By Dom Cioffi When I wake up, one of the first things I do after I grab a cup of coffee is sit down with my iPad and read the news. I used to read the daily newspaper every morning, but the high delivery costs and ease of consuming online editions rendered this easier. (Thank…

By Dom Cioffi Do you remember early in the pandemic, when the high school seniors were about to graduate and everyone was lamenting how sad it was for that age group? We all agreed that it didn’t seem fair that they had to miss such an important rite of passage, along with the requisite dances,…

By Dom Cioffi I grew up under two extremes. My father’s parents (my paternal grandparents) were hard-working, blue-collar laborers, with my grandfather being a self-employed plumber and my grandmother the quintessential mother and housewife. They lived in a small two-story house directly across the street from a large factory and right behind the city’s largest…

By Dom Cioffi When I was in middle school in the early 1980s, I played in a flag football league sponsored by our city’s recreation department. The league brought together kids from all the local schools and organized them onto eight teams. I was a skinny, unassuming kid, but I was fast and coordinated, which…

By Dom Cioffi So, here we are in the middle of January. With the holidays now a distant past, all there is to look forward to is a powdery winter, the Super Bowl, and a spring break without excessive travel restrictions. Personally, I’m a golfer, so that activity starts to move forefront in my mind…

By Dom Cioffi There’s a little bar a mile up the road from where I live. It’s part of a strip mall that houses the prerequisite pizza joint, nail salon, drug store, and karate center. There’s also a grocery store sitting on the end that acts as the anchor for the property. The couple who…

By Dom Cioffi It was May 11, 1980, and the Philadelphia 76ers were playing the Los Angeles Lakers for the NBA Championship. The Sixers were down two games to one heading into the crucial fourth game. With 7 minutes and 35 seconds left in the fourth quarter, Julius “Dr. J” Erving, one of the most…

By Dom Cioffi Once baptized by John the Baptist and after he had first preached to citizens of Galilee, the man known as Jesus of Nazareth wandered up a mountainside and sat down. Later, legions of his followers approached in anticipation of hearing him speak. In his ensuing speech, Jesus laid out his beliefs and…

By Dom Cioffi Many, many decades ago, my grandmother bought herself a lake property. She had been ill for some time and was looking for a place to recuperate. In hindsight, it’s clear she was severely depressed, but back in the 1940s, they simply called it “exhaustion.” The property was old but my grandfather, being…

By Dom Cioffi I was lucky enough to grow up next to a municipal playground. I could run from my back door to acres of limitless fun within 60 seconds. A pool, jungle gyms, baseball field, a hill that was perfect for winter sledding, and numerous tennis and basketball courts were always at my beck-and-call.…

By Dom Cioffi During one of my late-night forays into the depths of YouTube, I stumbled upon a video of a guy playing individual keys on a piano while his young son, who had his back turned, rattled off the identifying notes. Once they finished with individual keys, they moved onto chords, whereby the kid…

By Dom Cioffi I have an odd, longstanding fascination with reading obituaries. I have never consciously thought about doing this, it just happened unexpectedly. I believe my habit of reading the obituaries began with the death of my father, who passed away when I was 22 years old. Up until that time, the only death…

By Kevin Theissen Preparing for retirement just got a little boost. This week, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced new contribution limits for 2022. Staying put for 2022 are traditional Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs), with the limit remaining at $6,000. The additional catch-up contribution for traditional IRAs also remains at $1,000 for people aged 50…

By Dom Cioffi My nightly routine usually consists of me lying in bed with my iPad watching YouTube videos until I get drowsy, after which I put on a podcast and fall asleep. Apparently digital interaction just before bed is frowned upon by experts, but I generally doze off within minutes and sleep like a…

By Dom Cioffi I knew the first time I saw an Apple iPhone that it was going to change my life. I was one of the people who tuned in to that now-famous Jan. 9, 2007, Apple event where Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone, claiming that it was a “revolutionary and magical product” that was…