Life, much like a ticking clock, continues to move on. Last week the last role model of my formative years passed on into the great beyond. First it was football coach, Toby Shea. Then during the COVID years my college wrestling coach, Dr. Bob Barnett. Then my brother and dad, Dean and Don ...
It is a sad day to read of the passing of Coach Lee Chew. May his family find comfort in the coming weeks and months as their feelings of loss transition to sweet memories of their life together. Far too few times in life do we reflect on, or more importantly convey the significant impact some individuals have on the lives of others. Certainly, Coach Chew forever holds this place in my life. Lee Chew was a purveyor of “Man Training,” determination, discipline, and excellence. As a teenager it wasn’t possible to fully comprehend the overall significance of his coaching style. ...
Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman likes his hoodies. He doesn’t seem to have any other piece of clothing in his wardrobe, and he struts around in the “everyman’s” uniform as if he were campaigning to repair the broken cement on your front curb instead of a seat in the U.S. Senate. Fetterman, who comes from affluence, has played this “hail fellow well met” game all of his adult life. I’m not sure how it went over at Harvard, his alma mater, but it’s snookered a lot of folks in the media. Bully for him, the Twitter bully. Fake it till you make it, as they say. But ...
When it gets to be about this time of year I always think of my days in the classroom. I went to school long before the students. I had things to get ready. I made name tags. I put up bulletin boards. I got my plan book filled in with the activities. When I was teaching kindergarten, I was aware that this was the student’s first experience with school. Often, I sent them a letter. In my letter I gave them something to bring to school on the first day. Sometimes it was a sheet to color. Other times I asked them to bring something to share – the requirement was that it had ...
The alarm was set for 4:30 a.m. Or as we night people call it: zero dark thirty. My BFF, Ginger, was having a significant birthday. She flew here for my celebration last fall, so naturally, I was heading to NYC for hers. I hate it when I have to set an alarm for three hours early, because I don’t sleep. Well, I sleep a little… but not well… awake every half hour or so. Getting to bed after 1:00 AM didn’t help. My flight was leaving out of Buffalo at 10:05AM. From where I live, JetBlue is always 5.5 hours away from wake-up time. Just before heading out the door, I checked ...
You could say, sadly, that they don’t make many Republicans like the late Bill Clinger any more. William F. Clinger represented a north-central Pennsylvania district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1979 until he retired in 1997. Clinger, who died last year at 92, was a lawyer who was born in Warren, spent most of his life there, and served a term as chair of the venerable Chautauqua Institution’s Board of Trustees after he retired from Congress. He was a proud conservative who pushed to investigate Clinton Administration scandals and fought for regulatory reform and ...
