Ed Ackerman

Pittston Dispatch // PD Columnists // Ed Ackerman - Optimist

Pittston Sunday Dispatch Editor

eackerman@psdispatch.com

(570) 602-0175

Latest Columns by Ed Ackerman

November 14, 2009

Real people

“There’s a Steelers fan,” the guy in the black and gold knit cap and Ben Roethlisberger jersey roared as he swallowed a mouthful of scrambled eggs and pointed his empty fork at me. I had just walked into the breakfast area at the Marriott Residence Inn in Denver, Colorado.

November 7, 2009

Can someone please tell me?

Tell me, someone, please, when we were kids back in the 50s were the blackbirds as big as they are today? Or the candy bars as small?

October 31, 2009

Down to my last 20, but that’s okay

On my 40th birthday I wrote that until you turn 40 you really cannot comprehend how brief a period of time 10 years is.

October 24, 2009

Two for the foxhole … make that three

I don’t write about politics. If I did, I’d be telling you to vote to retain Judge Tom Burke on November 3.

October 17, 2009

Fresh eyes

I took a new route from Pittston to Luzerne County Community College Friday morning: Interstate 81.

October 10, 2009

One upside of a down economy

I came this close to playing hookey Wednesday. To picking up the phone and telling an answering machine at the college I was claiming one of the nearly 200 sick days I’ve built up.

October 3, 2009

What happened to slow food?

I try to stay away from fast food restaurants, but it might surprise you to know it’s not because I think the food is unhealthy. All the medical experts claim it is, and maybe they’re right, but that’s not why I stay away.

September 26, 2009

Who’s your Charlie?

You know me well enough to know I would never poke fun at the way someone speaks. So please don’t take it the wrong way when I urge you to read the following two lines – if you can – with an Indian accent. That’s the way I heard them and I don’t want to ruin the effect. (To parishioners of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church: think Father Johnson.)

September 19, 2009

Steve Lukasik was there

In the summer of my second year at the Dispatch, if memory serves, which would have been 1968, a call came in one Saturday afternoon that the roof of Duryea Lumber Company had blown off.

September 12, 2009

We sure got a foolin’

In his entire life my Dad was never fooled.

Latest Articles by Ed Ackerman

November 14, 2009

Free Health Clinic two years old

Ann Cocco couldn’t stay retired for long.

November 14, 2009

WP man’s memoir reads like an adventure novel

A rocket propelled grenade slams into the terrace outside of the bedroom window of the apartment he and his wife share in West Beirut, Lebanon. It makes a much louder sound than the routine gunfire to which they’ve become accustomed.

November 7, 2009

Dupont airman died in famous Kassel Mission in 1944

Joe Lello, of Jenkins Township, graduated from Dupont High School nearly 60 years ago but the memory of his class trip to Washington, D.C., is still vivid. That’s because it was more than just a class trip. It was also the funeral for his uncle Sylvester who was killed in action in World War II.

October 24, 2009

Making a super effort to help homeless veterans

It isn’t often you see Superman walking along a street in Greater Pittston. That’s why Marilyn Zorgo, of Harding, just had to stop and find out what was going on.

October 3, 2009

Daughters of local woman walk to fight breast cancer

Two daughters of a Pittston native and current resident are training vigorously and seeking sponsors for their participation in a three-day walk in Tampa, Florida, to benefit breast cancer research.

September 5, 2009

Fundraiser helps family of 2-year-old Bobby Drummond

A mom of a 2-year-old battling leukemia finds comfort where she can. When Tracy Drummond ponders the ordeal her little boy Bobby has gone through during the past year, she keeps thinking of something she was told at the Janet Weiss Children’s Center in Danville: “He’ll never remember this … but you won’t forget it.”

August 15, 2009

Food, glorious food

I’ve spent the summer playing tennis, running, walking, doing push-ups and sit-ups and generally starving myself.

August 1, 2009

The gift of a lifetime John P. Cosgrove recognized for donation of his personal library to the Pittston Memorial Library

After accepting a citation from the Senate of Pennsylvania from Kelly Carroll, of the Pittston Memorial Library Board of Trustees, John P. Cosgrove turned to the crowd assembled Thursday night at the library in his honor and quipped, “Do I have to leave this here?”