Since the beginning of November, many of my friends have taken to Facebook and Twitter with something they are thankful for each day.
This is all very nice, people thankful for their spouses and jobs and children and blue skies and flowers and candy.
I don’t diminish that, and I am genuinely thankful for those things everyday. I tend to think most people who are writing about them are, too, but the way it’s written makes it sound to me like “I’ll spend the next 24 hours being thankful for the gift of sight. Then at midnight, I’ll forget that and be thankful for my favorite Keurig K-cup flavor.”
And since I, too, have a tremendous feeling of thanks for “Donut Shop,” I might have kept my misgivings about these thanksgivings to myself, had my wife not at one point said to me, “I’m thankful for this stuff every day! What the heck!!” I was never more thankful for her than right then and there. Or maybe I was sad that my cynicism is rubbing off on her.
I began thinking, though, about how I could put together a list of things I’m thankful for, while still passing my own pretty difficult test of triteness.
I think Thanksgiving is about “thanks with no buts.”
We have buts for everything…. however, for the rest of the way here, I’m working my “buts” off, and explaining why I’m thankful for even some of the bad and terrible parts of my life.
One of the saddest times of my life also offered me some of the most strengthening and reassuring lessons of my life.
I’m thankful for my dad’s death, which of course left some parts of my heart hollow and empty, but the resulting caring and love from so many helped me to understand that there’s a tremendous amount of love and support from so many people for me always, and that all I have to do to take it in is be open to it.
I’m thankful for having people I have wronged as friends and Facebook friends. Even with their forgiveness, their faces serve as a humbling constant reminder of how not to behave, and how to forgive wholly, and how sometimes the hardest person to forgive is oneself.
I’m thankful for people who hate me and tell me so or make it pretty clear one way or another. It hurts, but makes me strive to be a better person. It also reminds me even in dislike, to never hate and always forgive.
This one’s hard, but its true. I’m thankful for the deaths of two little babies I never met, for the understanding their lives and deaths brought to me about life and living. They may have never breathed a breath, but their lives and the joy and pain they brought were not in vain.
I’m thankful for the daily, nagging pain in my joints and eyes, caused by autoimmune disorders. My achy inconveniences give me a distant view of the terrible and deadly illness so many deal with, with a lot less bitching and complaining than I do.
Similarly, I’m thankful for the occasional panic attacks I’ve endured that I better understand and grow in compassion for my brothers and sisters who from time to time lose some ability to control their minds.
I’m thankful for “friends” who’ve let me down… For showing me how special real friends are.
I’m thankful for those relationships that are almost entirely fake– where someone says the right things, but quite clearly doesn’t like or want anything to do with you. Again, very painful, but I find these people carry a certain measure of pain in their lives, and generally need kindness and compassion more than the rest of us.
Many of these awful situations have given me new insight, and made me, I think a better, less judgmental, more loving person.
Maybe I’m most thankful for people who without some terrible circumstance are inertly good and accepting of people…. I’m working on it, but in so much in life I am doubting Thomas. That is, I cannot accept or know until I see it somehow.
“Blessed are those who have not seen and believe.”
Reformatted & Updated pages from staffannouncer.com finding a new home at buffalostories.com
I knew what a veteran was from the earliest of ages.
I’m sure I started asking my dad about his tattoo as soon as I could talk. “STEVE,” it said on his forearm, in sloped writing, with a Celtic cross underneath. To say Celtic cross makes it sound better than it was. It was a stick figure cross with a circle where the horizontal and vertical parts of the cross met. It was actually a pretty horrible tattoo, which he said he gave himself when he was a Marine. I never heard the full story of the tattoo, or whether he actually remembered giving it to himself, or if a buddy told him he did it.
Dad always told us not to get a tattoo, but it was more like advice than an order. He didn’t like his tattoo, but I don’t think he considered it a mistake. He never hid it, either. I think in some ways that sums up the way he felt about his service in the Marine Corps. He was quietly proud of it, but didn’t like it.
