Hail to the Mustangs

This alma mater of mine has come a long way. Hail to the Morrisville Mustangs. When I attended the little journalism program that could and received my associate’s degree in 1977, we did not have a sculpture to honor the school mascot in the middle of the quad. Look closely behind the pretty piece of…

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…

A big World Series for father-and-son Mets fans

The other kid from Long Island came up to Morrisville a year later than I did, but we hit it off pretty quickly that late August of 1978. Jimmy Johnson was a journalism major at the little two-year college in the State University of New York system tucked into the Cherry Valley of Central New…

Shift Happens to the Best of Us

They threw a big party for one of my former teachers down in North Carolina in July. “Big Jer” is what those of us who are part of the cult of journalism that connects those who set foot upon the campus of the little college in Morrisville, N.Y., with the pursuit of the that honored…

The end of an era for the little program that could

Brian McDowell took the podium at his final year-end Journalism Convocation at the State University of New York at Morrisville last week. The professor looked somewhat happy to be able to pack away his books and belongings and go back home to spend more time with his wife. And he looked somewhat sad in the…

A big gap on my first day of college

Eight years. Ten years. When I’m 56, who cares, you know? Despite their protestations, my sisters Frannie and Dory are indeed catching up to me, in my mind’s eye, at least. But, oh, how the sibling age gap hit me when I saw this picture Fran has posted on her Facebook page, keeper of the…