When I first moved into town and got into real estate, I thought it would be good to have a catchy screen name that would be easy to remember.  Since my name is Ed and I live in Essex, why not "Essex Ed".  I even bought the domain name which is still active and directs people to my web site.  

Then at the first Saturday in February, I learned that "EssexEd" was the name that the town gave to a 15 foot high fiberglass image of the town mascot:  a groundhog.

So every year, the town sponsors a parade in honor of ground hog day and everybody walks through town banging on pots and pans and yelling so the groundhog will emerge from his hole (I've never seen a live groundhog in Essex!).

Last year he was decorated up as a "birthday boy" 

This year, the theme was "the Beatles" and Essex Ed was decorated and crowned as a 5^th member of that famous group

So maybe my screen name wasn't such a bad idea - who would have thought that I was a famous figure in town!