I know he joined the Marines in 1969 as a way to “get out of the Valley,” the poor working class neighborhood he grew up in. He saw the world as a Marine, and had his education paid for by the GI Bill. But he was also struck with illness that initially almost killed him, but that also started downward progression in his health that culminated with his death at the age of 58.
My dad had few heroes and people he looked-up-to in his life, but one was his big sister Tricia. He was a Marine when her kidney disease came to the point of needing a transplant. Dad was on his way home to see if he could be a donor when she died. I don’t know that he ever loved anyone more than her. She took care of him and understood him. He didn’t get to say good bye to her because he was half a world away.
To make it worse, he had one of those awful Vietnam era welcomes. Walking down the street in his uniform, he was taunted and sneered at. Having heard this story dozens of times since I was very little, the image that pops into my head is my father walking down Seneca Street in front of what used to me Grandma’s Donuts (now Abbott Pizza, I think) with people throwing bottles and trash at him. That’s not what happened, but that’s the image my dad’s telling of the story put in my head.
He was proud of his service, but wasn’t about to join a club or line up for a parade. He was the most humble veteran at the VA Hospital, always thanking roommates, nurses and doctors for their service to our great land.
Dad’s instilling in me such a high level of respect for men and women who have served has made me keenly aware of those who’ve been a part of my life who have given of themselves for our common good.
Dad’s grandpa had two brothers die at sea during World War I. Grandma Cichon had pictures of Uncle George and Uncle Gordon and kept her uncle’s memories alive. Gordon was in the British Mercantile Marine on the SS Trocas when a German U-Boat torpedoed the tanker. George was a seaman aboard the SS Hazelwood went it hit a mine. The internet has helped fill in some of the details, but my dad knew these stories, and while was proud of his service, looked at his great uncles as heroes.
But Veterans Day is about remembering those who went through hell and came home. Or even put their time in in New Jersey or Kansas, saluted one last time, and never looked back.
As a kid growing up on Allegany Street in South Buffalo, we had a few proud veteran neighbors. Pops was an ancient, tiny liver-spotted old man who used to stand in the driveway, chew tobacco, and tell us about his service in World War I and his fear of “the gas,” which I now know to be mustard gas Germans used on American troops. It filled the trenches, and ruined the lungs of soldiers, painfully suffocating thousands.
Further up Allegany, on the other side of the street in the big light green house, Mr. Smith used to give us cookies and hard candy, a very kind old soul who was retired from the railroad. Occasionally, he’d proudly show us his perfectly preserved US Army uniform from World War II, or the box filled with medals and ribbons. I know I thought it was “cool,” but I hope i was properly respectful and reverent, too, as a 5 and 6 year old.
A few years later, when I was in third grade, my school bus driver, George, was finally awarded a bronze star, over 40 years after his heroism saved some of his fellow soldiers from Japanese attack. He cut out the photo of him holding the award that was in the local paper, and taped it up in the front of the bus. I was proud of him, and I wish I remember more about his story.
My Grandpa Cichon was one of 8 brothers and sisters who served in World War II and Korea. Even my twin great aunts, Olga and Mary, were nurses in the Navy and Army respectively. Gramps was an engineer in the Army at the end of World War II. He was in the Philippines, and likely saw some pretty terrible things there that he doesn’t talk about.
Great Grandpa Wargo was a plane mechanic in Guam during the Second World War. Indirectly, because of his service, I met one of my favorite vets ever. Grandpa W was in the VA Hospital, and my dad had little use for the rule that kept kids under 15 out of most hospitals. He’d take us to visit everyone, because who doesn’t love seeing a little kid, right?
Well, as recently as the early 80s, when this happened, there were smoking lounges on every floor right next to the elevator at the VA for the guys who were in there. Dad would ditch us in there, and bring great grandpa down to see us. One time, there was an ancient, ancient hunched-over man in there smoking. He was wearing a bright red bathrobe, had the darkest black skin you can imagine set off against his crazy sprouting bright white hair. Dad flippantly asked the guy to keep an eye on us, because he was going to get gramps. Well, apparently, this was just about the best damn thing that had ever happened to this guy.
