&c, &c, &c: reflections from Steve’s desk 21 - Buffalo Stories Archives & Blog

@#$%!! Winter already?!?

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

I’m not the biggest fan of winter, and I hope it’s a mild one. I’ll take warm over cold any day of the week.

While sometimes I might say I do, I don’t hate winter. Winter is part of our deal here in Buffalo, so I accept it and try to make the most of it.

What really bothers me– what inspires something closer to hate– is the speed with which it all seems to go by.

A very artistic, instagrammy look at Steve Cichon’s snow blower

In the last week, I made a pot of scratch chicken noodle soup, gassed up and started the snow blower, and got the furnace ready and turned on the heat. Mundane chores that bother some people, but for me it’s not that chore, so much as it’s just that it literally could have been last week that I was grilling on the 4th of July, sharpening the lawn mower blade for the season, and getting the fans out of the attic.

Really. All of that could have been yesterday. But right now, I’m wearing 4 layers as I type in the back bedroom of our drafty old house, thinking that I won’t be warm until May. Again, it’s not the layers as much as it seems perfectly reasonable that I should be wearing shorts to take the dog for a walk today, not pulling out the peacoat for its 21st Buffalo winter.

It’s not that I don’t stop to smell the roses. I do, literally. I love nature, and enjoy taking it in. But the seasonal differentiation device in my brain is like an old VCR constantly flashing 12:00. I have no good sense of time, which means time is always flying by.

Flying by, in fact, like a tractor trailer on a dark road in the middle of the night.

When you see those little pinholes of light in the rear view mirror coming over that hill way behind you, it seems like that little spec of yellow might never catch up to you.

Daydream (or night dream, as it were) for a moment, and all of the sudden, that truck is right next to you, loudly rattling past, whooshing and reeking of diesel for about 6 seconds. Then it’s tail lights, until they get small and disappear– Just as two more little white pin pricks of light appear in your rear view mirror again.

Not just seasons, but all the things of life. All that time looking forward to something, only to have it whoosh by and turn into tail lights before you even realize it was there.

I’m not sure if it comes with age or if it’s because we change the way we live as we age, but it wasn’t always this way. I find myself being one of those annoying people who have tell people who are younger than me to take the time to enjoy… time. I don’t put it quite that way, but that’s what I mean. And make sure you enjoy time while standing somewhere other than my lawn.

I wouldn’t want to return to youth. The wisdom and knowledge of age roundly outweigh the creaks, groans, and grays for me.

The one thing I’d love to get back is time that goes by like a Countrytime Lemonade commercial– with twangy music, hazy sunshine hanging just above the horizon, a breeze gently swaying the willow tree,and the feeling that none of it will ever end.

This page originally appeared at TrendingBuffalo.com

BREAKING: Trader Joe’s Inspires Ambivalence

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

This past weekend, we had visits to several box stores on our to-do list.

Since it was Sunday morning, and all of these box stores are each right next to a “box restaurant” where you can get bread-y things for breakfast, we decided to get our Niagara Falls Boulevard visit out of the way before most Williamsville soccer moms are awake to clog the roads and Canadians are still stuck in bridge traffic.

Steve's look inside the Niagara Falls Blvd. Trader Joe's the weekend it opened. — Steve’s look inside the Niagara Falls Blvd. Trader Joe’s the weekend it opened.

There was no line, but I’m not sure the fire marshal would like home many people were packed inside Trader Joe’s this weekend.

There was no line, but I’m not sure the fire marshal would like how many people were packed inside Trader Joe’s this weekend.

We were able to quickly grab what we needed at three stores, and, well, we just happened to be in the plaza that plays host to the most exciting thing to happen to Western New York since Krispy Kreme opened here.

There were parking spots right in front of the store, and there weren’t any Real Housewives of Snyder clawing at each other in a line in front of the store– in fact, there was no line– so we tried Trader Joe’s, especially since we needed to buy something for dinner anyway.

It’s a grocery store. It has a trendy feel, too trendy for my liking, but so does Wegmans where I shop twice a week. They had what I needed to make chicken soup, and they had generic Cheerios on sale. Fine.

There’s my opinion, but people have been all over the map on Trader Joe’s.

They have some interesting inexpensive items. They have some interesting super expensive items. The clerks are either “nice and helpful” or “annoying and too perky” depending on your point of view.

