The Places He Remembers - Mike DiLeo ‘89

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The Places He Remembers - Mike DiLeo ‘89

Mike Dileo '89 in blue polo shirt, holds a copy of his book - "There are Places I Remember."

His collection of short stories, There Are Places I Remember, is based on many of his own life experiences and features five stories set at Utica University (then-Utica College) in the late 1980s.

Orange and Red-colored book cover with title "There Are Places I Remember."

Everyone has stories of their time in college – whether it’s regaling their children with tales of the past or friends reminiscing of their adventures during a long-awaited catch-up. Mike Dileo ’89, however, has compiled his campus accounts into a new book.

His collection of short stories, There Are Places I Remember, is based on many of his own life experiences and features five stories set at Utica University (then-Utica College) in the late 1980s.

“There is one story in particular called “The Fate of Glass” which is about my Utica roommate, Stuart Macpherson He sadly passed away from cancer in 2014 and this story is something of a love letter to him,” DiLeo explains. “Anyone who was at Utica College between 1985-89 will remember Stu and if they read this story they will remember some of these memories.”

The book features stories not only on the Utica campus in places like South Hall and Alumni Hall where DiLeo lived, but also throughout the city of Utica itself, in locations like the Aylsebury Inn and Spilka’s Hotel, which the author says was the main college bar he and classmates hung out in back in the day. He describes the rest of the book as a walk through the 1970s, 80s, 90s and beyond. DiLeo’s editor playfully calls a “Generation X pleasure-bomb.”

What began in 2018 as a handful of short stories written merely as an exercise, DiLeo saw a way thread a needle between his various narratives and in the end, create something more extensive.

“The book almost reads as a novel as the stories have recurring characters and sort of all tie together in the end.”

It was slow-going at first due to a fulltime job in Manhattan with a sizable commute back and forth each day. Time was a rare commodity, and so, with a fire lit inside him to bring these stories to life, he took advantage of the commute and wrote most of the book on the Notes app on his iPhone as he went back and forth to work each day.

“When the pandemic hit, I was home for about three months, and this afforded me the time to write more extensively. A good chunk of the book was written in those three months!”

Growing up in the Suffolk County town of Nesconset on Long Island, Dileo had looked at larger schools only to discover it was the personal experience that Utica had to offer that led him to become a Pioneer.

“I was looking at Syracuse University. I looked at the campus with my parents and we were both concerned that it was just too big and that I might be better suited to a smaller campus. It was then that we were informed about the existence of Utica College of Syracuse University. So, we visited the campus at Utica and realized that this was the place for me.”

Mike DiLeo 89 holds copy of his Utica inspired book - There Are Places I Remember

Enrolling in Utica’s Public Relations program, there was one name that still stands out to this day.

“Raymond Simon. He was the king of PR at Utica back then. He was a great educator and a great guy as well.”

Simon’s career spanned nearly four decades and he was among PRWeek’s 100 most influential 20th century people in public relations. He developed one of the first public relations undergraduate curriculums and wrote the first public relations-specific classroom textbook. Today, The Raymond Simon Institute for Public Relations and Journalism bears his name to support Utica’s communication programs related to journalism and public relations. He left an indelible mark on generations of students, including future author DiLeo.

“My four years at Utica were wonderful and definitely shaped me as a person,” DiLeo says. “I always wanted to write about it in some way and this book gave me that opportunity.”

He says those years on the Utica campus led him to many wonderful friends and tales that, before the book, he would regale his wife and daughters with.

“I was young and alive and free when I was at Utica. It was a small campus then and everybody knew everybody. It’s a great campus and still small enough that you can literally get to know everyone. It always felt like being a part of a big family and I am sure it is still that way today.”

The book is available on Amazon, Kindle Unlimited, and Barnes & Noble.