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Well, I got up this morning – at 5 a.m., after maybe 3 hours of restless sleep on the couch – and went to work at a job where I can’t sit down and make $13-an-hour less than the more-or-less lifelong job that I voluntarily left.

So Winston Churchill would, I guess, be proud.

He allegedly was the source of the quote in the title. He did a harder job than I ever have done. And he probably didn’t give a sh*t about sports — or, if he did, he didn’t let the outcome of a baseball game, a failure of epic proportions by the best team in the National League, record-wise, all year, move him to tears once, let alone multiple times in a 12-hour span.

But I care too much about my sports, and about pretty much everything in life, so I felt like a big bag of stinking failure walking into work this morning at 6:45. I had cried already for the end of the Cubs’ season, immediately after the Rockies recorded the final out of the NL Wild Card Game, in the bottom of the 13th inning. Several hours later, my second full day working as a cashier in a busy farmers market left me feeling like an even bigger bag of stinking failure. And I guess all the deep-seated emotions, piled on top of the lack of sleep, just got the better of me.

I suppose no one should cry about a minimum-wage job. But as is the case with any breakdown of any degree, it’s never about one thing. It’s a compilation. You’ve spent a long, long time bottling up the pain, anger, sadness, fear, regret, doubt, fatigue, and yes, the actual failure — or maybe even the emotional roller coaster of both successes and failures — that explodes one day when you least expect it. Continue reading ““Success is not final, failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”” →

I had to change the channel briefly after the final out of 163. I don’t know how much of the Brewers’ celebration, on the hallowed grounds of Wrigley Field, ESPN actually showed before switching to the other National League tiebreaker game on the West Coast. But I could not watch a single second of it.

I’d just been on my feet, wildly smacking my hands together in my trademark “Wielgus Clap” that infamously once moved an old woman sitting in front of me at a Cubs home game to rip off pieces of napkin and stick them in her ears. Javy Baez — my favorite Cub, whose quest for NL MVP is effectively over, given Christian Yelich’s recent trajectory for the (cringe) Central Division champions — had just battled his ass off against (bigger cringe) Josh Hader to get on base after an awful, strikeout-filled stretch, and the game’s lone offensive hero, Anthony Rizzo, was up with two outs, representing the tying run in a 3-1 game.

I knew that expecting Rizz to go deep a second time against a (cringe cringe cringe) All-Star hurler (can you tell I’m a Hader hater?) was foolish. But, b*tch please. I watched these guys rally from a 3-1 deficit in the WORLD SERIES in 2016, to win the whole damn mother-effing thing before my very eyes on a (thankfully) rainy night in Cleveland. I also watched David Bote hit a walk-off grand slam earlier this year to turn a Max Scherzer gem into the Nationals’ Death March. And I’ve been a baseball fan for 40 years. Amazing sh*t happens all the time. You gotta believe. Continue reading “Tiebreaker Heartbreak: My tumultuous love affair with the Cubs continues” →

I saw this on Twitter while I was stopped at a red light on my way home from my first official shift as a cashier at the Shady Brook Farm Market, and I laughed out loud. I mean, of course I did; I honed the keen sense of humor you see here (well, maybe not yet...) on Classic “Simpsons” episodes like the one referenced below:

I also kind of feel a little like Homer during my job search. One of the big reasons I decided to throw my hat in the ring for an entry-level job at the farm market, when I haven’t worked in retail since college, is that after two weeks of sitting in my living room, hunting for “white-collar” work on the internet, applying for “white-collar” work on the internet, and having ZERO contact with human beings other than folks at the gym or friends I invite to lunch…I was starting to get pretty discouraged. I remain quite disappointed in this process, and no, I’m not sure I trust it. Continue reading “Employment Chronicles: This is Jen; how may I help you?” →

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Tony Vlahovic vividly remembers sitting in a bed in an Allentown Hospital ward, peppering the doctor with questions after emergency surgery.

“Can I play sports?”

“Can I have kids?”

The terrified teenager had no idea what had happened to him.

Decades later, Vlahovic understands fully.

“What happened was…actually, football saved my life,” he says.

We are sitting at a table at the Newtown Starbucks, during the after-school rush, rehashing every twist and turn of Vlahovic’s remarkable life. His diagnosis of testicular cancer at age 14 — which came a few months after he was hit below the belt in a freshman football game, then woke one night to discover he couldn’t move his legs — was just one harrowing stop on his road less traveled.

He made a full recovery, and now, as a father of two, a rehabilitation specialist, high school baseball coach and Special Olympics baseball crusader, he credits that one hard football hit with helping to expose the cancer growing inside him, before it was too late.

