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Published May 10, 2021

A special Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is a special occasion. We celebrate the women who brought us into this world, the wives who gave us children and daughters who gave us grandchildren. It carries a little more meaning this year, because my mom spent 11 days in the hospital between April 25 and May 7 battling a serious illness. There were times when we wondered if we had celebrated the last Mother’s Day with her – the reason why there have been no new posts to this site until now. It’s during times like these that your mind races, flooded with memories, while simultaneously…

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Published April 25, 2021

Back in the classroom after all these years

One of the biggest questions about retirement is what to do with all of your time. Admittedly, it’s a nice problem to have. My wife retired a few months before I did. She has several hobbies to occupy her free time, whenever she gets it. She also started a business that allows her to work as much – or as little – as she wants, and she still oversees the household finances and fixes things that are broken. Me? I play golf. In the Midwest that primarily means April through October, weather permitting, with anything else a bonus. Aside from…

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Published April 20, 2021

Sports heroes hold a special place

We’ll get this out of the way early. I’m sharing an insightful story by Joe Posnanski of The Athletic from 14 months ago on my boyhood idol, Bob Gibson, who last fall lost his battle with pancreatic cancer at age 84. For those who don’t think he was one of the greatest pitchers in Major League history, you can stop reading now. I had the opportunity to interview and have dinner with Gibson as a young sportswriter, which ranks among my top personal and professional memories. He pitched the first game I saw in person as a young boy in…

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Published April 18, 2021

Returning to the arena – sort of

Friends and family have encouraged me to find a way to continue writing since I retired in January 2018 after nearly 39 years with The Quincy Herald-Whig. Writing, after all, was the major reason why I got into the newspaper business. I did, to some extent, during the first year of “retirement” when The Herald-Whig asked me to stay on part-time as a special correspondent, working primarily from home. When that commitment was nearing an end, my wife bought a new laptop and encouraged me do some freelance work or write a book. I resisted, pointing out many newspapers and…

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