Shades of Orange

They called it the Orange Out. Many fans cooperated, my dear wife Karen and I knew as we were walking up the hill Saturday in preparation to watch Syracuse tangle with Wake Forest in the Atlantic Coast Conference football opener for both squads. We planned a separate route from the opening Friday night, choosing the…

The big stage still revs Jimmy Cavallo at 88

I’ve had the chance to talk to Jimmy Cavallo for a quarter century now. Back when I worked for the big daily, he and his bud Stan Colella even allowed myself and a photographer colleague to tail them around a downtown Syracuse joint called Styleen’s Rhythm Palace as they posed for the cover of their…

Next time a stranger offers to pay for that coffee …

Oh, her life looks so good. Big house on a beautiful street, with a slightly nosy neighbor who’s really just looking out for her. Great job, a decision-maker and rising star in a major lobbyist firm. But, wait. In this thriller written by Tyger Williams and directed by David M. Rosenthal, something has to shake…

Dishing with the dog about home sales being for the birds

With the temperatures finally falling to match the calendar, I hooked the leash upon Ellie B aka Dogamous Pyle, and off we went from the Little Bitty around our Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood neighborhood. We spotted a gray house for sale two blocks over. Did they add another realtor since our last time by,…

The Steve Miller Band, from the wayback

The plan sounded solid, cemented even further from the on-site texts telling of too much heat and less folks than expected. No, wonderful daughter Elisabeth, Georges Three and Two and Sue would not be sticking around the New York State Fair to eat dinner with us Sunday. They’d taken the early route, and eaten from…

A Walk in the Woods doesn’t much rile Redford

At the start of A Walk in the Woods, travel writer Bill Bryson is being interviewed on a Boston morning TV show. The host is a silly man, sure, over-the-top in his pomposity and self-importance, but he sure does drive home his point as he grills his guy living comfortably with his family in New…