October 15, 2007 by MoPat.

Marti Gorman loves Buffalo, and her e-newsletter shows it, big-time. Here is an excerpt from an email I received with her September Buffalo by Choice (”For those who are in Buffalo by choice, and those who aren’t but wish they
were”) e-newsletter:

“It is such a quintessentially summer evening in Buffalo tonight — block party on Mariner, slip party at the Hatch, a walk along the waterfront with that great across-the-lake breeze, and now hearing the summer sounds out my 1870 Allentown Victorian arched window — voices, and fireworks and music wafting in from LaSalle Park and the yard across the way… I wish you could be here with me in Beautiful Buffalo right now….”

Me, too, Marti. Me, too.

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October 15, 2007 by MoPat.

Comments from Rose (Stachura) Barczak:

I left in 1963 when I was married, moved to Rochester and visited Buffalo often. It was hard to give up the excitement of Buffalo and its great night life. A lot of my family still resides there. We went back often since we weren’t far away. Moved to Atlanta in 2005 and really miss the fresh veggies, fruits, bakeries and butcher shops.

I loved downtown Buffalo when I was in my teens. We will always root for the Bills they’re our team and we love em. Hope to be back soon, but, not during winter.

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October 15, 2007 by MoPat.

Late spring to early summer in Buffalo evokes sense memories: the sight of tiny yellow and purple crocus buds magically appearing atop the white bed of snow; the sound of big rain plops, scary thunder and branch-rattling wind; the feel of humid, cool, soft air draping everyone in promise (”Hey! It’s not freezing anymore!”); and the absolutely intoxicating smell of those fluffy, bushy bud-filled branches that grew in my Auntie and Uncle Art’s backyard near the old UB campus–lilacs.

In early June 1963, when I was ten, I dutifully held a bunch of those lilacs in my lap, waiting impatiently for my father to take the picture already. I wished he would hurry so I could go home and play with my friend Barbie. But somehow, the powerful, beautiful scent of those lilacs sucked every thought out of my head. After the flash went off, Auntie Irene took the flowers and put them in a big glass vase.

I haven’t held a bunch of lilacs in my arms since I left Buffalo. I’d like to think that they are still sitting on the table by the blue-green chair in her living room.

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May 16, 2007 by MoPat.

My friend (of more than 50 years) Barb Henechowicz (nee Cohen) sent me this email forwarded to her by someone who knows and loves Buffalo. Enjoy!

“I’m from Buffalo. We eat chicken wings, not Buffalo wings. Jack Kemp is a quarterback, not a politician. We drink Labatt Blue and love it. Mighty Taco always has preference over Taco Bell. Pop, not soda and Pepsi, not Coke.

They are sneakers not tennis shoes. It’s a sucker, not a lollipop. Bison Chip Dip, La Nova Pizzeria, Aunt Rosie’s Loganberry, Chevettas Chicken, Peter K’s
Potato Pancakes and Ted’s Hot Dogs are all too familiar…not to forget Taffy’s Shakes and Charlie the butcher.

A fake ID is unnecessary, there is always Canada …But we have them anyway. Our bars don’t close until 4 a.m., and we DO sell beer in a grocery store (Tops or
Wegmans), which always makes for early starts and late nights. Jim’s Steak Out at 4 in the morning is calling it an early night…

We never cuss, but we swear entirely too much. Driving in the snow not only
comes naturally, it is fun.

We know what Artvoice and Nightlife are and we either love them or try to burn every copy we see. We start the weekends off right at Thursdays in the Square
enjoying beer, free music, and an interesting crowd.

We lived through Wide Right, The Forward Lateral, and No Goal. Dubbed by Dan Marino as “the meanest fans because no-one actually wants to live here”… We all know he wouldn’t stand one winter up here. We love the Bills (no matter what) and accept that it takes 2-4 hours to get home from a game.

