Blog - Mark Marchand blog

The route I took last summer, between Saratoga, N.Y., and Oshkosh, Wisconsin. (Credit: Google Maps, and my drawing.)

Road tripping west in post-COVID(?) summer of 2021

Post published:August 4, 2022

Last summer I set out from my home in upstate NY to search for an America readjusting to life as the COVID wildfire slowed down. Just as I was about to depart on a celebratory, wandering road trip through seven states the Delta variant began sweeping our country. I went anyway. Below is the first chapter of a four-part series on my sojourn. Like many of my road trips across America, it was a fun excursion— but the worsening news about COVID was an overhang on my mood, haunting me each mile along the way.

Looking to 1968 and Apollo during these troubled times

Post published:March 1, 2022

Looking to 1968, perhaps one of the worst years in our history, to find inspiration for our troubled times. Posted on the Medium website and on the Albany, N.Y. Times-Union Op Ed page as a guest commentary.

Me, Joe, Ed, and Phil in front of the famous Beatles statue by the waterfront in Liverpool, England.

‘Get(ting) Back’ in touch with The Beatles

Post published:December 6, 2021

We took them for granted for too many years. That’s my personal theory about what’s happening now as the world starts watching the unique three-part “Get Back" documentary on the Disney + streaming service. The mini-series marks the first time we’ll get an intimate peek inside one of the last rehearsing/recording sessions The Beatles conducted, this one in January 1969. The video and transcripts of the sessions have been hidden away in vaults for over a half century. Noted director Peter Jackson spent several years parsing the material and finally assembled the…

The cover of my new novel (Created by Deanna Gallaro)

New book: A novel involving two of the 20th century’s most important events

Post published:September 1, 2021

This week I published my first novel, and second book. Now available as an ebook and paperback on Amazon, the story involves two of the 20th century’s most important events: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and NASA’s successful manned Moon-landing program. “The Answer From Surveyor 3” is a tense, suspenseful mystery surrounding the real story of those two events. The tale starts by asking the question: What if someone were accidentally present when Oswald fired those fatal shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas?…

Next to the Mooney 201 aircraft I flew for over 10 years as part of the Scotia Flyers club in Schenectady, N.Y. I had just landed in Saranac Lake, N.Y.

Into the wild blue yonder …

Post published:April 26, 2021

This is the first time I post about flying airplanes: one of my passions. I flew for over 20 years after earning my private pilot's license in 1996. I'm including the first chapter of a book I'm writing about my experience learning to fly, and the adventures I had aloft over the next 20 years.