A tip of the cap to the optimism of @berniekosar019 . As we sat down to talk about his hitting the 6 month post liver transplant mark on Sunday, he remained confident in the @cavs moving to the Eastern Conference Finals
Before the start of the summer season in 1992 bungee jumping was introduced to Wildwood, NJ and I was one of the first to try it for a story (which would NEVER, repeat NEVER be allowed for legal reasons in a newsroom today.)
Back then they used cranes to hoist you around 200 feet up. I remember the change in the air temperature that day, which went from around 60 on the boardwalk to a much warmer 70 or so as we rose above the breeze coming in off the ocean.
I sent my cameraman, Darryl Tullgard, up on the crane to shoot a jump before mine, wanting to make sure he knew exactly where he needed to be to get the best shot, I was only doing this once.
As I stood in the gate there was fear yes but honestly little hesitation. I committed to this, the camera was rolling, I had to go through with it.
“3-2-1” and in my mind I’m just diving off a high diving board at the pool. No water below just a net that I’m thinking I have a 50/50 shot of hitting if something goes wrong.
My utter elation in the video 3 seconds later is not in the joy of the experience but in the realization I was alive.
I had a headache for a good day after.
Never again I vowed and with good reason. Later that summer one of the cranes blew over in one incident and a nurse broke her neck in another when the bungee cord was too long for her weight.
(I honestly remember thinking as I got on the doctor’s office type scale that day, how trustworthy will this thing be after a summer of exposure to the very corrosive salt air.)
By August there were calls for a statewide crackdown, with cranes eventually eliminated and the heights lowered, as jumps were only allowed from permanent structures.
Within a year or two the jumps were pretty much gone from the landscape. Even still I often think back on the memory of mine… it’s just usually every time I have a headache.
The most impactful draft pick the @clevelandbrowns have made in the last half century was one that didn’t come on @nfl #draftday but rather in July. A look back at how @berniekosar019 simultaneously changed the future of the Browns and the Draft! 🏈
So I asked AI to sharpen and make a cartoon of this photo of me as a kid in my @philadelphiaflyers shirt. Not bad, then I looked closer and it had changed my brother’s WWII Navy recruitment poster into a New Kids on the Block poster 🤣
Safe to say that in November, as he was literally fighting for his life, @berniekosar019 could not have imagined he’d be standing in a pro-wrestling ring five months later but here we are. Great catching up with him and marking the 5 month milestone since his liver transplant.
Northeast Ohio home to one of only a few Masters Champion green jackets to exist outside of Augusta. 1938 champ Henry Picard’s is proudly displayed at Canterbury Golf Club in Beachwood where he was longtime pro.
The others not in Augusta belong to three-time winner Gary Player who took the one from his first championship in 1961 back home to South Africa and both of Seve Ballesteros’ jackets from 1980 and 1983 are in his home trophy room.
A child born on my first day of work at WEWS-TV April 6, 2005 can now legally toast it. 🥂
And that’s what I’m metaphorically doing this day as I look back here at a few of the memories made over the last 21 years and look forward to those that are still to come.
As they were leaf blowing the potholes outside of work today (because you know that’s what we do in Cleveland) I thought maybe I could scoop the pieces up and pass them off as special Cleveland meteor fragments?!?🤣
Just seeing today is Sam Donaldson’s 92nd birthday… this is 30 years ago ago at the ‘96 Democratic Convention, making him just a couple years older in this pic than I am now 😳 Happy Birthday to the OG of White House correspondents!
I was sitting in Hooples on Saturday when the bridge outside started to go up, so I walked out and took this Timelapse of the 638 foot freighter Mark W Barker passing by. I covered the Barker’s dedication in 2022. It was the first new U.S. flagged freighter on the Great Lakes since 1983. Love watching the big ships navigate the hairpin turns of the Cuyahoga.
