Our grandparents were force-fed laxatives to cure a cold

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Whenever you start to feel like it might have been better to live in a different era, realize that your parents and grandparents got a laxative when they got a cough.

Check out this 1923 ad.

1932 ad, Buffalo Courier-Express

Move little bowels with this harmless laxative.

Whatever else you give your child to relieve a bad cold, sore throat or congestion, be sure to first open the little one’s bowels with “California Fig Syrup” to get rid of the poisons and waste which are causing the cold and congestion. In a few hours, you can see for yourself how thoroughly it works the constipation poison, sour bile and waste right out.

Yikes.

What I mean by Thankful…

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Thankful to me means accepting without settling, filled with mercy but strong in resolve, happy but realistic.

Thankful to me means lacking in anger but not lacking in passion, lacking in spite but not lacking in a hope for justice, lacking in hate but not lacking in a drive to help good triumph every time.

Thankful is about finding the light up close and far away. It’s allowing the tiniest beautiful things to lighten your heart even when your first inclination might be to leave it all in darkness, but also looking to the horizon– maybe even squinting if you have to– to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Thankful can happen even in the most adverse climates and situations, but it takes a lot of work and fighting through pain and darkness. It’s not always cool or popular to be thankful, and sometimes it doesn’t even feel right to be the only one filled with thanks– but thanks is never wrong.

I pray the light of thankfulness touches us all today and everyday.

An appreciation of the sacrifice of veterans

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Buffalo, NY – This is my ol’man celebrating his birthday at the VA Hospital in 2007.

The Ol'man.
The Ol’man.
It’s very rare to have served our country and not have left some piece of your mind, spirit, sanity, or body behind to ensure the freedom and tranquility of Americans and good people all over the world.
 
The sacrifice of those who have served is the cornerstone of America’s greatness. Having never worn a uniform, I can’t fully understand all the complexities of that sacrifice, but I do spend everyday– and today, especially– in awe of what men and women in uniform have done and continue to do for me personally and for every other American, personally.
 
Thank You.

Whether you voted for him or not: Don’t let it be about President Trump

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

It would have happened no matter who won The White House… Half of America woke up sad, angry, and feeling like the country they love is somehow slipping away.

Last night’s election results should underline one key notion for the anti-Trump crowd.

The President-Elect’s reality television personality has been a red herring all along.

I don’t accept that the 47% of Americans who voted for Donald Trump condone or embrace the vile things that he’s said and tweeted. What it says to me is that for as offensive and vulgar and insulting as the notion of “pussy grabbing” is, the idea of our nation continuing on the same path that we’ve been on is more offensive.

Anti-Trumpers, please let that set in. With a small margin of error, 100% of Americans think pussy grabbing is offensive. But enough people found not only Hillary Clinton, but the establishment she stands for as more offensive than pussy grabbing.

It’s not about Trump. Maybe for some it was, but it was about taking a chance on someone who might start doing things differently around here.

It was the message on the hat, not necessarily the guy wearing it.
It was the message on the hat, not necessarily the guy wearing it.

The hats didn’t say “Trump 2016” on them. Trump’s name wasn’t on the hat. The hat said “Make America Great Again,” and it’s that notion that resonated more than the flawed candidate.

We live in a great nation made up of great people.

My hope for our country it that every last citizen takes the advice of Donald Trump and works to make America great again. Or still great. Or continue to be great. Or whatever.

The way for each of us to make sure our vision of America stays alive is to forget about the politics of personality and to instead fight for the ideas that must be at the core of the America we envision.

The more often we can make a point from our hearts—and not through the prism of making our political leaders either demigods or assholes–  the more likely we are to attract like-minded people from all political persuasions to our personal vision of what a Great America will look like for the next generation.

It’s time for every American to stop with foolish websites and political hatred and nonsense. We have to look inside ourselves to see where our hearts say this country needs to be, and work to bring it there.

The best kind of change doesn’t come from hatred and anger. It comes from love and understanding. It’s not easy—I’ve spent the entire morning deleting paragraphs and rearranging ideas. But it’s worth it. I want my ulcers to come from coffee, red meat, and liquor… not my president.

