It’s 1985. I’ve spent of the beginning of the decade goofing off: Living in an old house with my best friends; working jobs that offer just enough money to pay the rent, purchase food...
Category - Blog
Last week my son, Max, asked if we could switch cars for a day—he was going on a long drive—so, no problem. (It makes me think of my dad, who would give up his car at a moment’s notice to one of us...
Back when mastodons roamed the land, when I was a kid, mine was a world of Making Plans and Biding My Time. This was especially true if I got the fever over a toy or game that went way beyond any...
I’ve revisited a series of fiftieth and sixtieth anniversaries in this space lately—a reaction to my age, and the tectonic shifts that takes place in a boy’s life when he realizes that...
Sixty-two years ago today, at a church fair, two teenagers met each other for the first time. One of the boys, who was 16, was performing with his band on a makeshift stage on the back of a truck...
There is a folder in my filing cabinet that’s been there since 1980. It is old and worn, its tab bent and pulled so many times it threatens to fall off—or even more likely—dissolve away. It is of...
I’m out of the house at 5:30 AM. I need to start work early this morning. Busy week. Busy month. But so what. Deadlines are deadlines, work is work, and today I’ve got two days of stuff...
It looks as though I’m continuing a theme of fiftieth anniversaries here. At first, I thought it was completely by accident. But now I believe I have discovered that 1968 was a transformative...
A love letter—no matter how lame, strained, or unworthy—to the song and the band that helped shape my life. I was ten years old when I first heard it. Now, fifty years later, when I do the math, am I...
I call my blog Find Five Seconds because often the most beautiful, wonderful moments in life are achingly short: the turn of a head, a blink of the eye, a second … or two … or five. I do...
A while back I binged a show on HBO called The Leftovers. Loved it. Created by Damon Lindelof, who co-created and wrote much of Lost which I loved, loved, loved. (You didn’t like the Lost...
Not every writer can be Tom Wolfe. Not every writer should be. I mean, what are you supposed to do with all those ridiculous and revelatory exclamations of shock and astonishment? How do you deal...
To Jack, Jimmy, Tommy, Trains, and Gus…. Ha! You thought that once the California trip was over you were DONE with me. Wrong. No such luck. See, I like a good wrap-up. A photo album of a great...
I got a text from my old hockey buddy Jeff a few days ago saying outdoor hockey was on the agenda for this weekend. (The first cold snap of winter always provides the best ice.) I didn’t put on...
The Story of Johnny Sidney, Police Detective is a radio play I did as a school project a million years ago. So much of the past gets lost in the blur of Long Ago, but the making of this recording...
Fifty-one years later and now I know. Paperback Writer is a query letter. (I never knew what a query letter was until I started writing them myself in my ongoing quest to get my books published.)...
Here is a little cool thing I’m able to do once a year. The company I work for, First Generation, sponsors a moment during Lehigh Valley Phantoms hockey games, when they honor someone who has...
Men in suits came to the office today. They were in the conference room, with the door closed. Nothing listed on the corporate calendar. Nothing mentioned in the weekly staff meeting. There they...
I remember my dad taking my brothers and me to Lehigh University football games on Saturday afternoons back when I was a kid. Taylor Stadium (gone now) might as well have been a coliseum; the grass...