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…

The 33 allows you to root for the winner you know

If you had your ears open in 2010, you likely heard the tale of the miners stuck deep down in belly of that Chilean mine. It was the kind of event that moves the world’s talkers to tell all. The horror of the collapse. The despair of repeated failure to connect with the possible pocket…

In Syracuse, we think of Paris

The night before, the tower in downtown Syracuse was lighted up all blue, the choice this month to signal the fight against diabetes. Saturday night crowds walking out of two adjacent buildings looked up at a different tribute. Some 6,000 people from the Syracuse Crunch hockey game and another 2,000 from the concert hall were…

The faces I haven’t seen since 7th grade, the memories remain

My old friend Luke Heaton sent me some photos from the Division Avenue High School 40th Reunion. I flashed on the faces of my old friends, four across. Luke. Dave. Peggy. Holly. I didn’t graduate from Division, mind you. My high school is Ward Melville, further east on Long Island. I attended that Nassau County…

Working in America at almost 58

I called up my account online, and it was in there. I grabbed the stack of bills from the folder in my dresser, and, old school guy that I am, wrote out checks one by one to send out in the mail. No transfers were made from savings. That felt good. The first two-week paycheck…

Are you ready to become resolute for 2016?

If there’s one thing my freelance work for Central New York Magazine — The Good Life has taught me, it’s that it’s never too early to look ahead. I’ve already researched and written my story for the January edition. Hover over any gallery photo for a description. Click on the bottom right photo in any…

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…