The meat and vegetables were pretty reasonably priced, but you couldn’t possibly do all your shopping there, because the trendy TP looks like its made out of pine cones.

Why do I have to form an opinion on a stupid niche grocery store? We have become a society where you have to love or hate something, and then argue the crap out of why you feel that way.

It’s a store. Some stuff I’d buy, some I wouldn’t. In the 25 minutes my wife and I were in there, three different employees told me they liked my bow tie with buffaloes on it, and three also asked if I needed any help. Based on that, I think it’s fair to say the staff in general is nice, annoying, too perky and helpful.

I just can’t get worked up either way… over a freaking grocery store.

Somehow though, in my ambivalence for TJ’s, as the insiders call it, I feel like less of a man. Like I’ve showed up to a Superbowl party to “just root for a good game.”

“Just pick a team, Sally,” I feel some alpha-male douche snarling at me, and he wants to know about cookie butter and what my feelings are over a lack of “Two-Buck-Chuck” because of our state laws governing wine sales in grocery stores. He hates it, because he has Two-Buck-Chuck in his fantasy league.

I’ve actually been caught in the cross-hairs of a Love TJ’s vs Hate TJ’s battle, with each side trying to sway me with incredible arguments about a grocery store that’s been open for less than 100 hours here in WNY. If only we could corral this passion into something good.

I don’t hate Trader Joe’s. I don’t love Trader Joe’s. It’s meh. But with all this passion about the joint, maybe they should build one in the hole where the Aud used to be.

This page originally appeared at TrendingBuffalo.com

Time to alienate all my friends

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

The other day, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek treatment on my feelings on this shut down of federal government. Today, I’m going to make everyone mad with a more serious analysis of what I see as the problem.

1856 caning of Senator Charles Sumner on the Senate floor.

Most people, I think, would agree with the notion that both sides should lock themselves in a room and not leave until there is a solution.

Most people say that, but that isn’t what most people mean.

What most people really mean is, “They should lock themselves in a room and not come out until the effing morons who don’t agree with my viewpoint see the light and defer to what is obviously the enlightened position, ie, my position.”

Our leaders reflect us. Even if you voted for the other guy, you are part of the environment into which these guys came to power.

We as a people say we want compromise, but are swayed by the stupid ads with the dark shaded photos and nasty voiced guys telling us that “this candidate voted against good stuff.”

Compromise generally appears in someone else’s campaign ads shaded as weakness.

We want compromise, but we want people to stick to their convictions at all costs.

Really, we don’t know what want, so our politicians don’t know what to give us.

Or maybe we do know what we want.

We listen to Jon Stewart or Rush Limbaugh, and we repeat the funny interesting ironic things they point out because they are smart and they are on our side. And then we feel informed. Mostly, those two and others like them, are mostly interested in telling jokes and being interesting. Not informing people.

And don’t think that Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner don’t care about what those two might think about any move they make. They have to care, because they in many ways, set the agenda with their partisan political humor.

So we have placed the future of our republic in the hands of an old disc jockey and a former stand up comedian, from whom over 30 million Americans become informed every week.

We say we want compromise, but do we really?

Reading Facebook over the last few days, I seriously wonder how many of my friends might enjoy a return to 1856, when a congressman walked into the senate chambers and beat Senator Charles Sumner unconscious with a cane.

Both sides have mostly good points. Both have a fewer stinkers, too. Both also sound like first graders talking about how the other guys have cooties.

If can’t agree that at this point, both sides are acting like children, and neither is on a moral high ground, then you are part of the problem.

These are smart and savvy men and women in Washington. They could come up with a great solution that most of us would be very happy with. But we don’t want that. We want it our way, and we don’t even really know what that means.

We’re just as bratty as our leaders.

This page originally appeared at TrendingBuffalo.com

Congress: Who has the more impressive package?

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

When people are fighting over whose package is bigger or smaller, whether it’s taxes or budgets or cuts or any other sort of “package,” I usually assume that neither one is accurately portraying their actual package size in the argument, and furthermore, that promises made about either package will ultimately lead to disappointment.

When two sides are so convinced that their own package– and only their own package– is the only way to satisfy the country, and that they are justified in running around waving their package while bashing the other guy’s package… well, that’s just stupid.

