‘Mystic chords of memory …’

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

On this particular Veterans Day, in this particular time and place and moment, I think more of my Civil War ancestors, and what it meant to be a part of the Union. I do not know what it meant for them; I know what they mean to me.

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I do not know what my great-great-grandfather James Metcalf (above) saw at the Battle of Gettysburg. He and his father, Amos, my great-great-great-grandfather, were both there with the 6th Battery, 1st Battalion, Maine Light Artillery.

The list of locations (from the National Park Service) at which the 6th Battery saw action while my Metcalf ancestors served from November 15, 1861, till the war’s end includes the names of some of the bloodiest battles in Civil War history: Antietam, the Wilderness Campaign, the months-long Siege of Petersburg, and Gettysburg. James was a private and his father was a hospital cook, so perhaps their experiences were different ones. However, both died years after the war of diseases contracted in service: Amos was disabled with rheumatism and died in 1883, and James died of malaria in 1905. Amos was in his forties during the war, and James turned twenty in 1863.
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All Love Is Local

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The late film critic Pauline Kael is mistakenly said to have remarked after Richard Nixon was reelected, “How could that be? I don’t know ANYONE who voted for him.” The story is apocryphal, as Ms. Kael never said it; but many of us have reacted in a similar naive way if only for a split-second after an election whose results surprised/dismayed us.

Unlike our film critic friend, I do indeed know people who voted opposite me yesterday. (To be open: I voted for the vice-president and our local representative and in favor of a proposition in New York that may prove salutary and, now, surprisingly important in the coming years.) You see, I attend several recovery meetings each week and sit next to men and women who feel vehemently happy today or at least contentedly pleased about the result of the presidential election and unhappy the proposition passed.
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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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