The Day Humanity Washed Ashore

My blogging friend from across the pond, Amanda Lyle, has shined her considerable light on a horrendous news event that’s stirring England and Europe. Her husband set up a charity after visiting the poor areas of Syria in 2013. Please click and take in the somber tale from the usually humorous Amanda. Source: The Day…

Mr. Nolan awaited with at least a challenge a day

The kids go back to school today in my home New York state. Pull out the notebooks, pens, folders. You do still use notebooks, pens and folders in this digital age, students? Get ready for those butterflies in the stomach as you prepare to walk into a new classroom to be greeted by a different…

The Steve Miller Band, from the wayback

The plan sounded solid, cemented even further from the on-site texts telling of too much heat and less folks than expected. No, wonderful daughter Elisabeth, Georges Three and Two and Sue would not be sticking around the New York State Fair to eat dinner with us Sunday. They’d taken the early route, and eaten from…

A Walk in the Woods doesn’t much rile Redford

At the start of A Walk in the Woods, travel writer Bill Bryson is being interviewed on a Boston morning TV show. The host is a silly man, sure, over-the-top in his pomposity and self-importance, but he sure does drive home his point as he grills his guy living comfortably with his family in New…

Just one more week remains for the our little golf league

Yes, we have become familiar in our little golf league that just switched to Wednesday night for the final three weeks of the season. Look at this string of texts. They say so much more than I possibly could. And so we played the back nine, five of us in one group, after DJ arrived…

Solved mysteries

My friend Paul Curran is using our space here on Sunday morning to present his weekly Cuppa so his usual host Willow at willowdot21 can do other things over in the U.K. Paul will write here in his wonderful and unique style through September. Take it away, Paul, from your home in Canada. AFTERNOON-TEA-AT-GIBSON-THE-YACHT, London…

Shift Happens to the Best of Us

They threw a big party for one of my former teachers down in North Carolina in July. “Big Jer” is what those of us who are part of the cult of journalism that connects those who set foot upon the campus of the little college in Morrisville, N.Y., with the pursuit of the that honored…

My 15 seconds of Mets fan fame comes when I’m not looking

They’ve flashed a cute picture of some kid wearing Mets garb on SNY every game this season as my dear Karen and I have watched our squad. The feature is called the Data Strong Fan of the Game. I finally grew weary of all these youngsters getting a shout-out from Gary Cohen on TV. I…

We open a new package, and Miranda Lambert’s inside

They finally built it. A brand, spanking new music amphitheater that Syracusans can call their own opened last night across the highway from the New York State Fair. No more having to drive 90 miles east to Saratoga Performing Arts Center or 60 miles or even farther west to Constellation Brands — Marvin Sands Performing…

A couple of roses as Karen cleans up the front

My dear wife Karen got out front of the Little Bitty and went to work. She loves her gardening. And thus our yard in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood looks better now than it did last week. First off, she chopped away the grass that had overgrown our stone walk that juts off the…