It’s especially stupid because no matter which package we wind up taking, it’s going to leave us entirely unsatisfied… Which only sets up next year’s “who has the better package” fight.

Seriously– both of your packages are pretty weak. Neither one is really worth boasting about. So please stop acting like children bragging that your package is so much better than the other guys’. It’s not.

And of course, whenever people start arguing about packages, it’s the people who have to listen to the argument, or get beer spilled on them, or end up without a paycheck or services for a while because of an asinine package fight.

Please, keep your package size out of your discussion of packages, and act like grown men and women.

This page originally appeared at TrendingBuffalo.com

A man ahead of his time

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

Jack Tapson passed away last weekend.

He was a photographer, who like me shared a love of Buffalo Broadcasting, worked in the field for a few decades, and knew– as it was unfolding– that he was watching something important unfolding in front of him daily.

He started at Channel 4 as a lover of photography and teen technician in the 1940s and moved onto Channel 2 where he started the news film department in the mid-1950s.

For decades, these jobs put him on the front lines of some of the really amazing things that were happening in what was then America’s 15th largest city. Behind the scenes at Buffalo’s big TV stations as well.

Through the years, he sent me dozens of photographs along with some sort of brief description of the shot. As is usually the case, many of the photos are amazing not only for the intended subject, but the background and surrounding scenery, too.

His access to free or low-cost film and developing at work, and the consistency with which he carried his still camera through various jobs he was working, give us a bit of a glimpse of what it might have been like to follow a television reporter or videojournalist on Facebook or Twitter 60 years ago. Just like someone whipping out their cellphone for a quick pic while doing their actual job, many of Jack’s photos were taken while shooting moving pictures for WGR-TV.

Importantly, he not only took these shots, he saved them all these years. Even more importantly, he then shared them, mostly with fellow historian Marty Biniasz and me.

Here are a couple of shots, with Jack’s notes and then some further explanation.

“Here’s a classic!!! Ernie wore a size 19 shoe, Jimmie a size 6 1/2 and Bob Lanier a size 24.”

Shown: Channel 2 Sportsman & Former Buffalo Bill Ernie Warlick; Channel 2 floorman Jim Castiglione; Bennett High School & St. Bonaventure basketball star (and future NBA Hall of Famer) Bob Lanier. Late 60s.

pulaskie_day_parade_redo-Bobby-Kennedy — Senator Robert F. Kennedy, Pulaski Day, Broadway, 1964

“I received a thank you note from Kennedy after fulfilling his request to send this photo and others….similar.”

Shown: Robert Kennedy’s campaign car takes him through Buffalo’s East Side and up Broadway, 1964

“I shot silent footage at his arrival and departure at the Bflo. airport and S.O.F. at Canisus College.”

Shown: Buffalo Mayor Chet Kowal shaking hands with Former President Harry Truman on his way to a Canisius College speaking engagement, 1962. (S.O.F. is “sound on film,” silent film was far less expensive, so sound was only shot for news purposes when necessary.)

Details of Buffalo history aren’t all that I learned from Jack.

Jack and I had a falling out. He was insistent on something that didn’t fully make sense to me. I reasonably refuted a tad, he got passionately angry. I passive-aggressively pushed back again.

If you read through the emails, I think anyone would agree he was acting like a jerk. What I didn’t know though, was that he was really sick. Had I known, I probably would have cut the passive aggressive sort of crap. I did my best to try to make amends with him. I said all the right things, and really meant all that I said. It was too late though, as illness had taken a good grip on poor ol’Jack.

Now we weren’t close friends, I’m not even sure that we actually met in person, but knowing that I didn’t do all that I could have to aid a brother in trouble, leaves me greatly troubled. Just because he was outwardly acting like a jerk, didn’t give me permission to be jerky–less jerky, but still jerky– back. He was sick, that was his excuse. I don’t have an excuse. Without the details, I posted about it on Facebook.

As my friend Libby commented on Facebook, “That is real wisdom. (Wisdom is sometimes accompanied by an uneasy feeling.) (It never seemed that way for Andy Taylor or Cliff Huxtable, but I have found it so in real life.)”

So thanks, Jack for capturing so many fleeting Buffalo memories on film. And thanks for bearing with me while I learned a tough lesson in humility and compassion which will serve me, and the people around me, well into the future.

