By Dom Cioffi This past Sunday, my son and I stayed up late to watch the Arizona vs TCU [Texas Christian University] NCAA men’s basketball contest. It was one of those nail-biter games from beginning to end, where either team could have grabbed the win. But in true March Madness fashion, this game ended in…

By Dom Cioffi While I didn’t realize it at the time, on a warm summer day in 1984, the seeds of a lifelong cult worship were irrevocably sown. I was visiting a neighborhood friend when he mentioned that his parents had just bought him a computer. In today’s world that would be equivalent to someone…

By Dom Cioffi I tend to be a creature of habit. I drink coffee every morning from the same mug; I go to the same movie theater and sit in the same spot; I’ve jogged the same route every other day for nearly a decade; I’ve even driven the same model of vehicle since I…

By Dom Cioffi Music has the uncanny ability to transport us back in time. For example, just the other day, Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys are Back in Town” came on the radio and I was immediately jettisoned back to my older brother’s bedroom, circa 1976. There I was sitting on the edge of his bed…

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…