If not for that hit, all the lives Vlahovic has touched since his athletic career ended in the mid-1980s – another harrowing story we’ll get to in a minute – might have been quite different. Continue reading “‘Coffee Convo’ #1: Athletic dreams dashed, Tony Vlahovic goes pro in giving back” →

I’m not yet sure if my new part-time job – which, actually, could end up being full-time, because Shady Brook Farm does a TON of business this time of year, and I can basically sign up for as many hours as I want, now that I’ve officially been hired – allows employees to wear hats that are…off-brand.

But I love that my new work shirt matches my new favorite hat – the Carharrt/47 Brand Bears hat. Ain’t she a beaut, Clark?

I do know that yoga pants aren’t allowed on employees, so I am going to have to run out and buy some professional pants tomorrow. Read: I need new jeans. Considering I have basically been eating and drinking everything I want for a few months now, and I have a 40-year-old metabolism, this is a concerning development.

But, anyway, yes, I have a job at Shady Brook, which is a local institution here in Bucks County. It’s a family-owned-and-operated working farm that has expanded – or, really, exploded – over the past 20 years or so, into a multi-faceted destination for locals and tourists alike. I went on a tour today with one of the managers, and while I knew about some of the farm’s offerings, I couldn’t believe all the ways that the very smart owners have found to expand their sources of revenue. Continue reading “Part-Time People Person” →

One thing about me: I’ve always been athletic. I played three sports in high school – stopping with basketball after sophomore year so I could focus on pitching and club volleyball in the winter – and walking on to the Northwestern University softball team for a Big Ten experience (yes, as a bit of a scrub) that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

In adulthood, I’m partial to the “sport of fitness,” and while I no longer consider myself a serious, competitive CrossFitter, I still belong to a CrossFit gym and do CrossFit-style workouts in my basement nearly every day I’m not working out over there.

My unofficial duty in the gym is to post the Quote of the Week on the board. OK, it’s a duty I more or less bestowed upon myself, but no one else seems into it, and I just love it. Say what you want about inspirational quotes and their triteness or lack of true value in terms of motivating people or effecting change, I love anything that makes me think. Well, maybe not ANYTHING. There are some things I actually would love to stop thinking about, but I digress.

This one spoke to me. I’ve never been a follower. I’ve always done my own thing, and I gravitate toward people like that. In this next phase of my life, where it looks like I’m going to have to hustle my ass off and create my own opportunities rather than just sitting back and doing what is required by a company, day after day, year after year…this resonates especially loudly.

It stinks that I’m listening to the Cubs giving a press conference about an alleged domestic abuser who’s in their employ. This isn’t the first time my favorite team has faced scrutiny because they’ve harbored a bad dude in their clubhouse.

I have been following this story closely since it broke, way back in 2017 when Addison Russell’s now-ex wife first brought to light the issues in their relationship. Today, I read Melisa Ready-Russell’s entire blog, from start to finish. I also followed the Aroldis Chapman domestic abuse story back in 2016.

(Link to Melisa’s blog post: https://lifewithmelis310373032.wordpress.com)

In NO WAY do I have Cubbie-blue blinders on, nor do I hold the behavior of their players against the franchise. As a lifelong sports fan & long-time sports reporter, I know this stuff is equal-opportunity. There are bad dudes everywhere, from high school sports to college sports to pro sports and everywhere in between. I’ve witnessed it firsthand, from casual misogyny to outright offensive behavior that’ll…put hair on your chest? Poor treatment of women is a societal problem. We know this. It’s only magnified in sports.

You idolize these professional athletes, or hold them to a higher standard, at your own risk. You don’t even realize how much negative shit is perpetrated by your heroes that never sees the light of day.

Let me pause to say, no one knows what really happened in the Russell relationship. I’m not here to demonize this particular guy, or convict him in the court of public opinion. I want to make a statement about women standing up for themselves, in general, and making changes in the way the world sees us. You don’t have to have been actually physically abused to feel deeply affected by this topic. Continue reading “Bravo, Melisa: Good WILL come from the Addison Russell saga” →

For the last few years, as a video journalist for the Bucks County Courier Times and Intelligencer – it’s so much easier to just say, “Game On” – I have been using my professional Facebook page to archive my video stories. Now that I’m a free agent, I eventually want to create my own website. My ultimate dream is to do what I did before, working for myself, and somehow make a living that way.

This is only the beginning.

Stay tuned for personal blog posts and occasional “Coffee Convo” profile pieces with interesting people in our community.

Thanks for sticking with me.