Dinner with Daryl at Captain John’s

A week ago, my dear wife Karen and I took that short drive east for another exciting chapter of our Dinner with Daryl series. Not that barbecue in the backyard I’ve been rooting for since my wonderful stepson moved into his nice new house this winter. He’s yet to get a grill, and I know…

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…

I dreamed of Genies

I see the signs and the stores when my dear wife Karen and I drive through our state of New York into Pennsylvania. Fireworks for sale. I have regularly looked over to one particular emporium of boom from our usual McDonald’s and wondered what was in the aisles, I must admit. Then one time, on…

I miss James Gandolfini, ‘Enough Said’

The characters played by James Gandolfini and Julia Louis-Dreyfus sure did look happy and comfortable together after those uncomfortable first date moments in “Enough Said.” I wanted to see the romantic comedy when it came around a year ago, but it opened against something more pressing, and in the one-a-week film blogger world that I’m…

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…

The Polish in me

I look at my father’s face in this photo and I’m struck with two lightning bolts of memory. Frank is happy. Frank is happy because he’s once again brought his family to the tiny Polish resort in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. I’m fairly certain I’m the one taking the photo. I think…

The kids from across the street

Remember the family that always seemed to be there when you were growing up, the troop that had somebody who pretty much matched up in age to somebody in your own tribe? Chances are good that your mothers hung out. Dolores Bialczak and Kitty Dorazio were quite pleased that their combined seven offspring were growing…

Morrisville soccer ruled, and Papa Jobe was royalty

There was a time when soccer was king in Morrisville, N.Y. … A rush of emotions hit me last month when I saw the news that Peter McAvoy, the young man who was captain for the Herikimer County Community College soccer team in upstate New York, collapsed and died. So tragic, so sad, so heart-breaking…