This page originally appeared at TrendingBuffalo.com

The Art of Garbage Picking

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

BUFFALO, NY – This weekend, walking the dog, I found the best piece of “trash” I’d seen in a while.

This landfill bound wooden box, filled with woodworking scraps, was once used by Rudolph Frey Meats to deliver sausages and other meat products to small grocery corner stores, butchers, and places like the Broadway and Washington/Chippewa Markets all over the city.

At one point in my life, for fear that someone else find my treasure, I probably would have grabbed this 50 pound box, and tried to carry it while managing my erratic and mentally unstable dog for the rest of the way around the block.

Instead, at peace with the fact that someone else might snatch up and enjoy this vestige of long ago East Buffalo, I took the dog home and got the car. It was still there, and I loaded up the box (which I wanted) along with the wood scraps inside (which I didn’t want but will explain in a moment.)

It had been quite some time since I grabbed something out of someone’s pile of trash at the curb. These days, people bring me their junk. I don’t even have to ask, let alone pick. Occasionally, I’ll see something destined for a landfill and I’ll ask to give it a home, but straight up garbage picking I haven’t done for a while.

It’s not because I’m above it, it’s just that my tastes have refined. I have eleventy-twenty-two tables that just need a little… or chairs which will be great with a new… I don’t need more of those sorts of things, and that’s generally what’s in the garbage. Broken stuff.

When we first bought our house 13 years ago, the first big trash day doubled the volume of furniture in our big city house. It was the only way we could do it. Some of those items, carefully spruced up, remain a part of our home today. Most, however, were eventually put back to the curb. A few times, I even helped someone load the thing I was throwing out into their car as they plucked it from the spot next to my big blue tote. The circle of life.

As a garbage picker who lives on a busy street, I am careful to properly display (and even put a “TAKE ME” sign on) stuff I consider to be “good garbage.” Not in good enough shape to head to AmVets or St. Vincent dePaul, but still good enough for someone to get some use out of it. As I said, if I see the actual picking, I’ll even help load it in the car, and give the provenance of the piece to the new owner.

One time a guy was so happy to find this bike that he could fix up for his daughter, I went to the garage and got all the bike parts I could find to help him make his daughter’s day. Garbage picking builds communities.

But there’s a right way and a wrong way to garbage pick.

My Frey’s box was being chucked, in some part, because it was the vessel holding those wood scraps at the curb, part of this man’s effort to neatly pile a bunch of junk from the basement on the curb. To just dump the wood in a pile on this guy’s lawn would have obviously (I hope) been rude, and there was no other clean way to leave ’em, so the whole thing went in my trunk. Since it was big garbage day anyway, I bundled up the wood and put it neatly at my own curb.

For as happy as I am when a guy who needs a grill thinks he can get a year or two out of the one I’m throwing out, I’m just as angry at the junk dealers and metal scrappers, who’ll turn a neat pile of refuse into an ugly mountain of detritus and debris, hop in their Fred Sanford-looking pick up and leave without conscience.

After about 8 years of renovations on my home, my basement was filled with scraps and bits of all sorts of home improvement ephemera, small pieces of wood molding, PVC drain, electrical wiring, copper pipe, window glass, fiberglass insulation, etc, etc. I put 8 years of this stuff into about 2 dozen contractor bags, very lightly filled for ease of carrying. By the time I saw him, some low-life had taken an razor blade and slit about 15 of the bags, pulling out no more than 8 cents worth of metal, but leaving saw dust and little bits of broken glass all over my lawn and side walk.

CICHON PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: Tom Bosley with Glad trash bag, Ginsu knife cutting beer can, Mr. C’s fez

While Mr. Cunningham’s 80’s commercial advice echoed in my mind, it was rather difficult to “not get mad,” because I had, indeed, “gotten Glad.” It was like some sort of epic battle between Tom Bosley and the Ginsu guy in my front yard, and Howard’s fez wound up looking like that beer can.

I hate the shame attached to garbage picking, but jackwagons like this razorblade loser give people pause when they see someone trolling their trash. So by all means, reduce, reuse, recycle. But be respectful. Pick politely. Don’t make a mess.

This page originally appeared at TrendingBuffalo.com

The quest for the perfect cup of coffee

By Steve Cichon
steve@buffalostories.com
@stevebuffalo

BUFFALO, NY – America has been breathlessly anticipating every move I make in my quest for the perfect cup of coffee.

