daily prompt

Making Change(s)

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Did Gandhi say, “We must be the change we wish to see in the world?” Nope. The story is more complicated than that.

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In his bestselling book, “Earth in the Balance” (1992), Al Gore recounts the story of watching his six-year-old son be hit by a car, and the months he and his wife spent nursing the boy back to health. That six-year-old is now in his 30s.

He writes that “something changed in a fundamental way” for him that year, 1989: he turned 40, watched his son almost die, and lost the 1988 Presidential election. (He came in a distant “I don’t remember him running that year” in the primaries to Michael Dukakis.)
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Red Tie Formal

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

“Tails.” I spoke the word out loud with my indoors voice. I ordered white tails to wear at my high school prom.

For many American high school students, senior year means at least two things: Graduation and Senior Prom Night (and the morning after). With no research, I can tell you that “prom” is short for “promenade,” which is long for “prom.” For naive bookworm me, the prom, far more than graduation or even thecontinuousthinkingofthoughtsabouttheentirerestofmylife, was the source of many anxieties.

(There is an ancient cliché about how native peoples who live in the Arctic have 1000 words for snow because they know snow so intimately that they have 1000 words to describe 1000 unique realities. Replace the word “snow” with “anxiety,” and you have me. A thousand different anxieties.)
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He Knew a Guy

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

He knew people. Had connections. A Brushes-With-Hollywood™ Tale.

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There is a big difference between living a life story about which people say, “That ought to be a movie,” and possessing a life story about which those same people will pay real money to buy the book or sit in a theater to view that movie.
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