RELATED: Vote for stopping hate

Vote for stopping hate

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

This election cycle has changed our nation forever– for the worse.

no-hate

Our public discourse has gone into the gutter. Common decency and respect for people with different opinions or ideas has been rejected at the very highest levels of American political leadership.

For too many of us on both sides, our idea of debating the issues has turned into juvenile personal attacks and regurgitating half-true or completely made up nonsense from extremist websites. For the rest of us, who still hold onto the desire to grow as individuals and as a society through debate and the exchange ideas, we’re left doing so quietly in the shadows for fear of some single-minded, hate-filled partisan crashing a free-flow of a thoughtful exchange with boorishness and hate.

The blow torch of burning hate flaming out of both sides has left most Americans huddled in the middle. Too many are watching their ways of life melted and singed by the conflagration of loathing growing in from each side, afraid to talk about the foolishness that is encroaching around them because acknowledging what is happening and trying to talk it through, is like dousing yourself with gasoline amidst the inferno.

This ridiculousness has been 24 years in the making. Mainstream, intense personal hatred for Bill Clinton begat mainstream, intense personal hatred for George W. Bush begat mainstream, intense personal hatred for Barack Obama.

Both candidates are tremendously flawed, even if his or her only flaw might be that at least 40% of the people in the country doesn’t trust, doesn’t like, can’t stand or maybe even hates one or the other.

Hate is never the answer. Stop the personal attacks. Just. Effing. Stop. It’s hate that is putting America on a ruinous course, not any one person or idea. We as individuals have to stop fueling this hate. We have to do it alone, each one of us, and hope that others will follow.

Christ never addressed the 2016 Presidential election, but he told his followers that the two most important things that people can do is love. And love is the opposite of hate.

“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Hate ain’t cool. I’ll be voting accordingly, and I hope you do, too.

An “Anti-Debate” on our future

 
If you are sick of the garbage on Facebook these days, don’t blame your friends and neighbors and cranky uncles and strange nephews.
 
Is it really our fault for buying into the horse$— that our leaders are trying to feed us? Especially when they do their best to put whipped cream, sprinkles, and cherries on it to make it look like something we’d want?
 
Most political debate right now doesn’t involve debate at all. Rather than having a discussion on common ground (ie, debate) both sides throw out carefully crafted facts meant to speak to their supporters… while ignoring most of the rest of what the other side says. Our country is having the opposite of debate, an anti-debate on our future.
 
Candidate A: The sky is blue and anything else is a lie!
Candidate B: The grass is green and anything else is a lie!
This election cycle has also resoundingly set aside the wonderfully American cornerstone that “we’re all Americans, exchanging ideas to the betterment of our country” and put into the mainstream the long-festering notion that “if you don’t vote with my side, you are a bad person.”
 
Candidate A: Blue sky and B has done horrible things!
Candidate B: Green grass and A has done horrible things!
Candidate A: B IS A TERRIBLE PERSON and so are B’s fans
Candidate B: A IS A TERRIBLE PERSON and so are A’s fans
Candidate A: YELLLLLL!!!
Candidate B: YELLLLLL!!!
 
This ginned up hatred makes it difficult for many of us to see the truth. When you hate something, you’re willing to believe anything about it, even outrageous nonsense.
 
After the debate, I wrote we get the leaders we deserve. This is true to the extent that if most of us thought a little more, with a little less hatred, we wouldn’t be in this nightmare.
 
But overall, I think the truth is more scary– our leaders are a reflection of us. Maybe a fun house mirror reflection sometimes, but a reflection none the less.
 
I do think that this will be the most important vote I have ever cast, and I do, very calmly, believe there is a better candidate among the two. I also think that anyone who sees this status as an opportunity to say “That’s why my candidate is better!” is part of the problem.

Buffalo in the ’80s: Cross-border Canadian kids TV

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Having spent my early formative years in front of televisions in Buffalo living rooms in the late ’70s and early ’80s, at least half of the viewing choices (and most of my favorite shows) came from north of the border. We didn’t get cable on Allegany Street in South Buffalo until I was in kindergarten or first grade at Holy Family, so it was 2, 4, 7, 17, 29 and whatever the rabbit ears could bring.