He offered to hide us in his bathrobe if the nurses got close, his face lively and excited at not only being able to play with a couple of kids for a few minutes, but also to be a party to this rule breaking. We sat down, and he stood up with his back to us. He spread open the robe, so that we couldn’t be seen from the door. He was laughing and giddy about it the whole time, til gramps walked in.
A few years ago, I interviewed a friend’s dad about his role in the D-Day invasion. Michael Accordino described in vivid, terrible detail, sitting in the water, and watching guys run ashore, and watching many of them be shot dead on the beach. And waiting for his turn to go. And watching his buddies die around him.
My friend Ed Little always spoke in a sort of blasé way about his service in the Army Air Corps during WWII, but what he did was nothing short of spectacular and heroic. He would flying along on bombing runs in the Pacific, and using 1940s technology, record play-by-play of the bombings that were taking place for playback on radio back home. Another broadcasting friend, Fran Lucca was radio man in the Navy. His ear saved thousands from U-boat attacks, and his incessant record keeping has made the war much more real for his dozens of grandchildren and great grandchildren. Letters between him and his mother, official documents, dozens of pages of wonderful material for his years at war have been collected and preserved, and I’m honored that he’s allowed me to learn from and make a copy.
Tom Kane was another friend in broadcasting. He was the security guard at the WBEN/Channel 4 building. One day, I noticed that he went from wearing sergeant stripes on his uniform to lieutenant bars. I congratulated him on the promotion, and he told me that after almost 50 years, he’d finally become an officer. He told me about his time in Korea, and how he’d never been so cold in his life. So wet and cold. For almost a year. Being freezing and afraid of freezing to death, but having to jump into the water or be killed. Tom earned the commission, for sure.
Once in a conversation with my friend and broadcaster Mark Leitner, something about the horror of Vietnam came up. He said nothing with his mouth, but in two seconds his eyes told a wretched story leaving detail unnecessary.
My friend Pat Kavanagh, talks about the fact that he and the men he went to war with were really just about children, and that they used to call their 25 year old Sarge “Pops” because he was so old, and really felt like a father figure. Pat turned his sense of unfinished business with the war into a project to honor those who never came home: He collected the obituaries of every Western New Yorker who was killed in Vietnam during the war. Dozens of visits to libraries, historical societies, and private homes later, Pat’s work is another step in insuring that their sacrifice will never be forgotten.
My dad’s big brother, Uncle Chuck, is also a Vietnam veteran, and also lives with the lasting effects of Agent Orange. I hold a lot about Uncle Chuck’s service in my heart, and knowing that he wouldn’t want it written about here, I won’t. Suffice it to say, he’s the best brother man could ask for, a great uncle, and hero.
I don’t know that Uncle Chuck or any of the men and women mentioned above are comfortable with that label “hero,” especially when each of them can clearly see the face and hear the voice of someone who didn’t make it back to the rest of their lives.
Many heroes are like my friend Len, who has told many great fun stories of his days in the Air Force. Clowning around, having fun, traveling to exotic locales for a day or two just ’cause he could. What Len doesn’t bring up is the weeks he spent in New York City following 9/11, and the problems that he and thousands of others are fighting because of it, whether our government admits it or not.
Len, Uncle Chuck, and all these folks are heroes. They were all willing to kill or be killed for not only the common good, but for every American alive while they served, and every American who’ll ever live free.
I know so many newer, younger veterans, too, and their close friends and family. Their sacrifices are much more present in our lives, and in some cases, still open and bleeding. Because the final chapter hasn’t been written in most of their cases, it’s hard to write about them in the same way as I do some of the sacrifices of the more distant past. For most of the older folks, I think while the wounds are forever tender, they’ve healed up a bit, and have, upon years and decades of reflection, become a part of who they are, and in some fragile way, accepted.