I’ve been drinking coffee regularly since second grade. That’s when, for maybe six months, my brother, sister and I would get up really early to drive my dad to work, so that my mom would have the car so she could drive to work. The early wake-up wasn’t the problem. It was winter, and the heat was broken on the ol’fudge brown 1980 AMC Spirit. The coffee kept us warm for the drive.

This is not coffee creamer. Or maybe it is.

Since then, coffee has kept me warm and sane. I used to drink it with cream, but the two pots a day I’d drink at the radio station to keep me going when I was working full-time and going to school full-time eventually started to become black cups. That powered creamer always reminds me of the can of wax stuff we’d sprinkle on the shuffle bowling game at my dad’s bar when I was little. (He sold the bar to get that job we were driving him to…)

So I like black coffee. Coffee, not a bunch of syrupy flavors and whipped cream. I like coffee flavored coffee. Not Starbucks. Their “Pike’s Peak” blend makes me less homicidal than most, but usually if circumstance lands me at Starbucks, I’ll get tea.

Good Tim Hortons coffee is really good, but through the years, as the franchise has exploded, you get more and more skunkers. I think the skunkers come most from the practice of topping off a cup from a different pot. It’s worth the roll of the dice for a good one, though, on most days, and Tim Hortons is where I buy most coffee on the road.

I think I might like the robust, consistent taste of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee even better than Hortons, but those styrofoam cups taste pretty assy. Especially if the coffee is really hot, I mostly taste the mouthful of chemicals that just leached from the cup.

Since I began my own business and working from home a few months ago and lost access to endless free coffee in the work kitchen, I’ve been working on the easiest, cheapest, tastiest way to capture what’s good about a cup of coffee at home.

We have a Keurig, and I have to say, perhaps my all-time favorite cup of coffee comes from the Coffee Shop K-cup. The problem is the cost, which is 60¢-68¢ per cup. Fine for one, but if I have 4 or 5 cups, and it starts becoming a silly cost. There are cheaper K-cups, but I don’t like most of them, and I hate the rest.

I’ve tried the reusable Keurig baskets, but they taste plasticky pretty quick, and make an OK at best cup of coffee. I even tried cutting open a K-cup and putting the grounds in the reusable basket. Not even close. Next.

The standard Mr. Coffee type drip maker has been a part of my life since second grade. Bleech. That’s the taste I’m trying to avoid. Next.

I tried the French press, which makes a rich cup of coffee, but it lacks any bite. Great flavor, but no punch. Next.

But what’s next? We’ve had this old percolator which we last used during the October storm, and the coffee we made was terrible. Apparently, though, boiling the living hell out of the coffee for 10 or 15 minutes isn’t the way to do it.

Medium heat until it starts to perc, then low for 5 minutes. I found a cheap grinder that does the coarse grind needed for a percolator, and it turns out the cup that came with our rice cooker is just the right about of beans to be ground for 4 cups in the percolator. I’ve settled on Eight O’Clock 100% Colombian whole bean. 6¢ or so a cup.

So Van Miller was right when he used to read those Perkins spots with zeal, and he’d say, “Perk it up!” So that’s what I’m doing, Uncle Van.

It’s delicious, but there are drawbacks. It takes a while to brew, and with a stovetop percolator you have to watch it. You can’t heat the water too quickly, or it burns the coffee. And other people in the house all the sudden find your coffee delicious, which means you’re brewing more of it, more often.

But the percolator is it for now. Am I missing anything? What say you?

This page originally appeared at TrendingBuffalo.com

Murph, you made me feel three inches tall

By Steve Cichon | steve@buffalostories.com | @stevebuffalo

BUFFALO, NY – I just had a birthday. Now I’m 36. Whatever. Life and sitcoms prepare you to expect an inability to move a couch without a two day backache or to find gray hair sprouting in any number of places. These are the expected, time honored facets of “getting older.”

bubbleboys-300x208 — “Murph, you are exactly three inches tall.”

I’m mostly fine with “not being a kid anymore.” Occasionally, things pop up I’m not ready for. But even then I’m fine… usually.

For all you kids out there, I want to warn you about a pop culture throat-punch I didn’t see coming.

A guy… a man… I was having a conversation with, had no recollection of the Bubble Boys. Like none. Zero. It’s not because he didn’t remember, it was because it was “before his time.”

