If it weren’t for Instagram I might be living alone in a rented storage locker on the outskirts of town among piles of vintage action figures procured from eBay. Allow me to clarify. I spend a significant amount of time looking at photos of vintage action figures on the internet

Halloween came in a box when I was growing up. Or at least, most of my Halloween costumes did. The moment the first leaf rusted on the branch, I’d beg my parents to take me to K-Mart, Bradlees, or Zayre so I could pick though the stacks of boxed Halloween costumes. This was very impor

It’s no secret that I’m fond of revisiting my past. Recently, this temporal wanderlust was prompted by my taste buds. A sudden craving for one particular childhood foodstuff lured me to an aisle of my local grocery store that I don’t normally frequent these days. I narrowe

Someone once told me that freshly baked bread begins the process of going stale the moment it leaves the oven. I don’t remember who said it, but have to wonder what kind of person would share such a bleak notion with a child. A nihilist baker perhaps. I suppose there is truth in the c

Sometimes, as I fade off to sleep, I revisit settings from my childhood. I’m able to conjure up places where I’ve lived with such clarity that it almost feels like I’ve traveled back in time. I walk from room to room with meticulous recall: the wood paneling in the k

My household was late to the cable television game, so in the late 1970s and early 80s I took what I could get cartoon-wise. While waiting for some of my favorites, like Looney Toons, Scooby-Doo or the Flintstones to flicker across my screen, I’d make do with the sociopathic antics of

Stave One When I was about five or six, I found myself in handcuffs on the day after Christmas. I blame the ghost of Jacob Marley. After big holiday gatherings with my mom’s side of the family at my grandmother’s house, some of us usually stayed the night. It was at her house that I a

By no means am I anti-Christmas. The twinkle and warmth of Christmas is the perfect way to ease into cold and muted New England winter. I particularly enjoy the brief pause in routine that the holiday offers and the flood of nostalgia that it brings. Every year my wife and I head out

Over the past few years, the Halloween spirit hasn’t really taken me, which is odd because there was a time that I was a Halloween zealot. The last time I wore a costume was in 2007 when I dressed as Buckethead, the enigmatic guitar genius. Other than that, my only recent partic

By the 8th grade my horror movie immersion was at its zenith. I had a subscription to Fangoria and would supplement the time in-between issues with copies of Gorezone, among others. I had amassed an impressive mask collection from Halloweens past, my favorite of which was the full hea