A happy 20th wedding anniversary to Rich and Lisa, married in early September 1995 at a synagogue in suburban Boston, I forget exactly where. But I was there, as shown by this black-and-white image.
Left to right: me, Nate, bridegroom Rich, Victor, and Steve, old friends even then, and considerably older now.
Back on the last day of 1992, Yuriko and I found ourselves in Boston. I don’t remember exactly where the First Night parade was – along one of the streets next to the Common, probably – but we were there, ahead of dinner with friends and a gathering in Cambridge to see ’93 in.
Like the Greenwich Village Halloween parade, First Night featured rod puppets of various kinds. Figures of people:
The camera had an annoying feature that we forgot to turn off for that picture. It would time stamp the images at the bottom. The camera had been set to do so in Japan, so remarkably it stamped 93 1 1, which would have been correct had the camera still been in Japan. (We used it, and film, until 2007).
Costumed participants paraded by as well.
Not sure what this was supposed to have been, but it was colorful.
My urge to go out on New Year’s Eve has flagged over the years (though usually it was to a gathering of friends, not a public event). This year, Lilly was out. In a few more years, Ann will be out.
I got to know Boylston St. fairly well in 1995. I didn’t walk there every day, but often enough. Part of the street features rows of small, upper-end shops and these days, an Apple Store, though I don’t think it was there then. And I think I remember walking by the Boston Public Library and noticing that the marathon finish line is painted permanently in the street.
We didn’t watch the marathon on Patriots’ Day that year, which is the Massachusetts (and Maine) state holiday to commemorate Lexington & Concord. Rather, we watched a parade on Mass. Ave. in Arlington. Two days later, while at work downtown, I heard about the mayhem in Oklahoma City on the radio. This time of year seems to inspire losers with bombs.
I hear about today’s mayhem on the radio as I drove along today, between errands, in the company of Ann. The only memorable one of these errands was to the pet store we visited last week, to return a brush the dog didn’t like, and buy a tag that could be engraved with contact information in case she runs off. I’d imagined that we’d buy it, and then send it somewhere for engraving.
That was me, thinking old-fashioned thoughts. The store had a laser-based machine that only does one thing: engrave animal tags you’ve just bought, no extra charge. Simple to use, fascinating to watch.
Twenty years ago for the 92/93 New Year’s, Yuriko and I were in Boston. We spent some of New Year’s Eve downtown, including a short visit to the Massachusetts State House. Out in front of the building, PepsiCo was busy marketing a new drink, Crystal Pepsi.
Even then, the detachable pop-top was a thing of the past, but the costume wouldn’t have worked without it. I returned to Japan shortly afterward and thought little about Crystal Pepsi. Years later I learned that it was a famed new-product flop.
Reading about that flop now, I found an interview with Yum! Brands CEO David Novak in Fast Company in 2007. He’s credited with creating Crystal Pepsi, and when asked about the flop, his money quote is: “People were saying we should stop and address some issues along the way, and they were right. It would have been nice if I’d made sure the product tasted good.”