Behind the scenes at the Uncle Bobby Show with Bimbo the Birthday Clown, 1976. (Buffalo Stories archives)

I was part of a generation caught between ample kids’ TV in Buffalo. Rocketship 7 closed up shop when Dave Thomas flew off to Philadelphia in 1978. Commander Tom was still a staple — but only on weekend mornings. Channel 29 offered a wide array of cartoons, but most were C-grade when they were new 20 or 30 years earlier.

“Heckle & Jeckle,” “Casper the Friendly Ghost,” “Mighty Mouse,” and “The Tales of The Wizard of Oz” were all in heavy rotation on WUTV, and that probably would have been fine had a little dial switching and tin foil scrunching not brought the glow of Canadian magic into our early mornings.

In the same way we look on in awe at toddlers’ mastery of smart phones and tablets, adults must have marveled at my skills in using the big clunky separate 2-13 VHF and 14-82 UHF dials and well as my ability to manipulate the foil-covered rabbit ear antennas.

Through the wavy technicolor lines and hissing audio of bad reception, we became adoring fans of programs that might as well have come from another solar system with planets named Etobicoke, Saskatchewan, Peterborough and New Foundland.

Some of my earliest TV memories involve waking up early before my parents, grabbing an apple for my brother and myself, and, in the darkness of a 1981 morning, trying to tune in Channel 9 to catch the 6:30 a.m. start of the Uncle Bobby Show.

Even with the advent of the social media and the proliferation of web-based nostalgia for just about everything, I’m fascinated by the numbers of Buffalonians within 10 years of my age either way who have no memory of “The Uncle Bobby Show” — until they watch.

And somehow, from somewhere deep inside their consciousness, they sing the “Bimbo the Birthday Clown” song along with the YouTube clip — flabbergasted and a bit weirded out by how they know it.

My memory of “The Uncle Bobby Show” was that it was on early in the morning, but it aired during the noon hour for most of the show’s run on CFTO-TV Channel 9. I’ve written extensively about Uncle Bobby and even interviewed him once, but the undisputed king of Canadian children’s television remains “Mr. Dressup.”

Mr. Dressup, Casey and Finnegan held the 10:30 a.m. timeslot on CBC’s Channel 5 through most of four decades. The show was a part of my preschool life, and like many Buffalonians, was a part of most sick days on the couch, home from school.

In my house, we had our own “tickle truck,” much like Mr. Dressup’s. It was an old cardboard case for beer bottles — Schmidt’s, I think. We drew flowers on it and filled it with hats, sunglasses and some of my ol’ man’s old ties.

The only squabble anyone in my house ever had with “Mr. Dressup” was my mother. Many episodes would end with Mr. Dressup making lunch for Casey and Finnegan. This would naturally lead to us feeling hungry and looking for lunch as well.

“Maybe they eat at 11 at Mr. Dressup’s house,” I remember my saintly mother saying, “but in our house we eat lunch at noon.” Or, in TV-speak, after “The Price Is Right.”

Since the show was around for so long, and in the same time slot, most of us don’t have much problem remembering Mr. Dressup. Not as much the case for another show with a similarly long run, which bounced around into different time slots.

“The Friendly Giant” was a low-key show that invited you to “look up … waaaaaay up,” a few different times per episode, including when the Friendly Giant himself would set out dollhouse furniture for us kids watching at home to sit in.

There was “a rocking chair for someone who likes to rock,” which lead to more than one fight in my house over who would get to sit in that rocking chair if we ever made it to the Friendly Giant’s castle.

A list like this wouldn’t be complete without a mention of CHCH-TV Channel 11’s “Hilarious House of Frankenstein.”

From what I can tell, during the time when I was watching this stuff, this show was up against Uncle Bobby, and I think I’ve made my allegiances perfectly clear.

While I don’t have clear memories of watching this show, I do have clear memories of seeing Vincent Price in Chips Ahoy! commercials in the mid-’80s and trying to ask my friends if they remember him from “that show.” I’ve long since been used to blank stares from friends.

Finally, there’s “Sesame Street” — which is about as American as it gets. But we Buffalonians were among the very few who became trilingual through Sesame Street.

