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Fun fact: I was seven years old the last time  – oh yes; the ONLY time – the Chicago Bears won the Super Bowl. My lone memory of that day is standing with my younger sister at the front window of my parents’ house in a northern suburb called Morton Grove and watching in awe as my dad and his drunk friends set off fireworks in the front yard.

My dad doesn’t even really drink. But if there was a time for a lifelong Chicago sports fan to go apesh*t…I mean, other than the 2016 World Series (FLY THE W!!!!)…it was that day.

Fun Fact #2: I have lived in the Philadelphia area almost as long (17 years) as I lived in the Chicago area (21 years), and I married an Eagles fan. There he is in the attached picture, disrespectfully photobombing me as I celebrate the arrival of my amazingly awesome Official Bears Sideline Hat on Saturday afternoon.

In my/his defense, my hubby is also a Cubs fan. That’s how we got together. First date: Cubs-Phillies at The Vet. Wedding: Cubs-themed, in Chicago. They lost that day; LOL. We drove out to Cleveland together for Game 7 of the aforementioned 2016 Series, and we both agree, that was the best night of our lives.

Anyway, I’m writing this blog because the Bears have awakened from a too-long slumber – read: they really sucked for a really long time – and returned to the NFL Playoffs, and today, we have the sh*tty fortune of facing the defending Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles. Continue reading “It’s all fun and games…until Da Bears face the Eagles in the NFL playoffs” →

A friend from a former lifetime – at 40 years old, in my third city and on my seventh job, I’ve had quite a few of those – added me to a truly fascinating Facebook group called “What’s Your Plan B?” as a way of connecting me to kindred spirits across the country. The group is for journalists grappling with the harsh realities of the modern news industry and striving to map out a blueprint for life after journalism.

That’s me, as they say, to a T.

I’m sitting here writing this blog after my first “week” – shortened to three whirlwind days due to the New Year’s holiday – at my first new job in almost two decades.

It’s my first non-journalism job since I graduated from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University (yes, I’m going to thump my chest about that, but mostly because my Wildcats staged an epic comeback against Utah in the Holiday Bowl to cap off an amazing football season in which they also played for a Big Ten championship) way back in 2000.

Now, I’m an entry level content writer at a digital marketing agency, working 8 to 5 in an office full of (so far) strangers, for a $10,000 pay cut, writing website copy, press releases and blog entries for clients in every business from HVAC to Hoagies, with a minimum word count requirement and a focus on Search Engine Optimization.

Hey, it’s writing, and goddammit, I’m a writer! It’s my passion! It’s in my bones!

But this is nothing like anything I’ve had to write before. Continue reading “Employment Chronicles: Welcome to ‘Plan B’” →

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Listening to the recording of the chat I had with Mike Dea and his wife, Lori, which happened (*looks at calendar and shakes head at how much I’ve procrastinated*) more than a month ago at The Stone’s Throw at Shady Brook Farm — when I was still an employee of Shady Brook Farm — I hear the sound not of a reporter conducting an interview, but of a couple buddies reminiscing.

Full disclosure: we were not drinking coffee. It might be more appropriate to call this a “Tequila Convo,” but unlike me, the Deas (pronounced like “idea”) were enjoying some of the pub’s stellar Pennsylvania craft beers.

This was a fitting setting to get to know more about Mike, who, as long as our paths have been crossing in the world of local sports, has never played the role of Head Coach, Manager or Team Spokesperson. I met him when he started serving as an assistant coach in the Falls American Legion program. So, our interactions always have been informal.

Mike prefers that kind of persona. He’s more than happy being “the guy behind the guy,” or, really, “guys,” if you consider all the young men he’s been able to influence in his three-plus decades of coaching baseball in Lower Bucks County.

He loves teaching the game. It’s in his blood. The son of Frank Dea, a veteran youth baseball coach – and we’re talking 50 years and counting — Mike played at Harry S Truman and immediately started coaching with Levittown Babe Ruth after his graduation in 1985. Some district and state titles came with that. But what really got Mike hooked on the coaching “profession” — and we use quotes to reinforce that coaching youth baseball is basically donating time away from your family, when you’re not working your real job — was not winning trophies, but what he calls “the small things.”

“It’s seeing kids be successful — and there’s different definitions of success,” says Mike, a drywall finisher by trade and the father of two college students, Zack and Corey. “Is it someone like [former Holy Ghost Prep star and current Cleveland Indians prospect] Nolan Jones making it to the major leagues, or a kid who was shy when you started coaching him and came out of his shell? Every kid is different. And when you spend enough time with them, every kid is successful in his own way.

“I’m just as proud of the teams I’ve coached that had two wins as teams that had two losses. Maybe it was a kid on the team who never got a hit in three years and got a hit and the kids congratulated him. Just to see a smile from a kid who got his first hit…sometimes just that makes for a successful season.”
Continue reading “Coffee Convo #4: Baseball lifer Mike Dea relishes role as “life coach” for area youth” →

Let’s start with a plug for the West Chester Therapy Group, whose Instagram wisdom (as illustrated here) is the source of at least one daily “F*CK YES!” — and of much-needed reassurance that what I’m going through is normal, maybe even universal, and it’s all gonna work out in the end.

Follow them @wctherapygroup. You won’t be sorry.

