by Mitch Albom | Aug 22, 2021 | Comment, Detroit Free Press
Many American men have entered Afghanistan with a weapon. Lanny Cordola entered with a guitar. A self-described “studio guy,” Lanny had several of his own bands and also played with Slash, Ransom, the Beach Boys and even Nancy Sinatra, Cordola eventually grew...
by Mitch Albom | Aug 15, 2021 | Comment, Detroit Free Press
It began on the airplane. The two young men stared out the windows as the island slowly disappeared from view. Neither one had ever left Haiti. Neither had ever slept a night away from home. One of the them, a slender, serious soul named Jhonas, had spent years in a...
by Mitch Albom | Jul 29, 2021 | Comment, Detroit Free Press
I knew Simone Biles was done when she said, “There’s more to life than gymnastics.” That is a true sentence. Maybe, under certain circumstances, a noble one. But it’s not something an athlete says in the middle of a competition — in the middle of the Olympic...
by Mitch Albom | Jul 25, 2021 | Comment, Detroit Free Press
You’re in line at the bank. The person ahead of you is talking to the cashier. Minutes pass. “What’s taking so long?” you wonder. You’re in traffic. You switch to the left lane. The person in front of you is going under the speed limit. “Why so slow?” you grouse....
by Mitch Albom | Jul 18, 2021 | Comment, Detroit Free Press
You can walk past an empty building every single day. Then one day you see a line of people outside, and even though nothing has changed on the inside, you stop and say, “Hmm, I wonder what’s going on in there?” That’s what’s happening now with space....
by Mitch Albom | Jul 11, 2021 | Comment, Detroit Free Press
PORT-AU-PRINCE – I awoke to a text from a Haitian friend. “The President of Haiti was just assassinated. Do not go out. Cancel all visits.” It was 5:30 a.m. The roosters were squawking outside our orphanage. They normally do. But there was nothing normal about...
by Mitch Albom | Jun 20, 2021 | Comment, Detroit Free Press
When I reached adolescence, I began to notice a change. I would answer the phone at our house, and people would say, “Oh, you sound just like your father!” It wasn’t something I aspired to at the time. Teenagers want to be their own selves, and the fact that people...
by Mitch Albom | Jun 17, 2021 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
At one point during his college football days, Jon Vaughn was told by the team doctor that he needed his sperm for research purposes. Vaughn was a star running back for Michigan football. He says he was “terrified of cancer” because his mother was battling it....
by Mitch Albom | Jun 13, 2021 | Comment, Detroit Free Press
I used to love to eat in restaurants. Five or six nights a week. When I say “used to” I don’t mean when I was a kid. I mean pre-COVID-19, about a year and a half ago. But now, even vaccinated, and with nearly all (surviving) restaurants open and willing to seat...
by Mitch Albom | Jun 11, 2021 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
They say there are three truths in any accusation: the accuser’s, the accused’s, and the actual truth. Two of those were not accessible Thursday, and they never will be. But one truth was heard. And it was devastating. Three men, now in their 50s and 60s,...