BY EILEEN BRADY
THE NEWS JOURNAL OF WILMINGTON, OHIO ​

There once was a little boy whose heroes were baseball players. He played catch with his dad until the only light in the Sabina sky came from fireflies. He fell asleep at night with a transistor radio clutched to his chest, static crackling through the names of Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Ken Griffey.
He was a Cincinnati Reds fan then. He’s a Cincinnati Reds fan now, through dozens of years, dozens of disappointments and a few World Series championships. He can still name the lineups, in order, of the 1975-76 teams.
My husband grew up playing baseball back when you could find enough kids in the schoolyard who wanted to field an impromptu game. He later worked nights at Airborne after full days of high school, fitting in baseball practice for East Clinton High School — catching sleep when he could.
He joined the Navy to serve his country, then left the service after 11 years to finish his college degree. He was taking his final nursing-school classes when terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, and he felt helpless in his new role as a civilian. As soon as he graduated, he re-entered the military of a nation at war, this time in the Air Force, and he recently spent time in Afghanistan, treating wounded soldiers and civilians at the hospital on Bagram Air Base.

BY EILEEN BRADY
THE NEWS JOURNAL OF WILMINGTON, OHIO ​

Some turn to Zoloft. I turned to pizza. 
It started the first night my daughter and I spent alone, all those months ago, after my husband left for Afghanistan.
One of my neighbors called to say she was ordering Generations Pizza for her family and that she was ordering one for us, too. No “If there’s anything I can do for you …” Just the wonderful statement that she was bringing us pizza.
Not wanting her to go to any trouble, I almost blatantly lied and said that I’d already had dinner. At the time she called I was eating Kix cereal straight from the box, the picture of pathetic.
So my neighbor brought pizza, and I was happy, and my daughter was thrilled. We are big fans of Generations Pizza. I went to high school with owner Kerry Steed, back when he was delivering in the evenings for the family business, so I would probably occasionally visit his pizzeria out of loyalty, even if it were just so-so. But Generations makes fantastic pizza, consistently great, and it became such a gastronomical habit in my husband’s absence that I even stopped telling him when we’d eaten there. 
He’d ask anyway.