Well, I’m here to tell you… ah, check that. If you are reading this, that means that I am no longer here. The prostate cancer finished toying with me on October 6, 2017. I was 66 and glad to be done with the damn disease.
But if I were still here I would tell you that I wish I had done more work as a news reporter. Written better stories. Made more and better contacts. Skipped some of the easier pieces and done more in-depth stories. Spent more time on foreign stories. Been a better editor.
I loved being a reporter. (Journalist is kind of a lace curtain word for the job.) It’s where I met most of my best friends. It’s where I met my wife Barbara, also a reporter. It’s where I had my biggest audiences.
And take a look at the top of this page, that byline. It looks good, right?
Journalism allowed me to circle the globe writing stories and meet amazing people. I love, well loved, to be able to say I worked for the Bronxville Review Press Reporter, New Rochelle Standard Star, Bangkok Business, UPI, New York Post, New York Daily News, ABC News and CNNMoney. I have the coffee mugs to prove it.
My last residence was Maplewood, N.J., but I always considered myself a New Yorker. As a former Good Humor man in Brooklyn, Blimpie counterman in Manhattan and bartender in the Bronx and Hell’s Kitchen, I was a New Yorker. And it was by far my favorite newspaper beat.
As a kid, my family bounced around Washington, Maryland, Delaware and upstate New York several times. I arrived in New York City at the age of 17 to attend Fordham University. (Attend is used loosely here, but I did graduate.) And I stayed in the city until I was about 50 and moved to New Jersey.
There was a break from the city which lasted a little more than two years when I circled the globe. I wrote about it in my self-published travel memoir “Three Cents a Mile.” It’s still available, agents.
My wife Barbara Goldberg survives me and l leave greatly in her debt. I got so many more laughs than I gave. And I regret I won’t be there to comfort her as she did me in those final foggy hours.
My daughter Maura and son Paul are better looking and smarter than me, a fact which they often reminded me. I was still working on a retort at the time of this writing.
The three of them were my holy trinity.
In lieu of flowers, donate to a favorite cause. Mine was Doctors Without Borders. Or just buy a round.
This is the last installment in the blog Closing in on -30- about my doctor’s pronouncement that I have about two years to live.
(Bio Provided By: Mark Mooney Reporter,
Well, I’m here to tell you… ah, check that. If you are reading this, that means that I am no longer here. The prostate cancer finished toying with me on October 6, 2017. I was 66 and glad to be done with the damn disease.
But if I were still here I would tell you that I wish I had done more work as a news reporter. Written better stories. Made more and better contacts. Skipped some of the easier pieces and done more in-depth stories. Spent more time on foreign stories. Been a better editor.
I loved being a reporter. (Journalist is kind of a lace curtain word for the job.) It’s where I met most of my best friends. It’s where I met my wife Barbara, also a reporter. It’s where I had my biggest audiences.
And take a look at the top of this page, that byline. It looks good, right?
Journalism allowed me to circle the globe writing stories and meet amazing people. I love, well loved, to be able to say I worked for the Bronxville Review Press Reporter, New Rochelle Standard Star, Bangkok Business, UPI, New York Post, New York Daily News, ABC News and CNNMoney. I have the coffee mugs to prove it.
My last residence was Maplewood, N.J., but I always considered myself a New Yorker. As a former Good Humor man in Brooklyn, Blimpie counterman in Manhattan and bartender in the Bronx and Hell’s Kitchen, I was a New Yorker. And it was by far my favorite newspaper beat.
As a kid, my family bounced around Washington, Maryland, Delaware and upstate New York several times. I arrived in New York City at the age of 17 to attend Fordham University. (Attend is used loosely here, but I did graduate.) And I stayed in the city until I was about 50 and moved to New Jersey.
There was a break from the city which lasted a little more than two years when I circled the globe. I wrote about it in my self-published travel memoir “Three Cents a Mile.” It’s still available, agents.
My wife Barbara Goldberg survives me and l leave greatly in her debt. I got so many more laughs than I gave. And I regret I won’t be there to comfort her as she did me in those final foggy hours.
My daughter Maura and son Paul are better looking and smarter than me, a fact which they often reminded me. I was still working on a retort at the time of this writing.
The three of them were my holy trinity.
In lieu of flowers, donate to a favorite cause. Mine was Doctors Without Borders. Or just buy a round.
This is the last installment in the blog Closing in on -30- about my doctor’s pronouncement that I have about two years to live.
(Bio Provided By: Mark Mooney Reporter,
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