Memories

A Hometown Halloween

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

I, Mark Aldrich, have only one hometown, and that hometown, Poughkeepsie, NY, was voted Halloween Central in 2013 by a major little-known Canadian institute. One could say that this is a big deal. It isn’t, but one could say it …

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The Martin Prosperity Institute released what it called its third “annual survey” of Halloween in America back in 2013. The Institute did not produce a fourth or any subsequent sequel to this seminal study of all things creepy, ghostly, and scary, and in 2019, the MPI itself closed up shop altogether. It’s now a ghost, itself. Perhaps the MPI accomplished its mission when everyone named Martin was discovered to be prosperous. Or in an institute.

On reflection, it is likely that my hometown broke the Martin Prosperity Institute, which I will explain.

The Institute’s 2013 in-depth look at the field of Halloween enjoyment, a study not undertaken by most people older than say, eight, led to many national news articles that expressed shock at its conclusion, which was this: the best place to enjoy Halloween in the United States of America is Poughkeepsie, New York.

If this was true in 2013, it may very well be true tonight, Halloween 2024.
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A Valentine’s Day Knockout

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

It was as if every wish I had made in childhood for a hole in the ground to open up and rescue me had been answered in reverse …

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I bear a scar from the first Valentine’s Day that I had a reason to celebrate as Valentine’s Day, as a part of a couple.

Until the last decade, my romantic history was a long walk alone in an empty field, punctuated by moments in which I interrupted someone else’s walk, attempted to try a relationship, and discovered that I try people’s patience instead. (All the women I have dated are brilliant and accomplished and I was lucky to get to know them; I was stuck at age fifteen for an astonishingly long time, however.)
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Everyone Loves a Parade

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

That time I almost led the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade by accident.

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Each Thanksgiving morning I experience the flutter of a memory of a moment in which my own experience of Planes, Trains, and Automobiles almost came true. Mine was going to involve accidental participation in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade between my bus and train, however, which is a notion that even the late John Hughes might have rejected as far-fetched.
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