Tragedy to boost hockey game’s poignancy

On a TV screen at his home in Marysville, Chris Janiak watched the procession of law-enforcement vehicles wend its way through the streets of central Ohio.

Janiak’s emotions remained raw two days after a gunman had fatally shot two Westerville police officers responding to a 911 call.

Janiak, a 24-year veteran of the Columbus Division of Fire, blinked back tears as he watched ambulances driven by fellow first responders transport the bodies of Anthony Morelli and Eric Joering to separate funeral homes.

The Feb. 10 slayings of Morelli, 54, and Joering, 39, will cast a pall over the 2018 First Responder FaceOff, a charity hockey game between area police officers and firefighters.

Though intended as a celebration, the competition this year — following so close on the heels of the funeral Friday for the fallen officers — will likely be more poignant.

“It’s going to heighten

In less than an hour with Cassandra Hilty, I learned about a Czech chapel decorated with human bones, common Tagalog phrases and life in Siberia.

All the information came from postcards.

Hilty, 21, wants more people to appreciate oldfashioned postcards, a declining industry in this age of travelers chronicling their adventures on social media. She gets her fix via Postcrossing.com, a website whose members send one another postcards from around the world.

Some arrive with intriguing snippets of biographical detail.

“I live in Siberia,” wrote a Russian correspondent. “Winter in our city continues six months. I spent 32 years transporting oil. Now I am retired and I enjoy life. And it is negative-18 degrees Celsius here.”

Hilty, a manager for Harbor Freight who lives near Reynoldsburg, said her love of postcards began in childhood, when she figured out that they were among the cheapest souvenirs available in gift shops.

She discovered Postcrossing about two years ago.

“I talked about it for a