It’s probably a good thing I missed the memo about suggested attire to the Chicks concert earlier this month. I don’t have a straw cowboy hat. My days of strappy tank tops and butt-tight cut-off jeans are best behind … Read more
The start of a new school year is upon us. That may have some feeling excited — days spent with old and new friends, new adventures in learning and all those yummy new school supplies. I retired from the … Read more
Tributes this past week to basketball great Bill Russell were as many as they were deserved. I couldn’t follow them all, which is a pity. Sportswriting and obituaries often display some of the best writing in journalism. Wedding the … Read more
A fave recent story find: a tight little feature in the Boston Globe: ‘Please do not erase’: A treasured whiteboard at Boston’s Children Hospital has not been touched for 15 years. Whiteboards are on my geek-love list, along with … Read more
Stand-out story craft never loses its luster. But it really is time to start sharing gems from my STORYBOARD SAVED file before they lose their sparkle. With no particular order or theme, here are a few that caught my … Read more
Every afternoon when I was a kid, the Green Bay (Wisconsin) Press Gazette landed in the driveway of our house. Actually, squinting back, I think it got tucked between the storm door and screen door. Such were the small … Read more
One of the few things I appreciate about Facebook, besides tours of my friends’ faraway lives and photos of the babies being born to my former “Baby Js”, is the SAVE feature. It’s also, for me, one of the … Read more
With something of a literary apology to Garrison Keillor … It was anything but a quiet week in Lake Woebegone, aka These dis-United States, as we headed into the nation’s 246th birthday. Rulings from the U.S. Supreme … Read more
Just when I think the dominant news of the day is too big to be pushed aside, it is eclipsed by other news. I was working through an early draft of the newsletter last Friday morning (June 24, 2002) … Read more
Sometimes the words just don’t work. I don’t mean they don’t come together easily or work well or string together in pretty rhythms. Those are annoyances we seldom get to indulge in deadline journalism. I mean they simply don’t … Read more
