I probably should've posted this on what has become Giving Tuesday -- the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and Black Friday, and Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday and whatever they think of next to fill the hours on Sunday. It's inevitable. For many of us giving is something that's a part of the season stretching from … Continue reading The story of Big Dave, a big man with an equally big heart
Month: November 2017
Big Blue: Kenny Dennard was always different
I wrote this three years ago and posted it on the night they retired the number of the best player ever produced at my high school -- South Stokes. The time when we were in high school seems impossibly long ago, 1973-77. I just saw Ken Dennard at our 40th high school reunion in September. … Continue reading Big Blue: Kenny Dennard was always different
One more view from the press box
I was asked a few weeks ago if I would be interested in writing a story for Elon University's alumni magazine about the magical season then unfolding for the Phoenix football team. As a former (or reformed) sports writer from my newspaper past and a sometime contributor to the Magazine of Elon I was a … Continue reading One more view from the press box
We’re Thanksgiving people
On Saturday we had a pre-Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving dinner for 20 at our home in Burlington -- and that's not the record. Three years ago I believe we had 25 for what has become known in this family circle as "The Big Dinner." And indeed, the event lives up to its name, something that evolved from … Continue reading We’re Thanksgiving people
Updated 2021: Joe Morgan gets it right about the Baseball Hall of Fame
UPDATE January 27, 2021: This is a post from November of 2017 containing a letter written by a member of the Baseball Hall of Fame -- Joe Morgan -- during that year to the baseball writers who decide what former players and manages are in or out. It also contains a column I wrote in … Continue reading Updated 2021: Joe Morgan gets it right about the Baseball Hall of Fame
Fear of Charlie then, now and forever
There is no good way to say this so let's just take the direct route. When I was a kid, Charles Manson scared the shit out of me. I wasn't alone, of course, Manson and the "family" of dead-end kids manipulated by his twisted logic and exploited to commit heinous murders at his bidding, terrified … Continue reading Fear of Charlie then, now and forever
Celebrating Nov. 18; or, how I met my spouse
This is a column I wrote in November a couple of years ago. The timing makes sense, of course, because timing is everything. Life is full of seemingly random events, but when we examine them more closely weird patterns emerge. It can be running into the same people over and over again for years before … Continue reading Celebrating Nov. 18; or, how I met my spouse
Book in review: Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Kitchen Confidential’
Written in 2000 and updated several years later, Anthony Bourdain's "Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly" is well worth revisiting from time to time. It's hilarious, wild and informative. He just may be, as I note in this review written in 2009, the Hunter S. Thompson of food. That's a compliment, by the way. … Continue reading Book in review: Anthony Bourdain’s ‘Kitchen Confidential’
The Roy Moore story: Things are sadly still the same in Alabama
Up until around 2003 it was still legal for a 14-year-old girl to be married in the state of Alabama -- with parental consent. The law was finally changed -- with no small amount of debate and controversy -- to age 16 (which I would contend is still a child). They actually fought about this … Continue reading The Roy Moore story: Things are sadly still the same in Alabama
Knowing when the time is right for a change
I bumped into Paul Parsons last week on one of those rainy and raw fall days that make the last of the autumn foliage beg for mercy before tumbling helplessly to the ground. Each of us lost in thought and underneath our umbrellas, we almost collided on the crisscrossing sidewalks along the Elon University campus. … Continue reading Knowing when the time is right for a change
Madison's Avenue 