Hi, I\u2019m Mike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All writers hate doing introduction stories, me included, so I\u2019ll be brief. I\u2019m starting a new column here at the Long Beach Post. It will run a few times a month and will cover current events and breaking news as well as life in Long Beach from the perspective of a young family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My wife and I were both born and raised here; she\u2019s been a high school English teacher in the Long Beach Unified School District for the last decade, and I\u2019ve been a sportswriter covering local sports since 2007 (a rewarding and winding career that actually began here at the Post<\/a> with my longtime writing partner JJ Fiddler).<\/p>\n\n\n\n My wife and I never moved out of our hometown, yet we\u2019re raising our two kids (fifth and second graders) in a very different city than the one we grew up in. Long Beach has grown and changed a lot over our four decades of life here, in some ways beautiful and much-needed, and in other ways heartbreaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m interested in those changes and how they affect the culture of our city and the quality of life for people who live here. I\u2019m also interested in writing from the perspective of a young family in a city that was built around the idea of raising kids, a city where education has been the leading industry for most of my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I regularly have conversations with friends in my generation that I don\u2019t often see represented in our local media scene, and I\u2019m excited to bring a new voice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you\u2019ve seen my name recently in the Post it may have been as their education reporter for the last few years. I\u2019ve also been fortunate to work as a sportswriter in Long Beach for 16 years, one of the few jobs that leads into every corner of the city, through every neighborhood, and to deep conversations about family and life with every kind of person in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m excited to continue telling their stories in this new format, and to shine a light on people and places in Long Beach who might otherwise have gone unnoticed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Do you have a person or topic that deserves to be noticed? Email me at mike@lbpost.com.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n Not every story worth telling is the length of a column, of course, so I\u2019ll also be dropping notes at the bottom of each piece on things I\u2019m hearing, experiences I\u2019ve had, or restaurants my family has visited.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Long Beach Marathon<\/b> was last weekend. As usual, some of my friends went out to the race route to cheer on runners, some of my friends were running, but the majority of my friends were on social media complaining about street closures and parking. I get the complaints, but also, to borrow a line from JJ\u2014Long Beach is a real city, and real cities occasionally host events like marathons that lead to Los Angeles-like traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\nLong Beach Bites<\/b><\/h4>\n\n\n\n