Great Cape food, strolling, and a drink that could have laid me out

The first time my dear wife Karen and I snuck away from Syracuse to Cape Cod, she told me that Julie and Lisa said we should have breakfast at The Pancake Man. I loved the suggestion as soon as we pulled into the parking lot. Every single thing that unfolded inside the doors backed up…

Two young stars shine brightly, and love conquers cancer

The first time I saw Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort together, they were playing a futuristic and quite different brother and sister in “Divergent.” OK was my reaction. About them individually. Collectively. The movie. Saturday I saw the two young actors star as Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters in “The Fault in Our Stars.”…

Beachy keen

The second morning my dear wife Karen and I woke up not in Syracuse, we knew the car would be headed the mile or so down the road to the Atlantic Ocean. All the car unpacking and grocery shopping and cottage settling in and other-blog-duty-movie-going and neighborhood-walking and Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle-reacclimating had been…

It wasn’t history, and it wasn’t Syracuse

My dear wife Karen and I settled into a friendly enough neighborhood joint to watch the Belmont Stakes yesterday afternoon. It was the kind of place that was glad to pour us two pint drafts to take to sit down at a table, just Karen and I. It was the kind of place that puts…

A Taste of Syracuse in various bites

It’s called Taste of Syracuse, and the name of this June festival could not be more appropriate. For two days, tens of thousands of people flock to the blocks that surround Clinton Square in downtown Syracuse. They get to sample much music. Three stages worth, in fact. Around noontime Friday, three Syracuse music veterans played…

The garden cycle works out just right

The peony in the corner of the front of our home in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood gave us its all during a furious week of budding and beauty. A full 15 flowers shot out of that one sturdy green plant in one week. They lasted slightly longer than that. I let the petals…

‘War of the Roses’ with grown kids, ‘Ant-Man’ big, too?

A quarter-century ago, movie-goers took great pleasure watching the Roses — that would be Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner — do very mean things to each other as their marriage fell apart right in front of the world’s very eyes. Now there’s a sequel in the works, also being adapted from a novel by Warren…

Another talented journalist waves goodbye

A man who worked more than 30 years in a Syracuse newsroom wore a Hawaiian shirt proudly, worked the barroom like he owned it, shook hands, told stories, hugged people, told more stories, hugged more people, confidently gave a speech, choked up just a bit, listened to a little whisper in his ear, and thanked…

We can’t play pickup baseball on the Terps’ field?

Fresh to the University of Maryland campus, the three transfer students ran around the baseball field like the little boys we were just a few short years prior. We tested our throwing arms from shortstop to first base, and stood at home plate and did that little self-toss and crack-the-bat move to try to whack…

Listen to music, watch the people, taste the food

For more than two decades, when I went out to hear music, music was my sole focus. My job was to review concerts for the big daily in Syracuse. Hey, people, I’m trying to hear a band here. Even when I went to local series and bars and such, I knew I’d be writing about…