The one thing Cory could always do on a basketball court was shoot free throws. Even after rehabilitating from the stroke he suffered late in his freshman year at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, he could still drain free throws. A 5-11 point guard who scored more than 1,000 points in his high school playing career, shooting [...]
Looking Back
It was the first Valentine’s Day in our new neighborhood, and I wanted to impress my new friends. So I ceremoniously brought out my treasure: a bright red, heart-shaped box, filled with red and white jelly beans, candy conversation hearts, red licorice and chocolate-covered marshmallow hearts. “Won’t your Mom get mad?” Ron asked as I took [...]
(The following column was written Tuesday morning, Sept. 11, 2001, as events unfolded. It is reprinted this week in remembrance . . . and hope.) The world changed Tuesday morning. A thick cloud of smoke and dust still hangs heavily over the New York City skyline. Firefighters and emergency personnel are responding to crises in [...]
You can learn a lot from a horse. Well, OK — maybe not a lot. I mean, I’m not suggesting anything Mr. Ed-ish here. No therapeutic thoroughbreds. No psychics in saddles. A horse is a horse. Of course? Of course. Still, there are things we can learn from horses. For example, I heard about a [...]
I have almost nothing in common with Jake. He is a rough-hewn man. I am what you might call softly hewn. He lives a simple, slow-paced life in the country. My life is complicated and way too fast in a bustling metropolitan area. He is quiet and soft-spoken. I am . . . well . [...]
George was my best friend in elementary school. Which is not to say I didn’t have other friends. I did. I grew up with a great bunch of guys: Albert, Ron and Don (yeah, they were twins), Dean and Kenny, to name just five. We tended to do things as a group (did someone say [...]
At our house there are basically three classifications of Super Bowl party attendees. First are those who are actually interested in the game. In a sad bit of irony, it is generally true that those who are most interested in the Super Bowl game are the least interesting – and generally, most obnoxious – people [...]