Past Articles

I’ve read about the demise of many of England’s pubs, going from small, locally-owned family run establishments to part of large brewery chains instead. I was keen to experience the old kind of pub, and when I walked by The Grey Horse on Portland Street in Manchester, I knew I’d […]

I spent a wonderful Easter in Manchester, England, yesterday, beginning with a tour of some of the city’s architectural highlights with local guide John Ryan.  In a drizzle that people here are very used to, we saw Lincoln Square, where a life-size Abe with crazy wavy hair stands at attention. […]

I stopped by the new Wild Roots Cafe near the bridge in Sunderland, and behind the counter, two women named Kelly smiled. It was 2:30 pm, and they had opened for their first day today, they looked ebullient and tired, the way I remember so well from my GoNOMAD Cafe […]

I love a good reason to jump on a train again.  And that reason tomorrow is an annual tradition–Canada Media Market, when I get a chance to visit with dozens of tourism officials who meet up at the Grand Hyatt Hotel for a day of networking with travel journalists. I’ve been […]

She’s Not There….a song we’ve played during our Wednesday night jams many times.  That song is one of many written by an old band, the Zombies, who are coming to Northampton this Friday.   I love this old video where the band, dressed in suits, plays in a black and […]

We got a chance to hang around the city like citizens, not journalists, yesterday as we began our Sunday in Denver.  We met up with my old friend Peter Heller, and his wife Kim, who have lived here for 15 years. The last time I saw Pete was my last […]

We met up with Rochelle Jones, a young publicist who works for Visit Denver and who grew up in Colorado. That’s a big deal here in this land of “where did you come from,” she told us. Most people she knows is from somewhere other than Colorado.  It’s a city […]

Some days are better than others.  Today, March 23, 2017, has been a great one, and it’s not even half close to being over. I woke up at 4:30, after a surprisingly restful sleep, and the flight non-stop from Hartford was a cinch. The train is a very short walk […]

I head out the door tomorrow at the crack of dawn for an exciting trip to Denver Colorado. I’ve been fascinated with Denver after my last visit there in 2012.  Back then I was hosted by my old friend Peter Heller, and he joined his wife Kim and showed me […]

With the passing of Jimmy Breslin, one of the finest newspaper writers to ever clack out a crackling lede on a typewriter, I recalled how fond I was in my earliest years of his writing.  I was introduced to Breslin when I got my first job pumping gas in Blawenburg, […]

I don’t take that many sick days, usually about one or two every year.  Today it’s a Saturday and I’ve resigned myself to just let myself be sick, though it makes me feel totally disconnected with the rest of the world. There is something about spending the whole day in bed […]

I’ve been enjoying reading a book I heard about after someone left a comment on Facebook.  It’s Junkyard Planet: Travels in the Billion-Dollar Trash Trade, and was written by Adam Minter, who has a particularly relevant background for his topic.  Minter grew up in a family of scrap dealers, and […]

I read an interesting and slightly depressing report today in the Boston Globe.  It said that the number one cause of early death among middle-aged men was not cancer, nor heart disease…but loneliness.  WOW.  This correlates with another survey where thousands of men were interviewed over a period of 75 […]

I had a highlight of my recent stay in downtown Brooklyn, Citybiking. I met a friend up in Williamsburg, and after a most excellent lunch at Aurora, we walked around and checked out the funky shops, huge condo developments, and hand-painted billboards, up close. I walked a mile or so […]