Nothing closes in 3 feet of snow or -20 windchills… In fact, that’s how we prefer to tailgate. The 2001 Christmas Storm that dumped nearly of 7 feet of lake effect snow we still think is a mere second to The Blizzard of ‘77.

We can correctly pronounce, spell, and identify Chippewa, Scajaquada, Lackawanna , Cheektowaga, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Olean , Tonawanda and Gowanda without hesitation. When giving direction it’s not “take I-90 to Route 33 east” it’s “take the 90 to the 33 east”…”the” is not an option.

We are 30 minutes from another country, one of the seven wonders of the world, and even a few beaches. We’re the second largest city in New York.

I AM FROM BUFFALO , a drinking town with a sports problem, and damn proud!

GO SABRES!!”

Posted in Fall | Print | 2 Comments »

March 7, 2007 by MoPat.

My friend Charlene died Feb, 20, Mardi Gras night. She was only 56. She was from WNY but I didn’t know her back there; I met her in Arizona. But I could tell she was a Buffalo gal–feisty, funny, smart and generous.

The only other person I had been with at the moment of death was my dad, who died in a Phoenix area hospital. We flew his remains back to Buffalo and he got his wish–to have his funeral Mass in the little chapel of St. John Neumann on the grounds of St. John the Baptist in Kenmore. He’s buried in Mt. Olivet next to my mom and next to their long time buddies, Homer and Mary Hanson. When I go back in the summer and fall seasons, I borrow clippers and trim the luscious green grass around their small inset gravestones, and pat the muddy soil down into the edge cracks.

Charlene was buried in Sedona, at the most beautiful site of any in-ground grave I have ever seen, except perhaps those of my Auntie Irene Kane Miller, her husband Art and some other family members up on the Assumption Church Cemetery hill near Letchworth Park, NY. My brother Kevin is buried in a Phoenix Catholic cemetery–flat, austere, sunny and dry. My brother Jim rests in a wall vault at Rosewood Mausoleum at the most incredible cemetery I have ever visited, Forest Lawn in Buffalo.

Forest Lawn is full of marvelous sculptured angels and art deco orbs, neoclassical crypts, duck ponds, and beautiful trees. It reeks of immortality–those memorials will be there forever, no doubt about it. People visit Forest Lawn from all over the world and take the tour of the more prominent markers and memorials there. Even without a hyperactive imagination, you can conjure up vivid stories about some of the people whose “leftovers” are turning or have turned to dust in Forest Lawn Cemetery. So long ago they lived, but they breathed the same summer air, felt the same drizzling rain, heard the same birds crowing, trudged through the same crunchy snow, and smelled the same golden leaves underfoot as we the living still do in Buffalo.

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February 11, 2007 by MoPat.

I keep thinking about the freezing cold, windless night I walked from my dad’s house (mom had died a couple of years earlier) to the grocery store five or six blocks away. The trip started in the very small dining room of our very small house on Clark Street in Kenmore. I layered on wool sweaters, wool pants, a jacket, gloves, socks, boots, hat, and scarf, and prepared to venture out the back door. Snow completely covered the back steps, yard, driveway and neighborhood streets. The streetlights glowed, and so did the lights coming from most people’s houses up and down the block. My wallet zipped snug in my pocket, I started walking.

There were no cars on the roads, no people out and about. I was completely alone on the planet, trudging along.

I heard the crunch and belch of my boots on the snow, heard myself suck in air through the scarf and exhale it out again, warm and moist. I felt a thin frozen crust form on my scarf, right over my lips. Soon I had to move the scarf down because the warm air found its way up to my eyeglasses and fogged them up. During the uphill segment of the trip, my breath speeded up and became wheezy sounding. I actually felt hot under all those clothes, despite the single digit temperature.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt safer on a nighttime walk by myself.

Posted in Winter | Print | 3 Comments »

December 31, 2006 by MoPat.

