The Gad About Town

My year in review: "2024 (Covid's Version)"

My brain was producing a redacted document, live. * * * * There does not need to be a term more precise for the phenomenon of brain fog than “brain fog.” Of course, one may want to quantify things, determine a precise number with a decimal point and a percentage sign to let people know that under this number one does not have brain fog, but above it … hoo boy! Above this percentage point, one…

"Today, I am 56. A Scorpio, whatever that means ..." 'No Barium to the Future' by Mark Aldrich #HappyBirthday #56IsTheNew56

Dr. Oliver Sacks gave me a gift for my birthday some years ago: a writing prompt that I use each year for my birthday day: Write an essay in which you equate your age with the corresponding element number on the periodic table. Since I am a nonscientist, this seemed like an invitation to a find a metaphor in a reflection of the year past and in one’s hopes for the year to come. Today, November…

Lincoln, the Civil War, Gettysburg, Veterans Day, my great-great-grandfather. 'Mystic chords of memory ...' by @Mark_S_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. * * * * 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,…

Thoughts after yesterday: 'All Love Is Local' by @Mark_S_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…

A childhood Halloween memory from #upstate NY: 'A Hometown Halloween' by @Mark_S_Aldrich (https://wp.me/p49Ewg-42l). #HappyHalloween2024 #HappyHalloween #Poughkeepsie

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 … * * * * 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…

"I learned yesterday that I am not dead. This was not news to me." The latest from @Mark_S_Aldrich in '2024: The Story So Far.' #Covid #coffee #coffeeshop #Rumors

A rumor went around recently that I had died. At first I thought, “Why hadn’t anyone contacted me to ask?” but then I realized how silly it would be to call a dead person and inquire if he is dead. * * * * I learned yesterday that I am not dead. This was not news to me, as my Sunday morning activities carried most of the evidence of a living human life as lived by me: I was frustrated once again…

"I bear a scar from the first Valentine's Day that I had a reason to celebrate as #ValentinesDay": 'A Valentine's Day Knockout' by @Mark_S_Aldrich: #ValentinesDay2024

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 … * * * * 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…

Virginia O'Hanlon, 70 years later: 'I Still Believe in Santa Claus.' A gruff editor's thought written to a child remains revolutionary: Santa "exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist."

I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in The Sun it’s so.’ Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?—Virginia O’Hanlon, a question published in the New York Sun on September 21, 1897 She was an elderly woman in a hospital near Albany, NY, on Christmas Day 1969. When a hospital maintenance worker who always dressed as Santa for…

That time I led the #MacysThanksgivingDayParade by accident. 'Everyone Loves a #Parade' by @Mark_S_Aldrich . #thanksgiving2023 #HappyThanksgiving #Macys #NewYorkCity #Midtown #NYPD

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

A personal reflection on the anniversary of #PresidentKennedy's death: '60 Years' .

The two saddest photographs in my memory both commemorate a tragic historical event that might not have happened, an alternate reality: a daylight photo of an iceberg with a streak of dark paint along its waterline that was seen from the deck of one of the ocean liners that rescued survivors the day after the Titanic sank. The other is a photo of the presidential limo in which President Kennedy…

Today, I am 55. Can element 55, cesium, tell me anything about this new age? My latest, 'Cesium and Desistium' . #birthday #happybirthday

Dr. Oliver Sacks gave me a gift for my birthday some years ago: a writing prompt that I use each year for my special-ish day: Write an essay in which you equate your age with the corresponding element number on the periodic table. Since I am a nonscientist, this seemed like an invitation to a find a metaphor in a reflection of the year past and in one’s hopes for the year to come. Today, November…

"The light down there is red." Some memories and thoughts of 'Kyiv/Minsk, 1989; Grief Today.'

We almost died in Kyiv. It’s a funny anecdote, but as a person who has since experienced some moments in which my mortality pointed finger-guns at me and said, “Catch you later,” I know now how valid my opening sentence remains. Sometimes one’s present and future existence depends on the reflexes of a cab driver in a foreign city. I love Kyiv, perhaps because I experienced one of my first…

A memoir about an upcoming #memoir. 'In Dreams Begin ...' by @Mark_S_Aldrich (https://wp.me/p49Ewg-3Z0). Thank you to Martha Greenwald, @whowelostusa, @belt_magazine, for creating a space in which our memories of lost loved ones can take an honored place. #COVID19 #Coronavirus

We tried to take a selfie recently, my parents and I, with a copy of the book, Who We Lost, held in my hand. The book will be published on May 9, and an essay by me appears in it, which marks the first time something I wrote will be published in a book. We were all happy about it. My parents’ pride was palpable. Each photo we tried to take with my phone presented a new variation on the same…

"My body resembles no known athlete's body, which makes sense because it performs like no known athlete's body." #Aaron, #DiMaggio, & me on #baseball's #OpeningDay: 'Me & the Curve' by @Mark_S_Aldrich (https://wp.me/p49Ewg-3YE) #OpeningDayMLB

My body, six feet tall and cartoonishly slim, resembles no known athlete’s body, which makes sense because it performs like no known athlete’s body. * * * * Major League Baseball opened its 2023 season today with a clock to govern the time between pitches, something that has not ever been used in baseball. Poets who were baseball fans were known to rhapsodize over the inner rhythms of an…

An essay about my late dad will appear in a new book, out May 9, thanks to Martha Greenwald, the @whowelostusa project, & @belt_publishing: "Who We Lost and 'Who We Lost'" by @Mark_S_Aldrich (https://wp.me/p49Ewg-3Yo) #COVID19 #COVID #COVIDMemorials

An anthology of essays by individuals who lost loved ones to Covid, Who We Lost, edited by Martha Greenwald, will be published on May 9, 2023, by Belt Publishing. An essay that I wrote specifically for this volume is included. Order your copy now from the publisher and booksellers everywhere. (Support your independent bookseller!) * * * * After my father died of COVID-19 in May 2020, I have…