Nellie Blog

What does it take to get on Jeopardy? (This piece ran June 7, 1989, in the Press-Republican, Plattsburgh, NY. Perhaps obviously, the pe...

(I'm not sure when I wrote this, but likely sometime around 1980, well before my own divorce but at a time when our friends...

  Being Irish in Colorado (The Colorado Springs Sun, March 17, 1985) One of my favorite stories ever. Sean, a kind, wise man who me...

So here's my boy Vaska on the path through what used to be an Adirondack Great Camp. Or a pretty good camp. It never quite reached the s...

Here are the Library of Congress’s list of 88 “Books That Shaped America,” and I like the fact that they didn't feel compelled to add 12...

(This column originally appeared August 4, 1989, in the Press-Republican, Plattsburgh, NY)     When I was in college, one of the interes...

  Being Stupid Can Be Taxing (originally published in the Press-Republican, Plattsburgh, NY, December 6, 1988)  So here's how it all s...

Christmas on the Air I've worked a few Christmases, mostly during my years in the newsroom, but the most memorable was 30 years ago ton...

Tales from the backshop (This column originally ran in the Press-Republican, Plattsburgh, NY, March 24, 1996) Today, the term "boilerp...