Buckeye Mike

Throughout the history of this blog,  I have often referred to the path that I am traveling. A reference to the direction I have chosen for my life, it has been an often rocky and brutal journey the last 3 years or so. With the loss of my mother, and subsequent end to my 15 year marriage, I took a long free fall and have had to climb my way back to the place I find myself in now. And with hindsight being 20/20, I can look back and say every moment of weakness, lapse in judgement, and incredible mistake have led me to his place. So they all were worth it. I have come to compare life to a tiny rubber bouncy ball. You know, the kind that we used to fire at the ground to see how high it would bounce. And what we found is that the harder the hit at the bottom, the higher the rebound would be. Today my mother would have been 58 years old. We used to celebrate all birthdays in the family at her house. Cake, ice cream, best part, worst part, laughs and love were all staples of these gatherin

I spent this evening with my boys watching the Super Bowl at Gant's Pizza in Whitehall. It was a great time, even though the team we were rooting for lost. I seem to be making a lot of really good memories at this tiny restaurant on Main Street. Owned by Tiffany's cousins, Gant's is a part of her family history. Years ago, it was a Papa Joe's pizza, and Tiffany will tell you of the many days she spent there as a baby with her family. Papa Joe's and, subsequently Gant's,  is truly a part of the legacy her father left to her, and is quickly becoming a big part of our story. Making memories and creating a legacy is a big part of who I am now, and that is where I am going to go with this blog. I went to look at a new fire last week just north of Lancaster, Ohio. Work has been extremely busy recently, and on that sunny afternoon I cruised down Route 158 through the town of Baltimore, Ohio. In the center of town there is a funeral home, and when I was passing by the