Petty’s music from Hard Promises at the Palace

Hard Promises is making its Syracuse party bigger this year. Front man Jeff Gordon dropped me a line with the news that Petty Fest IV is moving on down — as in , a flight of stairs and the road ‘a piece from its former spot at Upstairs at the Dinosaur. The new spot is…

A cool wind and a warm sun greet our golf season

A day off from the store and friends a stretch of warm spring Syracuse weather added up to the opening of golf season 2016 for KP, Tater and I. Tater chose Camillus Country Club, a public-private hybrid built high on a hill on the west side of Onondaga County. The sun shined brightly again for…

A proud night for my daughter

A slew of folks will gather at a Syracuse restaurant early this evening in honor of one of the smartest people I know. We’ll eat some, drink a little, smile a lot, maybe even tell a story or two about what makes her so special. Then we’ll all head off to the program where two…

Trying to keep the neighborhood base solid

I noticed a couple of big rocks hanging out on the empty lot separating the Little Bitty and our neighbor’s brick house the other day, and got hit by one of my little ideas. Those are the perfect size, I thought, to place in the holes the Eastwood skunk digs under our Syracuse city fence…

A together drive is always a bargain

With our first shared day off in a couple of weeks, my dear wife Karen and I jumped into her pretty red Mazda Friday afternoon and headed west on the New York State Thruway. We rekindled a tradition that had sat idle for a year or so, thanks to … Oh, the combination of a…

Armand’s Secret

Spring has busted out in the Northeast of the continent we share, and I know the warmth and sunshine have put me in the mood for this week’s edition from our guest columnist. From no-longer-frosty Canada comes the Sunday Cuppa of Paul Curran. Arm’s B-Train Fuel Tanker This week I’d like to tell you a…

Springing a return to Thornden Park

My four-season cycle at the lovely spot at the top of Syracuse is complete. I took my iPhone 6 to Thornden Park as warm weather returned to my city here in upstate New York late this week, as promised. I wanted to capture the stirring of nature’s soul in the spot where roses will soon…

At the store before sunrise

It was still pitch dark when I pulled my Chevy Cruze out of the driveway of the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood. Although sunrise was still officially some 20 minutes hence when I stopped in the parking lot of the store 15 miles northwest, light already peaked over the horizon when…

The locked gate and the damage done

A walk with my dear wife Karen and our cherished rescue mutt Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle through our Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood Norwood Park yielded an obstruction on a path that usually stood free for all. Karen has come across the locked gate previously. And she knew why officials had closed things up,…