So, I chose to attach this particular post because I’m about to enter yet another “level” in my life, and attempt yet another personal re-invention. I just accepted a job as a content writer at a digital marketing agency, and although I don’t start until Jan. 2, it definitely feels like I’ve already begun a completely new phase of existence.

The last phase still looms large in the rearview mirror. It was memorable, to say the least.

I worked as a cashier at Shady Brook Farm for about 35-ish hours per week, from early October until this past Monday, when I cleaned my last toilet and walked out the door with a definite appreciation for everyone working in retail during the holiday season.

You wouldn’t think it, but people are especially surly at Christmastime. I mean, maybe they aren’t too keen on crowded places full of kids and chaos and Mariah Carey on a constant loop, and they’re saving all their holiday spirit for when they get home with their families, in which case, I actually can understand.

I tend to get stressed out in chaotic situations, too. Continue reading “Requiem for a retail career” →

I’m 40 years old, and I just got offered an entry level job that pays almost $10,000 less per year than my previous job, in which I had spent more than 15 years developing skills and talents and establishing myself in the local media community, and I’m sitting here toasting with my husband and celebrating.

We are legit excited that I get to stop sweeping floors at Shady Brook Farm – my in-between job, that pays $9 an hour – and report to a corporate office every day.

That doesn’t really matter, though. There is no, has been no, flow chart for my professional life for a really long time. I spent 16 years at my previous company, treading water, doing what I loved, but in a negative atmosphere that offered no room for growth or advancement. Continue reading “Employment Chronicles: I GOT A JOB!” →

Get a load of that pic. No, that’s not the “Vintage” Instagram filter; I’m really that old, and this was taken at Northwestern University Softball Parents Weekend, circa spring 1997. Twenty-one years ago.

Wow.

Anyway, that was my one and only season with the team, and probably one of two total pictures that exist on this planet to prove I existed in that community.

My college career followed right along with my entire life of loving the underdog. I was a timid freshman, a walk-on, a glorified cheerleader and batting practice pitcher on a team full of scholarship recruits from California. I had one, or two, shining moments before quitting – with only a broken jaw, a mug shot in the media guide and a 4+ ERA to show for my efforts –  to pursue a career in sports journalism by finally getting myself a newspaper internship.

I’m nostalgic about my own Northwestern athletic exploits (loose term) because my alma mater’s football team is about to play in the Big Ten Championship Game on Saturday night against THE (Evil) Ohio State (Empire), and I’m all in with the underdogs.

We are probably THE biggest underdog to be participating in any of the conference championships this year. We are probably looking at a 52-to-10-ish drubbing in Indianapolis, which is why I won’t be witnessing the game in person, but on my couch – if I can stay awake that long (8 p.m. kickoffs can go to hell.) Continue reading “Go, U Northwestern!: In appreciation of underdogs” →

If you haven’t seen the movie referenced in the title or don’t recognize the above Slinky-fondling characters, or hear the song “Stay” by Lisa Loeb playing in your head right now – for the record, my favorite songs on the outstanding “Reality Bites” soundtrack will always be “Locked Out” by Crowded House, “Tempted” by Squeeze and  “When You Come Back to Me” by World Party, but I’m pretty sure “Yooooou say, I only hear what I want tooooo,” is the echo this iconic 1994 Gen-X coming-of-age flick sent bouncing through the ages – well, I’m not going to tell you to stop reading. This blog isn’t about the movie.

Do yourself a favor, though, and at least download that soundtrack.

I’m just sitting here unwinding on the night before another job interview. It’s my third actual interview in three months of applying for jobs, and those are my first three months of being without a full-time job in journalism since the year 2000, when I was probably as old as Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke, et al, were supposed to be in the aforementioned movie. And I’m agreeing that, yes, REALITY BITES. Continue reading “Employment Chronicles: Reality bites” →

Assessing Gretchen Cammiso’s level of devotion to Bristol Township right now — or, to be absolutely accurate, assessing it on the morning of Sunday, Nov. 11, not even 48 hours after the winningest football season in the history of Harry S Truman High School came to a heart-jolting, gut-wrenching, tear-soaked end at Downingtown West in the District One quarterfinals — you would never believe for a second that there ever was a second that she wasn’t all in.

You’d never believe she ever felt overwhelmed by the demands of her job, coaching, training and mentoring students and athletes in a vibrant, diverse, and yes, challenging Lower Bucks County school community. Because Gretchen Cammiso circa 2018 is about as immersed in Truman culture as a non-Truman grad (she went to Pennsbury) who’s only been on the planet 38 years, and working for BTSD for less than 15, can possibly be.

Her heart is so tied to the Tigers that students call her “Mom,” and she has, in fact, become a bona fide foster parent to current and former athletes who needed a home. She’s so proud of what the football team was able to accomplish this fall, going 10-2 and winning the school’s first playoff game under coaches Mike LaPalombara and Galen Snyder, who were hired in 2017, Cammiso’s second year as athletic director, that she gets choked up discussing it.

But Gretchen Cammiso circa 2015 did up and move to California, taking a yearlong leave of absence from her job as a Truman physical education teacher/varsity softball coach/department chairperson/senior class advisor/big sister/mother figure/you get the picture… Continue reading “Coffee Convo #3: Investing heart and soul into AD job yields historic success for Truman’s Gretchen Cammiso” →