The day I met Elle Macpherson and lived to talk – well, write – about it

I had forgotten all about my face-to-face with supermodel Elle Macpherson. It was a 25 years ago today, I’m reminded by my former colleague at the big daily, Johnathan Croyle, who now puts together an interesting look into the paper’s historical archives for a feature on syracuse.com. Today his take is titled Vintage photo: supermodel…

My first time at Woodstock

My former colleague at the big daily Bill LaRue dug up a golden oldie from his files the other day and sent me into flurry of memories. That’s me, arms covered with muck, working hard on the old-fashioned laptop at Woodstock ’94 in Saugerties, N.Y. LaRue and I were the two reporters from the Syracuse…

Mr. Nolan awaited with at least a challenge a day

The kids go back to school today in my home New York state. Pull out the notebooks, pens, folders. You do still use notebooks, pens and folders in this digital age, students? Get ready for those butterflies in the stomach as you prepare to walk into a new classroom to be greeted by a different…

A Facebook tag takes me back to a newspaper office in 1979

I recognized the face immediately when it popped up on my Facebook page, a mom smiling between her two daughters. We’ve been friends on social media for … well, since the advent of people telling journalists that social media just might be a good way to prop up the work life. Oh, say, a decade…

OK, let’s talk Mad Men finale

If it hadn’t had been for that real-life Coke commercial of peace and love, I might have gone home angry. Oh, wait, I already was in my recliner of the Little Bitty in the Syracuse city neighborhood of Eastwood, my dear wife Karen on the couch, both us somewhat exhausted after finally wrapping up our…

Go Terps Go, onto the Super Regionals

I stayed up until 2 this morning, watching my Maryland Terrapins beat the UCLA Bruins on the baseball diamond in an NCAA Tournament elimination game on ESPNU. My squad beat the defending national champion, the No. 1 team in the country right now, too, for the second time in three tries in a four-day stretch,…