In April, Robert sent me this posting about what he misses. Like many former WNYers, he fondly remembers foods most of all. Yesterday, at a Christmas gathering, I was reminded of the sponge candy my brothers and I ate by the pound whenever we could–someone sent a box to my brother Denny and his wife Toby, and I wolfed down two pieces for breakfast today. Mmm-mmmm!

From Robert Blaney, now of Phoenix, AZ:
 
I was born (1953) and raised in Buffalo.  I went to Mt. St. Joseph’s school on Agassiz Circle, now Medaille College.  My sister, also a Maureen, went to Mt St. Mary’s and then Mt. St Joseph’s for high school.  She lives in Potomac, MD.
 
We grew up on Beard Avenue in North Buffalo and Crosby Blvd in Eggertsville.  My parents moved to Grand Island when I was a freshman in college and I lived on Grand Island until I left Buffalo in 1995.  I have worked in Arizona since 1998 although my wife and I had a home here since 1984.
 
Over the years we have exported Mineo and Sapio Italian sausage, Redlinski’s Polish Sausage, Hoelscher’s Corned Beef, Top’s Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese, Sahlen Hot Dogs, Chefs Spaghetti Sauce and Clam Sauce.  God, I could go for some of that right now…!!!  Also, we buy pasta fagioli from Santasiero’s, bread and pizza from Balistreri’s and crave Nancy’s Mustard although most Buffalo folk want Weber’s.  Chicken wings are another issue.  I think the best now in Buffalo come from LaNova. 

There is nothing better than a fish fry from Hayes on Delaware Avenue.
 
We have shipped, and carried in the overhead compartments, more Buffalo food than normal adults should probably admit.  Worse, I still go back to my dentist in Buffalo…
 
I always speak well of the community because Buffalo has so many detractors.  We still cheer for the Bills.  However, the only thing I really miss is the food. 

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December 26, 2006 by MoPat.

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December 16, 2006 by MoPat.

In the Phoenix area, people are still walking around jacketless in sleeveless shirts. And it’s just ten days shy of Christmas! Weird. I wonder if it has gotten cold enough in Buffalo to spray water on the back yard and make an ice rink there. What a kick that was–to shovel the snow in the middle of the yard out to the edges, make bunkers all around, stomp the remaining snow flat and packed, spray it with the hose, then wait overnight and hope for not too many lumps or grassy patches. The hot chocolate was free, courtesy of mom.

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October 29, 2006 by MoPat.

The thing about “missing” Buffalo is that I’m not in Buffalo, so I can tell you what I miss only after hearing firsthand stories about the awful Friday the 13th snowstorm and havoc it wreaked. And I still believe that, even if you were there and suffered the effects, one day, you will miss Buffalo, too, despite this storm.

I miss waking up and being surprised by seeing snowfall in October. I miss hearing on the radio that school’s out for the day, in more places than the usual rural towns and villages that luck out every winter. I miss seeing the mess left by fierce, unpredictable Nature cleaned up over time–totally cleaned up, until next time.

I miss people who, just because it’s in their nature, knock on their neighbors’ doors to see if they’re OK. I miss neighbors who shovel your sidewalk and a path to your door as well as their own, expecting nothing in return. I miss seeing kids and grownups rolling a small snowball in the wet snow, pulling up packed, dense white stuff all the way from the grass below, then trying to lift that huge ball onto the first huge ball to make a snowman.

I miss walking along carless roads in the crisp night air hearing only my breath and the crunch of snow under my boots.

There are plenty of things I don’t miss, too, but I do miss the character those things instill in the people who learn to handle them.

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October 7, 2006 by MoPat.

In late summer, there are butterflies near the water, beautiful creatures whose fragile looking wings belie their ability to fly thousands of miles when it’s time to migrate. One day in early September, a butterfly flirted with me on the beach at Sunset Bay. I viewed it as a messenger: “Don’t be sad, Maureen!” Maybe it really was angel confetti, or maybe it was just an insect foraging in the washed up seaweed for its lunch.

