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Toward the End: Readings, Writings, Football
Mayfield Memorandum 13: Beaten Up/Dropping
When Jarvis Landry fails to catch the ball, the Browns are in trouble Matt Starkey/Cleveland Browns The last-place Cleveland Browns have turned into a beat-up, beaten-down illusion. They aren’t what anyone thought they would be—probably including themselves. The...
Mayfield Memorandum 12: To Play or Not to Play
Matt Starkey/Cleveland Browns Since his left-shoulder injury forced an end to Baker Mayfield’s string of 53 consecutive games behind center, To Play or Not to Play, that is THE Question has been on an endless reel. He had never missed a game since taking over for...
Dorothy Jackson: Warm Heart and a Spine of Steel
City of Akron Former Akron Deputy Mayor Dorothy Jackson wore many hats and put on many faces during the course of a life that ended on the cusp of 88 years. She could separate the chaff from the wheat but had trouble differentiating between the two Akron mayors for...
What a Devil of a Mess The Devil Strip Has Made
In the 1950s, small-town newspapers that practiced community journalism seemed not only larger than life but also life itself to us paperboys who delivered them. Readers and advertisers and most of those who ended up on its pages valued newspapers. They were part and...
Mayfield Memorandum 11: A Case in Point
QB Case Keenum made his point but D'Ernest Johnson took flight in Browns win Matt Starkey/Cleveland Browns The plot of the Cleveland Browns’ season thickened with revelations surrounding their 17-14 victory over the Denver Broncos at FirstEnergy Stadium. Some of the...
Mayfield Memorandum 10: Super Bowl ‘Average’
Baker Mayfield and Donovan Peoples-Jones (center, ground) had Hail Mary moment Matt Starkey/Cleveland Browns When I began the Mayfield Memorandum project this season, it seemed as if there would be countless opportunities to expand the focus from Baker Mayfield...
Some Memories Come with a Street Guide
Nowata, Oklahoma's Cherokee Avenue—Heart of a Small Town and Memories Screen Shot from Nowata.gov When I wrote Football, Fast Friends, and Small Towns: A Memoir Straight from a Broken Oklahoma Heart, I omitted a word from the title—journalism. I wasn’t trying...
Mayfield Memorandum 9: Friends and Foes
Baker Mayfield (left) and Kyler Murray exchange jerseys when the meet as pros in 2019 cardswire.usatoday.com The idiom goes like this: Two’s Company, Three’s a Crowd. In some circumstances—a ménage à trois, for instance—three is the perfect number. Other...
Mayfield Memorandum 8: Defaming/Reclaiming
Matt Starkey/Cleveland Browns In his previous game against the Minnesota Vikings, Cleveland quarterback Baker Mayfield could do little right—and the Browns won. The contrite blame-placing Mayfield called a sow’s-ear performance a sow’s ear, only he used the term “piss...
Act or Your Cremains Could End Up in a Car Trunk
Bonney Castle, Hiram College's English home, is perfect for Kirsten Parkinson's cremains Hiram College website screen shot It can be difficult to write an essay that has universal appeal. Trying to do so can cause a cerebral hemorrhaging. Or, at least a bad headache....