What might you say thanks for this holiday?

As we prepare for Thanksgiving tomorrow, I got to thinking about things I’ve taken in around the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood in the last year that have made my life richer in some way. In fact, I picked a dozen such memories I’ve written about over the last year —…

Drop the Puck!

I’m the guy at the hockey game who likes to yell “Drop the puck” at the officials when I think he’s keeping the guys with the sticks waiting in the faceoff circles too long. Last week I learned a new meaning of one of my favorite phrases between periods of the Syracuse Crunch contest. They…

It’s over for The Hunger Games, and it’s epic

Talk about war and peace. Katniss Everdeen rests. The fourth and likely finale in the Hunger Games franchise that started with the girl who fired an arrow into the hearts of so many in 2012 landed in America’s theaters this pre-Thanksgiving weekend with its snowballing success and great expectations for star Jennifer Lawrence and the…

18 bands big is quite a state

The kids in uniform kept coming up the steps and passing our seats at the Carrier Dome last Saturday. Many kids in many different uniforms, up the steps they went to seats far up in th section. It was obvious that something was going on at halftime. The guys behind us joked half-heartedly about how…

Catch a ride on the Zamboni

Players need clean ice. So Zamboni drivers do their job between periods. It’s an important relationship at ice hockey rinks around the world. Yet I had a feeling last Saturday night that there was a more important bond for the guy guiding one of the two big machines at the Onondaga County War Memorial, where…

He shoots, he scores!

Saturday night brought the second of two games in which our great friends JoAnn and Brenda had given us extra tickets they’d earned as season-ticket holders for the Syracuse Crunch. My dear wife Karen and I arrived to the Onondaga County War Memorial a bit late for the American Hockey League action against the hometown…

This isn’t exactly New York City

When my dear wife Karen and I were walking up from our favorite reasonable-rate parking lot down the big hill Saturday on our way to see the Syracuse Orange battle No. 1 Clemson in football in the Carrier Dome, I noticed another newly refurbished building finished about two-thirds of the way along our journey. It’s…

They’re No. 1, they’re No. 1

The No. 1 college football team prevailed Saturday in the Carrier Dome. But the Syracuse Orange gave the Clemson Tigers a hard time. The final score was 37-27, and the game was wilder than that. Clemson went back to South Carolina undefeated, still hopeful of winning the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game, reaching the four-team…