Met an absolutely true gentleman tonight during Roselle Park’s National Night Out. We were waiting in line for the water slide with Mariposa and Ezekiel as our youngest gets more excited with each little step that brings us closer to the slide. A bit in front of us some young pre-teen girls...

Some pretty fucking I mean messed up shit, I mean stuff, you find out about your mother and father that are terrifying and amazing. Out of all things, it started with her wedding ring falling to the ground. For those who do not know, my mother suffered a pretty severe stroke on January 2nd....

Who says you can’t buy happiness? Look. Here. I bought for two bucks at a garage sale! One man’s trash is another man’s trash that hasn’t worn out its nostalgia. Just remember when they tell you “You can’t buy happiness” that it was at a garage sale for two bucks. Happiness is...

Andreotta, Glenn U., 20 On April 8, 1968, 20-year-old Glenn Andreotta was the door gunner on a Hiller Raven helicopter in Vietnam who was killed while taking enemy fire. He never made it home. His name is on panel 48E, line 50, on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. He is just...

Took ZZ to the doctor today. Nothing more serious than a cold. But checking in to see the doctor, I was asked if I visited any of the countries affected by Ebola. I told the registration clerk ‘yes’, that I live in the country affected by Ebola. She did not find that as funny as I thought she...

What a day! What a life! Yesterday was the first day of my 46th year and we celebrated my 45th birthday! Being a true believer of making every day count, I chalked up another day to make it 16,436 days alive – or 16,733 days if you count conception (We will forego any questions and simply...

(or “The Passion And Power Of Song”) So during this session of the Qersdyn Weekend Morning Record Review (just made that up) the family got to … Okay, just to back up a little, every weekend morning while making and eating breakfast, the family gets to hear some LPs from various artists …...

(Or “I Got The Whole World Wide Web In My Hands”) Okay so who wants to help me with my invention? I found a way to enable brain-mapping by emulating a wifi signal. The electric impulses send out a frequency and tuning that to a signal seems to have worked past the first stage. A router-type...

The difference between being right and doing...

Brace yourself. Just wanted to let you know that you are looking at the World’s 23,312,017th Greatest Dad! That is a pretty damn good number to be. I mean, think about it, with so many World’s Greatest Dads or #1 Dads around, that group is really really crowded and I know I am nowhere near to...

Okay, so what is a mother? I ask because today is the day to say ‘love you’ to mom. Great mom, best mom, wonderful mom, mommy, mama, mother. But, whether we really think about it or not, these women are people, beyond that title. For me, I just want to take a moment to talk about Lilia, the...

Happy Elizabeth Dane Day! Well, not so happy for the crew of the Elizabeth Dane . . . and not so good for the town of Antonio Bay . . . and really not so good for Father Malone. Come to think of it, it really was not good for anyone involved, well, except for Nick Castle with a...

January 13, 1982. So remember that Polar Vortex we experienced last week? Well, imagine being stuck in that with no coat. Add that your clothes (and entire body) are soaked in ice water and that snow is falling hard . . . all this because the plane you were on slammed into a bridge and hit...

Those three words start the piece of paper from which our nation was founded. To be followed by 10 amendments written about a week later plus another 17 throughout two centuries – the last of which was ratified 21 years ago – add to that voluminous Supreme Court cases that have been heard...

A woman. Two men. A scream from a basement hallway. And so his story began. On January 17th 2012, a little baby boy was making his way into this world after a stranger named Moses heard the expectant baby’s birth mother scream from a rooming house on Mt. Pleasant Avenue in Newark. The man...

My father is the man. Lemme splain . . . Issa too mucha, lemme sum uppa. Tonight’s soccer game was a semi-finals match for the CONCACAF Gold Cup. The teams? Honduras vs. USA and my father is an American citizen originally from Honduras. He loves America. He came to the US legally in 1968 and...

Today, some parents are going to have to sit down with their children and have ‘the talk’ again – one that most likely has been given numerous times before – a refresher of sorts : On how to behave when dealing with the police, and how to immediately keep their hands visible with their palms...

I volunteer to teach ESL and have done so for almost five years now. It started in Roselle, moved to Roselle Park, and now has expanded to Elizabeth. Tonight at class we started having our dialogue section where people have conversations. It was in question/answer style with questions such as...

LIVE THE DASH A father of three . . . words I honestly never thought would be used to describe me. So today is Fathers’ Day. For me, today is a day to reflect on fatherhood and all the joys and responsibility that come with that one word – “Dad”. That one word has been used to express...

After 13 years as part of our family, we made the decision to give XiXi, our pet cat, rest after she endured through months of labored discomfort which became a consuming pain. This photo of our hands caressing XiXi was taken just after the moment her existence transformed into a memory. She...

Citizen journalism. A term used recently, and most commonly in America, to denote those upset with the government due to taxes they think are so high. In other parts of the world, it means something else. It means speaking a government that does not belong to you. It means reporting on false...

A LETTER TO THE NEW PRAGUE HIGH SCHOOL MARCHING BAND It’s amazing how what we do affects others and the things we think are unimportant, end up having the most meaning. Now, visiting New York City is a highlight for everyone and although I live in the Elizabeth area and love where I live,...

David Mamet, in his offering, “The Spanish Prisoner” has wonderfully performed what is probably the longest con ever perpetrated on an audience – where the viewers themselves, not the film’s character, were the intended mark all along. One of America’s best contemporary playwrights has...