Let’s call it splitsville

Good news about my bowling team in the Thursday Night Men’s League. Heading into last week’s action, we were officially in a three-way tie for first. We had the least amount of pinfall of the trio, which meant officially we stood above just nine of the 12 squads in our league. But, with five weeks…

Ellie B meets Santa and paws(es) for a second

Drizzle be damned, my dear wife Karen and I fulfilled our promise to Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle and took her to the Doggie Evening at Lights on the Lake Tuesday night. The folks with the orange wands waved us onto the grassy lot as part of a line of after-dinner Syracuse-area people also taking…

Gettin’ huge at Good Golly

Our cruise group leaders JoAnn and Brenda got the gang together again last weekend for breakfast. Put us in one room in a diner in Brewerton, N.Y., and it sure seems like an endless number. Sort of reminds me of a clown car when the bodies keep exiting … Really, though, and not everybody made…

Meet Gump at the Blog of Funny Names

In my contribution this month over at The Blog of Funny Names, I look at the life and times of hockey goalie Gump Worsley, a piece of work if ever there was one. Drop the puck! That means something in certain sections of our world. It’s a phase that rolls off the tongue of English-speaking…

The Peanuts gang happily circles around Charlie Brown

The kids, a whole bunch of them piled into a Saturday afternoon matinée in the biggest and plushest of Regal Cinemas’ Syracuse theaters in Syracuse mall Shoppingtown, admired The Peanuts Movie enough to sit still and at attention through 119 minutes. The adults, parents and grandparents and others who’ve grown up with the screen and…

My photo return to Thornden Park in fall

Three seasons down at the pretty park at the top of the Syracuse University campus hill. When I parked in Thornden Park for the short walk for my business in the offices of Syracuse Public Media Site WAER, I noticed that all signs pointed toward fall. Upon return, I pulled out my iPhone 6. In…

My how you’ve grown

I’m in town, the direct message on Facebook said. Would you have time to meet for lunch? You betcha, Brandt Ranj. I sent back a suggestion of Applebee’s, across Erie Boulevard from where we used to meet twice a week in that Le Moyne College classroom the fall semester of 2010, when I taught eager…

Old school brick, modern shiny glass, loans and returns

I took a trip to the public library in my Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood this week. The rustic fall feel of the Payne Branch makes me feel so much at home. It’s not too big and certainly not slick. It looks and feels well-lived-in. Inside, I know where I’ll find the new stuff, and…

I settle up my World Series wager at Mama Mick’s place

I put my life on the line with my New York Mets. My good friend Michelle went with her Kansas City Royals. Smart woman, she of the wildly entertaining Lipstick and Laundry blog. So as you probably know by now, her Royals squashed my Mets by the count of four games to one. My penance…

A splash of pink brightens downtown Syracuse

Leaving the Syracuse Crunch hockey game in downtown Syracuse last Friday night, a bright building stood out among the usual skyline as my dear wife Karen and I walked from the Onondaga County War Memorial to our car parked in our favorite little lot a block away. It loomed, in fact, I’d say. I grabbed…