Either way, it was lovely–shimmering golden orange, velvety black, electric blue, and so graceful and considerate. The next day I took my camera to the shore and waited. Two monarchs showed up. I watched them air dancing for a while, and when one landed on a seaweed pile, I perched in a squat, composed the shot and focused, and waited for it to open its wings. When it did, I took a picture, then relocated to the next stop in the butterfly cafeteria and waited again.

This went on for about forty minutes. When I got the slide film developed, I realized I had about twenty shots of the dull underside of the monarch’s folded wing, and only one or two decent shots of the full butterfly, but those images were kind of overwhelmed by the seaweed.

I got sore knees from hovering on my haunches, and instead of getting the image of a lifetime, I got frustrated because the creatures were too quick for me to capture their full beauty for my book. So what’s the message here?

Is it the adage: “Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it comes softly, and sits on your shoulder”? Or is it: “Next time try a tripod, a beach chair, and some faster film”?

Being from Buffalo, I’m thinking maybe it’s more like, “Beauty, like the summer, is fleeting. So when you come across it, breathe it in, appreciate it, and replay it in your mind’s eye often. Don’t worry so much about trapping it in two dimensions.”

Beauty, like the Buffalo Bills, will come back.

Posted in Summertime | Print | No Comments »

October 6, 2006 by MoPat.

Every time I visit Buffalo I stop at the Albright Knox Art Gallery. What a place! I have heard that it has the second largest collection of modern art in the world outside of New York City.

The pieces always inspire, amaze and delight, and some remind me of my childhood–the same pieces I saw back in the ’60s and ’70s, strolling through with my dad, or after riding my bike from Kenmore, or taking art lessons there and painting with really cool temperas (water paints). I remember being overwhelmed by the size of some of the paintings (Clyfford Stills) and how cool the sculptures were (by Louise Nevelson, Joseph Cornell, Robert Segal, Jean Arp among others).

Does what we look at as children affect who we are as adults? I think it must. I think if more kids sat and stared at Gottlieb’s huge red and black circles over a mishmosh of black swirls (”Dialogue”) or got up close to Camille Pisarro’s pointillist paintings to marvel at how a bunch of dots could turn into a warm autumn evening’s harvest scene, the world would be less violent and people would be much happier. I think if everyone could enter the Mirrored Room by Lucas Samaras (which is back at the Gallery after a hiatus who-knows-where) and see the endless reflections there, the concept of infinity would make sense, and humility as a virtue might make a comeback.

Posted in Summertime | Print | 2 Comments »

August 29, 2006 by MoPat.

I used to hate humidity, until I grew a little older and lived in a place that has none, or very little to speak of. People say of Arizona, “It’s a dry heat.” It is. And so is the blast that comes out of your oven when you open it to take out the cookie sheet. Membranes dry out, skin scorches, eyes holler for moisture. Little furrows form in the smooth places on your cheeks and chin and forehead. They become big furrows before their time.

In contrast, walking out of the Buffalo airport into the summer evening air usually yields a cool, soft, moisture-laden wisp or gust of wind, the scent of water in it such a contrast to the scent of dust I’m used to. It’s like walking through an invisible mister.

The times when the humidity is as high as the temperature in Buffalo are murder, especially if it doesn’t cool off at night. But that’s fairly rare, and I remember those times as special–my mom would bring the big box fan in to try to blow the hot air out of my little second floor bedroom window. It didn’t work, and it made a lot of noise, but God love her for trying.

My past dislike of humidity wasn’t just tied to discomfort, though; it was more tied to vanity. Humidity made my hair frizz.

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August 20, 2006 by MoPat.

