Thoughts of a Common Man

I was honored to speak at Women & Children's Hospital of Buffalo and certainly thank all who took part in the event. The photo above shows all who are featured in the book and took part in the signing. This is my thank-you to those involved. House of Miracles - September 30, 2008 About twenty years ago I thought that if I wrote the right words, in the right order, I could change the world that I live in. Of course, as I’ve grown older, I now understand that the grandiose dreams of an idealistic writer, probably won’t get much done. Yet I stand before you today realizing that through the past seven years the words that I wrote in Counting on a Miracle and in House of Miracles have had an impact on a few lives. House of Miracles is about a community of people who toil day in and day out to offer a little of the human touch that eludes us in other walks of life. It’s about Brian Smistek, the hospital photographer, who makes sure that he leaves a positive impression on everyo...

--- I bet you didn't know that I'm a foreign relations expert - I can see Canada from a route along the 190 leading towards Niagara Falls. We all know how important it is to fend off a foreign country when they're in our site lines. --- I bet you didn't know that if the government was to divide up that $700 billion - each American would get about $450,000. We could all pay taxes - leaving us with about $250,000 each - they can piss away and steal the rest - then we could all pay off our houses, bailing the banks out and getting the economy rolling. If we just wanted to waste our $250,000 on wine, women and gambling - we'd still be helping the economy, right? It's probably too simple - let's give them the cash so they can steal it, waste it, and beg for more later. --- I bet you didn't know that Springsteen will be playing the Super Bowl this year. Wouldn't it be perfect if the Bills made it - I've always told my kids that I'd take them to the...

Yesterday was a day filled with sports. Of course, Buffalo has the Bills - the worst 4 and o team in the history of the game, and the Yanks had their final day of the season with Mike Mussina going for 20 wins. I watched the Yanks and truth be told, the Bills are going to get smoked in Arizona next week to start a five-game losing streak. Mike Mussina is a father of three from a town called Montoursville,PA. He graduated from Stanford in three years with high honors. For the past 18 years he has conducted himself like a gentleman in a sport where he was constantly in view of the limelight. He had never won 20 games - twice before getting stuck on 19. He did it yesterday. The Bills were playing a sad team and looking to continue their streak of perfection. They were on every other TV in the house, and truth be told, I was checking in on them in between Mussina pitches. Things were peaceful until halftime when the Bills were down and my sons were slamming things around the house. Matt we...

We spent half the weekend with Dylan our great nephew who is 13 months old. I didn't put in a lot of time in his care. Kathy left for a half-an-hour to drop Matt at a friends and my instruction was - "Change him before you go." I wasn't about to deal with that. It's been a long time since I suffered through a diaper change and I may have changed my last one ever. Yet it all went fine. The kid actually smiled way more than my kids had, or have since. He didn't cry in the night (at least not that I know of) and he brought the food that he consumed. Not a bad deal. Of course, it raised questions in Kathy's mind. "Wouldn't you want another child?" she asked. "You're fifty," I said (giving her my standard response). "No more kids." "I'm not fifty, and besides I would have liked to have five or six kids. Wouldn't that have been nice?" "Nice? Have you met our other kids? We'll be lucky to keep them ...

Everyone liked Paul Newman, right? Most of the movies he was in were great - classics nearly all of them. He never seemed to be in trouble, and like me, the women thought he was unbelievably handsome. (Okay, maybe I stretched our connection a bit). Yet it was one quote attributed to Newman that kind of stuck in my mind - and it was in response to someone asking him how he could be faithful in his marriage all of those years. "I have steak at home," he said, "Why would I go out for a hamburger?" I'm sure that it wasn't Camelot every day for him and his wife. How can marriage or any relationship be so poetic? We all have faults. We all have bad days, but the line speaks volumes about the kind of man that he was and how he stayed true and loyal. That just seems refreshing to me in this day and age. Good behavior is looked on in amazement, while bad behavior is somehow swept under the rug. I think I'll go out and rent The Hustler . I caught a lot of the deba...

I get up and go to work every day. Most of my friends get up and go to work every day and work weekends and travel and pay too much for gas and try and put a little away for the kids heading off to school, and a rainy day. Seems like we're in a monsoon now. How would I fix this? If you borrowed a million dollars to buy a house and you can only come up with a mortgage payment of $500 a month - you probably shouldn't have borrowed so much - give the house back - and buy something you can afford. If you're running a company and you work 20 hours a week and golf 20 hours a week and then need a golden parachute of say 50 or 60 million - give it back and live like you should have been living all along. If you are being interviewed by Katie Couric and don't know the answer to a fairly elementary question do like I did in high school and answer all around the answer - just drop little tidbits of truth in and stumble around until the right words hit you - try not to say - ...

Writer’s News Weekly 09/16/08 - Q&A with Cliff Fazzolari Book Talk / Author Q&A Volume 9 Issue 23 09/16/2008 1 . Is this event going to be the first time you have met with the patients, parents and staff of the hospital since writing House of Miracles? As a member of the Family-Centered Care Committee at the hospital, I have stayed in contact with a number of people on the staff as well as some of the parents of patients of the hospital. It is the ongoing dedication of staff members and the unwavering support of the parents that inspired me to write the story. I am still in awe of the dedication and the love that goes along with the day-to-day life of a children’s hospital. 2. What would you like people to know about the hospital that they may not already know? Personally, before my son was sick, I had respect for the work of the staff at WCHOB, but that respect is greatly enhanced when your own child is in a life or death situation. Parents in the community, most likely, won’...