He’s a professional in his early 20s, a big hockey fan, and when somehow it became hilariously appropriate for me to say, in a French accent, “Murph, you are exactly three inches tall,” nothin’ from this guy.

“Remember the Bud Light Bubble Boys?”

Still blank stare.

“The commercials ran in every break of every hockey game for years? Gretzky was in them eventually?”

The Gretzky mention was key. Any Gretzky mention lends gravitas to any statement. With a wincing I-think-you’re-crazy look coming back, I thought maybe now was the time to bail on the Bubble Boys, and just mention the time I sat next to Gretzky on the bench during practice at Marine Midland Arena for a few minutes.

Instead, my brain took another turn. “I think it was 1998 or 1999 when the first commercials came out. They were on for a few years, but the one with the blue guy saying he’s “jumping ship…. to the N… H… L,” and the red guy reminding him that he’s three inches tall, was one of the original ones.”

“Yeah, I didn’t start watching hockey until I was 12,” he says nonchalantly, like, of course, I should realize that a grown man with a beard was only 8 years old when these commercials came out, and couldn’t have possibly been watching games.

If the stupid Bud Light Bubble Boys hockey commercials are too old a pop culture reference to use in mixed company, then why would I ever want to talk to people again?

Now I know how Radio Robert, the Old Timer felt.

All this was amplified by the fact that that the “Murph, you are exactly three inches tall” spot is the only Bubble Boys commercial not on YouTube. It only exacerbates this feeling of disconnection with “today’s youth” that to show this guy what I’m talking about, I have to go to my VHS tapes.

Unless, of course, I’m just a doddering old man, and completely made up the whole thing in my head. Which is possible.

Please tell me you remember “Murph, you are exactly three inches tall.” Please?

This post originally appeared at TrendingBuffalo.com

The Butcher and Preservation

By Steve Cichon | steve@buffalostories.com | @stevebuffalo

I was saddened to hear of the death of Donald Palmer, forever etched in Buffalo’s memory as “The Butcher.” He will remain forever one of Buffalo’s sports and pop culture icons. Rest in Peace. -Steve Cichon 11/22/16

BUFFALO, NY – I love preservation and giving current context to Buffalo’s old stuff. My attic is a testament to my single handed efforts at saving our city’s past.

Sometimes, though, I’m frustrated that we don’t celebrate things as a city until they are moments from the wrecking ball.

The Bisons have been here forever. They aren’t going anywhere. They have beer and peanuts and baseball. And a giant TV screen. Do we have to wait to show them massive amounts of Buffalove until they decide to move to Carolina with Carborundum or Arizona with Teds?

It’s hard to believe that the Bisons just wrapped up the 26th season of baseball at PilotNorthAmericareDunnTireCocaColaJimmyGriffin (sorry if I left one out) Field.

The Bisons’ Most Famous “Bat Boy”: The Butcher at War Memorial Stadium, “The Rockpile,” in 1986.

Also hard to believe: if any good Buffalonian were on Family Feud, and RichardDawsonRayCombsLouieAndersonTheGuyFrom-HomeImprovementJohnOHurleySteveHarvey (sorry if I left one out) asked, “Name a Bisons’ Bat Boy,” we’d all have an immediate number one answer.

No other baseball city in the country has a bat boy turned bat man who lasted through two baseball stadiums and became an icon like our Butcher, shown above in 1986 at War Memorial Stadium.

We love our Bills and Sabres, but our Bisons are a much more Buffalo organization at the heart of it.

Mayor Griffin’s brass ones built the ball park. He just started building it, and sending some of the bills to Albany. And they paid.

The most famous Bisons of the last few decades include the Butcher, Conehead, The Earl of Bud, Larry the peanut guy, and Irv from the 7th inning stretch.

For the record, that’s beer, beer, peanuts, and shouting obnoxious things in unison during Gary Glitter’s Rock’N Roll Part 2. There’s some genuine, real article Buffalove.

It’s too late now, but maybe next season we can get all hipster and act like we just unearthed this amazing gem that is soooo Buffalo that we need to go and look at it, and drink beer. It’s at Washington and Swan.

Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers worked in grain mills or steel plants and nothing will bring them back. But guess what? They also watched the Bisons at Offerman Field.

