil War Monument and grave sites of local Civil War veterans. Afterwards, snacks will be served back at the library.
Find out what's happening in Readingwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
4) Sports. The Rockets are in action across multiple arenas Wednesday, including the RMHS grapplers at the prestigious George Bossi Lowell Holiday Tournament. Boys and girls track, swimming and boys basketball are also in action. Click here for more information.
5) Literary Investigation. On this day, in 1973, famed Russian author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s scathing look at the machinations of the Soviet Union’s police-state system, The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956, is published in Paris in the original Russian. The first of a three-volume work, the brutal and uncompromising depiction of political repression and terror was quickly translated into many languages and was released in the United States a few months later. Officials in the Soviet Union saw red (pun intended) over the no-holds-barred account, and TASS, the official state media agency, called the book “unfounded slander” against the Soviet People. In 1974, Solzhenitsyn was arrested, stripped of his citizenship and deported. He would return to Russia in 1994, after the fall of communism, and die in Moscow in 2008 at age 89.