When Goldie wasn’t asking us to bring our mommies to the TV, we learned to count to 10 in Spanish by watching “Sesame Street” on WNED-TV Channel 17. Many of us learned some French, too, by watching “Sesame Street” on CBC’s Channel 5 from Toronto.

Aside from “the letter ‘zed’ ” and swapping Spanish for French, there were a few other differences with Canada’s Sesame Street. For example, if you remember attempting the Japanese art of origami after watching Sesame Street, you were watching that day on Channel 5, not 17. These origami pieces were created for Canadian audiences.

It’s of little surprise, then, after having grown up on Canadian kids’ shows, that as adults we would watch more hockey and drink more Labatts than any other city in the country.

Early morning TV in Buffalo, 1976. Buffalo Stories archives.

Early morning TV in Buffalo, 1976. Buffalo Stories archives.

Setting aside the sorrow: Let’s use our history for good

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Somehow, I’ve landed a dream job.

Each week, I sift through hundreds of photos from The Buffalo News archives and pick out a handful of them to write about.

The selection process is a combination of keeping the topics varied, the academic historical or pop culture significance of the photo, and potential for wide interest among our readers. Those ideas run in the background as two basic ideas either raise or lower the stature of a potential photo.

Steve Cichon looks through boxes of files for BN Chronicles materials. (Buffalo Stories photo)

Steve Cichon looks through boxes of files for BN Chronicles materials. (Buffalo Stories photo)

First is something elementary. The better the image in its clarity, its art, its representation of something interesting — the easier it is to pick.

The second idea is perhaps a bit less obvious. I’m constantly asking myself, how can what’s represented in the photo be a reflection of some element of our region’s exciting and boundless future?

While it’s my job here at BN Chronicles to look back at the past, it’s never my intention that we live there.

I recently wrote a piece about Sattler’s 998 Broadway location, which arguably is nothing more than an exercise in nostalgia and the way things were in Buffalo for generations past.

Of course, there is some of that. Maybe in large measure with a story about an institution that was so much a part of our cultural identity for so long. But my hope is it doesn’t end there.

Reaction to pieces like Sattler’s vary.  Some people share happy memories. Others are disgusted that the store ever closed. Still others lament the demolition of the landmark 998 building. There was also at least one person who clearly hasn’t been to Buffalo in a while – someone just seeing the 1982 news of the store’s closure for apparently the first time.

With a story like Sattler’s, it’s my hope that while our memories of a once-great institution are conjured up, that we also be inspired to take that memory and make it a part of whatever the next great thing is for our area.

The 1,000th look at the critical and the mundane: What BN Chronicles is all about

What might seem to be Buffalo’s over-indulgence in nostalgia is really a much deeper story.

For two full generations, it felt like Buffalo was in a free fall, and so much of what we loved about Western New York was disappearing. Our family, friends, and neighbors were moving away, so many of our longstanding local institutions were going out of business, and for a very long time, there wasn’t much in the way of “new and exciting” around here to grab our interest.

The good news is, with all that is happening in this rebirth and renaissance in Buffalo, some of the borderline sad-faced despair we’ve felt over long-gone things. It’s now being replaced with happy-faced hope and a bright new energy in trying to reimagine our past as part of our future.

We Buffalonians are proud of our “Buffaloness.” We like that sense of community, and sharing our love for who we are as people. The reason you always run into someone from Buffalo no matter where you go in the world isn’t necessarily because there are more of us around– it’s just that we wear WNY on our sleeves and love to show it off.

The difference today versus 10 years ago is how those conversations in airports and beaches around the world end. The Aud isn’t a wasted opportunity anymore – Canalside is our future. Twenty thousand men once worked at Bethlehem Steel, and now it’s just weeds – but they are expecting to have that many jobs at the Medical Campus over the next few years.

There are a million Buffalo nostalgic thoughts we all carry. The Aud. The Rockpile. 998 Broadway. The scared-to-death feeling that the Comet might crash into Lake Erie. As our future gets brighter, those thoughts seem less like a maudlin exercise in yearning for the past, and more like a foundation for the future and sort of a secret handshake to the very best community any of us have ever experienced.

