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Lock O-3
I tend to think of my hometown of Fulton, N.Y. as being a pretty typical Rust-Belt municipality. There are factories — some still operating, some abandoned. There’s a small downtown area that has never really flourished at any point in my lifetime, as opposed to say 70-100 years ago, when by all accounts it bustled Continue reading
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Biking It
Back in August 2020, at the height of the COVID lockdowns, I decided I wanted a bicycle in order to get some exercise and break up the monotony of my work-from-home existence. Approximately everybody else on the planet had the same idea at that moment. Bicycles, and exercise equipment in general, were practically impossible to Continue reading
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Tornado Warnings with Cake
It always rains on my birthday. That’s not a complaint or a lament. It’s just a fact. I know it’s going to happen, so I never plan anything weather-dependent for that day. Yesterday, Mother Nature provided the expected rain early in the day then, later on in the evening, she took things to the next Continue reading
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Three Cheers for the Red, White, and Blue
The Buffalo Bills’ first preseason game is today. That means it’s time for this household’s time-honored annual tradition (started last year) of the Switching of the Flags. Old Glory, which has been displayed on the house since Memorial Day weekend, comes down, and the Bills flag goes up. The latter won’t be taken down until Continue reading
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Like It’s 1999
Ever since I found that 1990s Orioles jacket a few days back, I started wondering where some of my old Baltimore caps were stashed away. I looked in the most obvious places and came up empty-handed. Tonight, on a whim, I decided to check the basement. Bingo! I found the cap I wore a lot Continue reading
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This Highway Sponsored By: Mr. Madison’s War
“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” William Faulkner Documentaries and articles about the War of 1812 tend to refer to it as a “forgotten war.” That’s probably true in most of the United States, but there are pockets of the country where the story of that war is intertwined with a community’s identity. In New Continue reading
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Old Baseball Cards
Residing now in the same house I grew up in, I’m always coming across long-forgotten items from my childhood whenever I venture into the recesses of the basement, attic, or garage. Tonight, I discovered a cache of my old baseball cards from 1980. Most of the cards were of obscure utility players and guys who Continue reading
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A Meeting of the Minds?
Seeing Jim Boeheim and Josh Allen standing next to each other shouldn’t seem so weird to me, but it does. Boeheim’s visit to Bills training camp reminds me of when I was in elementary school and I’d see one of my teachers out in public, in a store or something, and the scrambled contexts would Continue reading
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Burn On, Big River
There is a saying that every great city has a great river. While the greatness of both cities and rivers is subjective, it is certainly true that most larger cities tend to be located on rivers; at least that’s the case here in the water-abundant Northeast. In New York, almost all of the state’s biggest Continue reading
About Me
Researcher. Marketer. Teacher. Father of adult children and dogs. 20th Century holdover. Central New York native. Long-suffering Buffalo Bills fan. History nerd. Traveler. Vintage advertising enthusiast. Hat wearer.
a.k.a. V.J. 