And many of us went with our dads to the Rockpile. And the “new” ballpark.

It’s like preservation, without having to strap yourself to anything!

I love finding new-old stuff to rally behind, but I like the old-old stuff, too.

So, I hope I’m not alone in grabbing my Red&Blue/Green&Red/Blue&Orange/backtoRed&Blue (sorry if I left one out) Bisons gear, and looking forward to opening day at a home grown institution that screams Buffalo by screaming “WHO NEEDS A BEER…”

Charge!

Originally appeared on Trending Buffalo on September 3, 2013

Thomas J. Dolan, 1942 -2013. His admission of struggle changed my life

By Steve Cichon | steve@buffalostories.com | @stevebuffalo

BUFFALO, NY – Tom Dolan died this week. For the last 30 years, readers of the Buffalo News knew him as Thomas J. Dolan, News Staff Reporter.

I worked side-by-side with Tom a lot during the contentious Satish Mohan years as Amherst Supervisor.

Amherst was Tom’s regular beat for the News, and it was becoming mine for WBEN, as every meeting was seemingly an event.

Board members yelling at one another, threatening physical violence upon one another during meetings.

“Mr. Supervisor, someone had better shut their mouth or I’ll shut it for them.”

In a back office, I once saw a board member boiling to a point where it looked line he was inches away from a slugging another, only to see those two embarrassed apart by yet another board member. It didn’t get reported because it was about the tenth most interesting thing that happened that night in the zoo that was the Amherst Town Council for a few years.

Tom was unfazed by all that. He kept all his laptop components in separate ziplock bags. He showed up a few minutes before the meeting started, pulled his mouse and power adapter out of their baggies, and started to listen and write.

He’d get it all in the paper, stripped of nonsense, and without resorting to the wild sound bites and noisiness that came with reporting these meetings in the electronic media. He got it all in, like a pro, put on his tweed cap and went home.

It was easy to be overcome by the emotion of those meetings. Of course, it was only because of the emotion that I and other radio and TV reporters were there. Tom would get the taste of emotion, but more importantly, the facts of the meeting. The actual operation of government. The real news, not just the stuff of prurient interest.

He had a quiet passion that burned slowly, but intensely. He talked about the best kind of dogs, his beautiful Parkside home, the rewards of being divorced- but remarrying in the Catholic Church after years of work with to make it happen the right way.

He also talked about being at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, a watershed moment for American politics, activism, and freedom.

He was also a neighbor, living a few blocks away in Parkside. It was an honor to be able to tell the story of his home when he and his wife Marion were on the Parkside Tour of Homes.

I think it was sitting in his beautiful walnut-beamed dining room that he said something that stopped me in my tracks and really helped change my life.

After chatting about his home’s history, what he’d done to improve it, his favorite features and the like, I made a joke about how I was going to take five minutes to whip this into a story and get it in right under deadline.

“That’s the hardest thing for me to do,” he said.

What? Writing quickly? Deadlines?

“No, writing,” he said. Some of those late Amherst nights almost killed him, he said. “Writing is hard, a chore, and I don’t enjoy it.”

I couldn’t believe it. Here’s this guy, the world’s most perfect newspaper reporter. Perfect pieces. Dozens of awards, responsible for bringing to light sinking homes and parks scandals. And writing was hard for him. He had to fight through every time he sat in front of a keyboard, to the point he hated it.

Until that moment, I don’t think I thought about writing. I just did it. Fast and easy. It flowed, especially with a deadline looming. It might not be Hemingway, but I’d get it in.

I’ve thought a lot about Tom and that statement since that day.

An ability and facility with writing is a great gift I’ve always had, but it wasn’t until spending time with Tom Dolan that I realized it was a gift, and not handed out to all writers like magnetic schedules at a Bisons game.

And it wasn’t until I realized what a gift it is, to be able to write, that I could decide that is what I had to do with the rest of my life. To put that wonderful gift to good use.

The last time I saw Tom, he really wasn’t sure who I was. Ravages of Parkinson’s.

I told him about some of which I’ve written here, but I think the kind and warm tone may have given as much comfort as the actual words themselves.

We weren’t great friends, just acquaintances and neighbors who got along well and liked to chat.

It’s amazing the impact one can have on another life so accidentally. Here’s to the late Tom Dolan.

Thanks Tom.