As he starts the “Run Jimmy Run” on Sunday, it’s more than just a celebrity appearance for Rene Robert

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

BUFFALO, NY- It was nearly a decade ago that Jimmy Griffin lost his devastating battle with an aggressive rare form of dementia. It wasn’t Alzheimer’s– but the Alzheimer’s Association, WNY Chapter, provided information, help and comfort for the mayor’s family as they very quickly began dealing with a new reality.

The race begins at the Mayor Griffin Statue outside Coca-Cola Field and ends inside the ball park with a party in the Centerfield Pavillion, and tickets to the Bisons vs Syracuse Chiefs for race participants.
The race begins at the Mayor Griffin Statue outside Coca-Cola Field and ends inside the ball park with a party in the Centerfield Pavillion, and tickets to the Bisons vs Syracuse Chiefs for race participants.

Since then, the Griffin family has leveraged the mayor’s memory and legacy to raise money and awareness for Alzheimer’s and related dementias with the annual Run Jimmy Run Charity 5k.

Over the last three years, the race and party have raised more than $48,000 for the Alzheimer’s Association, WNY Chapter. It’s also become a beacon of hope in the fight against the disease.

That’s why Sabres great and French Connection winger Rene Robert agreed to join the Run Jimmy Run team this year as honorary starter.

Rene-Robert
Rene Robert

“Alzheimer’s is a sad disease, and it’s effecting more and more people. I think we should be paying more attention to it than we have in the past,” said Robert, who like Griffin has a bronze statue at the waterfront and a family history with dementia. He watched his mother slowly succumb to the disease.

“One of the hardest things I’ve ever done is putting my mother in a home,” said Robert.

“I was visiting her in Montreal and sleeping on the couch in her apartment one day when she woke up in the middle of the night hysterical. She had no idea who I was and wanted me out of there. It took a couple of hours for me to calm her down and go back to bed.”

The former Sabres, Maple Leafs, Penguins, and Colorado Rockies right winger is sad over the past and scared for the future for himself and his family.

“I have two kids. I have three grandkids. It frightens me.”

His family history, plus 744 games played in the NHL, leave him at greater risk for memory related disease. Robert says he’s been tested and shows no sign of disease, ”but the doctors say it could develop at any point down the line after 14 years of pounding as an NHL level hockey player. Practices. Games. It doesn’t have to be a hard collision, but your brain shifts with every hit.”

As someone who read voraciously about Alzheimer’s as his mother got worse, and continues to keep up on the latest on sports-related brain injury and links to dementia, Robert has valued the research and strides made so far, and pleased to join up with such a great cause.

“The city has revamped itself”

RJR runners tackle a downtown and waterfront course where the scenery has changed considerably during the four years since the first race was run. A lively and still blossoming waterfront was the dream of Mayor Griffin and hundreds of others through the years, including Robert, who credits Terry & Kim Pegula for caring about Buffalo in the same way Mayor Griffin did.

French_connection_statue-WE
The French Connection statue, one of the new additions to Buffalo’s waterfront since The Pegulas came to toen.

“Terry saw Buffalo had potential, and saw something no one else did, because he invested a lot of his own money, and has made a huge impact on the city and the community. He’s done everything he said he’d do and more,” said Robert. “Ever since Terry and Kim Pegula bought the Sabres, this city has revamped itself. You can see it downtown– the hotels built, development, the atmosphere. The Pegulas really instigated the whole thing.”

If that’s true, we have Rene Robert to thank for our resurging Buffalo as much as anyone.

Pegula has often told the story of falling in love with hockey and the Sabres by driving around Western Pennsylvania in the mid-70’s, trying to find the best spot for WGR to come in on his car radio so he could listen to Ted Darling and Rick Jeanneret call the action of Robert, Martin, Perreault, and all the Sabres greats of that era.

“It has to make you feel good in some way. Maybe we helped Terry love hockey, but he’s the one who’s really moved the city in the direction that it’s going right now.”

Sign up for the Run Jimmy Run and support Alzheimer’s Assn WNY: http://runjimmyruncharity5k.com/

For more on Alzheimer’s and related dementias: http://www.alz.org/WNY