NEast Philly contributors Pat McNally and Bill Achuff will have continuing coverage of the high school football previews for the 2009 season. First up is the public league. Below are stats and key elements for the four major public teams in the Northeast.

Click below for coach and player information, plus records from last year. continue reading »

I confess that I never liked the tree. Well, it’s not exactly a tree – just as big as a tree. It is only a part of my continuing dislike of this twisting stretch of plant life blocking out the side of my house. But that is not why the majority of its trunk and branches are now laying prone beside my fence. continue reading »

I always knew that we were getting close, when I caught my first scent of the ocean. That usually happened just as we drove onto the Great Egg Harbor Bridge, and it was my yearly invitation to the Jersey Shore.  That bridge was just the beginning of a drive that ended at a place I’ve always considered my second home: Stone Harbor, N.J. continue reading »

The streets are silent, but the kids are busy

The streets in my Far Northeast neighborhood are quiet… too quiet. Now that I spend my days working from the comfort of my own computer, I am more aware of what happens on our block. The papers are delivered at 6:30 a.m. During the school year, the various buses arrive promptly at their designated times. The letter carrier arrives at our doorstep at 11 a.m.   continue reading »

The yellow bus arrives at 8:30 a.m. I am not ashamed to admit that I am glad to welcome its arrival. My children greet the bus with very different reactions. My daughter is always happy when it pulls up to the curb, while my son looks upon the vehicle as a convict must when the dingy prison bus arrives, carrying him to his incarceration. continue reading »

Tom Swift and the Race to the Moon was a book given to me by my parents, back when kids received such low-tech presents for Christmas. Even back then I was a voracious reader, and the mission of Tom and his spaceship was bunched along with my yearly quota of Hardy Boys books. I thought about Tom’s adventure on June 20, 1969 as I watched a real man – an American – walk across the moon. continue reading »

It was July 4th and the street was quiet – too quiet. It’s been four years since we left our little home in Lawncrest, and we are still not used to the serenity of the Far Northeast, after living just a couple of blocks away from Independence Day central for Northeast Philadelphia. continue reading »

It is now two weeks past my 16th Father’s Day, and despite positive comments by many people (including my mother), I often wonder how good of a father I really have become. My parenting skills were certainly put to the test when school ended, in the two weeks before the beginning of camp. continue reading »

It is a simple brown box, the kind that anyone can pick up at a store. I don’t know what was stored in it before it came into my life, but in the past day it has taken on a whole new meaning.

The box was filled in increments over the years. A high school diploma was joined by a college mortarboard. That was covered by transcripts and short stories from my youth. Crude videos which I thought were works of art at the time are stored within its cardboard walls. Photos of nieces and nephews are in the same plastic sheathing with my Social Security card. continue reading »

I can’t help it – I like Garfield.

Faithful viewers of the A&E cable television series Parking Wars know of whom I speak. Garfield is one of the many interesting and loveable – yes, I said lovable – characters whose day-to-day lives working for the Philadelphia Parking Authority are put on display for the viewing public. Garfield and his partner Sherry travel the streets of Philadelphia, booting vehicles owned by motorists who owe a lot of money for parking and other violations. Needless to say, they encounter their fair share of angry citizens along the way.

It is the televised altercations that are captured on video while booting, towing and waiting in line at the impound lot that has brought the Parking Authority and Parking Wars under fire in recent weeks. The show was blamed Sunday in a Philadelphia Inquirer editorial for potentially hurting the city’s tourism industry. One angry reader called the Parking Authority a “disgrace,” and demanded that it be overhauled.

I understand being mad at the Parking Authority. I’ve been there. continue reading »