Mark Marchand blog

Am Amish farmer, somewhere north of Malone, N.Y.

One year later: a road trip to reflect on the pandemic

Post published:March 17, 2021

The dark 12 months that for me started in an Albany class of nervous students moved toward a hopeful finale with the passing of a horse-drawn cart on a remote Upstate New York road. The clip-clop of the horse’s hooves echoes loudly off nearby trees in the otherwise desolate, soundless scene. It was finally time to take stock—to reflect on my physically draining, gut wrenching journey that began at the University at Albany March 11, 2020. In the days, weeks, and months since then millions died. Hundreds of millions more were infected…

Mission controllers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California celebrate the successful landing of Perseverance Feb. 18, 2021

Mars fever!

Post published:February 19, 2021

This is a good week for space exploration buffs like me. There’s a literal traffic jam in orbit and on the surface of planet Mars as three new arrivals complete their 300-million-mile sojourns from Earth at the same time, celestially speaking. Two of the new arrivals will remain in orbit, bringing to 14 the total number of unmanned spacecraft circling the planet. Six are active and collecting scientific data. The other eight, sent beginning in 1971, quietly circle, their sources of power or ability to operate long since expired. The third new…

My love affair with bridges; soaring across the Hudson on foot

Post published:December 17, 2020

Most people consider bridges as structures built for convenience and safety. They are so ubiquitous that we take them for granted, scooting over them in cars, trucks, and trains without much thought. The only time we pay attention to them is when one of them fails spectacularly, like the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis 13 years ago. Fourteen people were killed and 145 injured in that catastrophe. In a similar disaster, a major bridge in Genoa, Italy, crumbled to the ground in 2018, killing 43. The public reaction to bridge tragedies is similar…

A nod to empathy on Election Day

Post published:November 3, 2020

I posted this on Facebook today, and I’m sharing it here: I voted for empathy in this election. Empathy is the ability to understand and share in the feelings of another human. Those who demonstrate empathy usually translate those feelings into doing something to help someone. What a noble concept.We have a vacuum of empathy in Washington, D.C. Whether it’s a president who literally denies the existence of a pandemic that’s killed hundreds of thousands or the Republican leadership that enables him, we need to replace him and his enablers. Now. The…

The author, running a cross-country race in fall 1972 at Chicopee Comprehensive High School in Massachusetts.

Racing to a better future

Post published:September 28, 2020

As I turned our car right to leave Stanley Park in Westfield, Massachusetts, recently, that most precious type of memory sprang to mind. The memory hadn’t surfaced for nearly half a century, and it burst forth so suddenly and dramatically I momentarily forgot I was driving a car. I was lost in a vivid recollection of an epic road race I ran in that very park back in 1972. What mattered wasn’t the race itself or the outcome. Instead, it was the decision, for the first time in my 17 years, to…