What happened next?
From April 2013 to March 2020, I wrote the Our Towns East Extra column for the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle. In those seven years, I penned 350 columns highlighting interesting and inspirational people, places and events throughout Rochester’s northeast towns and villages.
Many of the stories I told didn’t end when the D&C discontinued the Our Towns columns. In the posts below, you’ll read many of those original stories, and find out what happened next.
Latest Posts
Behind the scenes with Santa Claus
I first met “Santa” Jim Lockwood in 2013 when he was greeting children in the gazebo at Towne Center Plaza. He’s pretty much Webster’s resident Santa, greeting children at Village Hall during the holiday celebration, riding in the Parade of Lights, and visiting the Joe Obbie Farmers Market for Christmas in July. He’s one of…
What’s special about our towns?
I don’t recall exactly, but I suspect this is another one of those columns which I had to come up with on the fly since I had absolutely no other ideas that week. I had recently returned from a car trip to the Midwest, and somehow found a way to mold that story into something…
Striking back against autism
More than any other column I wrote, this one definitely had the biggest effect on my life. I don’t remember how I heard about the jujitsu classes that Strike Back Martial Arts offered for children on the autism spectrum, but when I did, I was immediately intrigued. A martial artist myself, I had actually been…
Senior center calendars bring whimsy to the new year
Most of my favorite columns are ones that were just plain, downright fun to write about. This was one of those ideas that must have just fallen off the back of the truck. I have no idea how I came to learn about the very creative 2015 calendar that the residents of Parkwood Heights senior…
Seeing a surprising side of Sea Breeze
As the Our Towns East Extra columnist, I was responsible for “covering” all eight eastside towns. My editors especially encouraged me to focus on the three they considered most important (probably because of readership): Webster, Victor and Pittsford. But I did my best otherwise to spread my columns around, highlighting each town in turn. I…
Fairport, Ohio? Webster, Mass.?
For most of my Our Towns East Extra career, I was responsible for submitting a column every single week. Usually I had no shortage of ideas, given that my “beat” included all the east-side towns. But every once in a while, I had absolutely nothing, and as my deadline approached, I really had to get…
We all have a story — this is mine
Today’s “Afterthoughts” entry was not actually an East Extra column. Instead, it comes from a blog I originally posted in December 2019, featuring a piece I’d written for my friend Linda Hayes’ “We All Have a Story” photo installation at the Webster Public Library. The exhibit took a closer look at the lives and stories…
Pittsford veteran brought joy as American St. Nick
In this column, originally published on Dec. 24, 2017, I interviewed Pittsford WWII veteran Richard Brookins, famous all around the country — and world — as the “American St. Nick.” I picked up this column idea from a notice I saw on the Webster Museum website about a presentation Brookins was giving there on Dec.…
East Extra Afterthoughts 