I don’t know what the things that pass for tomatoes in the grocery stores out west really are, but they sure as heck aren’t the red, luscious, fragrant, firm, juicy fruit that I remember canning with my parents or eating right from the baskets we bought in the country each summer. We’d travel just outside of Buffalo, where the houses were farther apart than they were in the city, and where trusting people left baskets or jars out for produce-buyers to drop money into. I miss the smell of those “real tomatoes.” I miss the taste and texture, the ripeness that arose out of rich, dark soil and someone standing in the evening light with a hose, patiently watering the vines.

How dare merchants use the same label for those pinkish, flavorless products heaped in mounds in the stores!

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August 13, 2006 by LIZAinBUFF.

And as for eleven year old traveling by themselves to a foreign country on a bus, I also did that in the 70’s. I asked my mother about it 20 years later because I couldn’t believe she would allow us to do this. She said I conveniently left out the part about an unchaperoned bus and she thought we went to “Kenmore Days” with my friend’s father!

I approximate this adventure with the stories of the teenagers who meet someone on-line today and secretly take a plane half way around the world to meet them. Technology has upped the ante.

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August 10, 2006 by LIZAinBUFF.

A “twist” is chocolate and vanilla frozen custard twisted together so it looks purdy. And, if you are from buffalo you know that ‘beef on weck’ stands for Roast Beef on a Kimmelweck roll with salt on the top. The coolest thing I’ve seen lately are the old sugar waffles and suckers from Crystal Beach which closed down at least a decade ago.

Posted in Summertime | Print | 1 Comment »

August 9, 2006 by MoPat.

I just realized I mentioned Anderson’s twice in the last two postings. I swear I am not a shill for Anderson’s. It just always tasted so GOOD, and it was such a special treat to go there.

I used to ride my bike the half-mile or so (could it have been a mile?) over there, twice a day sometimes, for ice cream. And I remember feeling really embarrassed when Barbie Cohen and I were about 5 years old, in the back seat of her dad’s car, and I whispered to her, “Ask your dad if he’ll take us to Anderson’s,” and then I saw him looking at us in the rear view mirror and knew he had caught me asking for something I shouldn’t have. (But I’m not sure why I felt I shouldn’t have. I guess because you weren’t supposed to ask anyone to spend money on you? Weren’t supposed to tell secrets? Weren’t supposed to be bossy to your best friend? I felt just awful. But her dad did take us to Anderson’s.)

Anyway, the old Sheridan Drive sign will be featured in the Missing Buffalo book (see a preview of some of the art work at www.mpkane-art.com). (Geez, looks like I’m three for three now.)

Posted in Summertime | Print | 2 Comments »

August 8, 2006 by MoPat.

My dear friend Sandy just was in WNY and we agreed that we Arizona residents really, really miss the change of seasons. Summer is the alive time in Buffalo, full of life and festivals and fun. It stays light late and everybody can play outside, even if they work all day in an office.

I’m dreaming of an Anderson’s hot fudge sundae, or lemon ice, or black raspberry or pistachio frozen custard cone. Sandy brought me a box of Macintosh toffee, shortened to Mack in this 21st century, but still tasting like summer days at Crystal Beach. Hard to believe that parents let us kids ride the bus from the Kenmore West and Kenmore East parking lots up to Crystal Beach on our own for Kenmore Day in Canada. Imagine: 11-year-olds with no supervision taking international excursions to a beachfront amusement park and being just fine with it!

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July 31, 2006 by MoPat.

In Phoenix, the temperature has risen to 118 degrees already this summer with lows in the mid-90s (plus humidity), and we have a serial rapist/murderer on the loose, plus a nutcase who shoots people riding bikes or taking walks at night, and everyone I know feels indoor-bound.

What I would give to be able to stroll around Delaware Park, maybe catch a Shakespeare play one summer evening, sit out on the porch or in the driveway and say hi to the neighbors, go to the Albright Knox and take in the paintings and sculptures and weird new video art, watch the sailboats at the Marina, take the trolley through Forest Lawn, and top every night off with an Anderson’s frozen custard hot fudge sundae or black raspberry cone or lemon ice.

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July 16, 2006 by MoPat.