My prayers are most with our most recent vets, and really all of those, who are still coming to terms with the hell they’ve endured while proudly wearing our flag on their shoulder. I pray that the final chapter on your service is one of acceptance and an ability to move on with your life, with the memories and realizations of your time spent in harm’s way woven productively into the fabric of who you are.
I have many more friends and loved ones who have served our great nation who’ve I’ve failed to mention here. To each of you: I beg that you please know that while I don’t know firsthand what you have endured for our country, I am proud and humbled to carry some part of your pain and sacrifice on my own heart. You have done what I haven’t. You needn’t have served in war to have sacrificed; you needn’t have never come home to be a hero.
To all veterans, though it’s not enough, please accept my humble thanks this Veterans Day, and every day.
Reformatted & Updated pages from staffannouncer.com finding a new home at buffalostories.com
To save everything because “it’s old” is just silly. To toss everything away because “it’s old” is just silly, too. Somewhere between those two extremes is where most of us try to live.I get both sides. I’m a saver, who wishes sometimes I could live more of a clutter-free life. But a healthy portion of my clutter comes from big piles of important stuff that otherwise would have no home.
Depending on how you look at it, I have been blessed or cursed with the ability to see the possibilities beyond a pile of garbage. My home is a great example. It’s taken over a decade of hard work for my wife and me to make it shine, taking it from a worn-down relic to a stop on the Parkside Home Tour.
Over the last two decades, I have garbage-picked, purchased, been asked to copy, or reluctantly accepted thousands of hours of audio and video, almost always locked away on some sort of format that made it impossible listen to or view. Or even know if there was anything there.
Basically, I’ve been collecting “potential.”
Twice I’ve garbage-picked boxes of old film reels. These boxes were in the garbage for good reason; the film was infected with “vinegar syndrome,” a decomposition of the materials in the film, which renders it unviewable. Worse, one “vinegared” film can jump start the degrading process in other nearby films as well.
The relatively small group of folks who had decided to chuck these boxes has literally thousands of reels of film to worry about. As a member of that group I agreed. But as an individual, I decided that I couldn’t see this film simply thrown away. I garbage picked the film, then spend lots of time and money picking out the few good bits from the mangled messes inside those decaying boxes and film canisters, cleaning those good bits, then properly storing them to avoid more vinegar problems and further degrading.
The same is true of a pile of old video cassettes. The TV station I was working at was taking “the best” of some of the video that was on an old, dying format of videotapes, and dubbing them to the format they were then using. It made sense, as these dubs were being made on the station’s last working machine that played the old format tapes. The old tapes were being hauled to the dumpster. I grabbed as many as I could for “safe keeping.”
In both of these cases, I was holding onto what I knew was great video, but had no means to share it or even watch it. In some cases, this stuff had been in my possession for over a decade. Waiting.
Having been lucky enough to turn a bit of a profit from my book “Irv! Buffalo’s Anchorman: The Irv, Rick, and Tom Story,” I gathered up most of that film, and many of those video tapes, along with others that I’d copied or recorded myself over the years, and sent them off to be properly and professionally digitized. A painstaking and expensive process, but one that was the end result of saving them from the trash in the first place– whether I knew it at the time or not.
Being able to treat my relatively small collection with a great deal of care and respect has allowed me to begin sharing some interesting moments reported and recorded by Buffalo television journalists over the last 60 years. You’re seeing the fruits of it on YouTube.
A Stan Barron obituary piece was the first item from the hours of “new” old video I shared…
The second was a true Western New York treasure. Who among us in Buffalo hasn’t replied with a sarcastic “Fun? Wow!” when asked a question? The phrase, of course, comes from TV commercials for Fantasy Island, which ran over and over and over and… I can remember asking my parents to go to “Fun Wow,” not realizing the actual name of the place.
The iconic commercial forever ensconced the phrase “Fun… WOW!” in our collective lexicon. Type “Fantasy Island” into Google, and the term “fun wow” follows as a suggested search term. Some how the commercial has eluded the Internet, until uncovered in that pile of tapes that time had forgotten was remastered.
There are two wonderful memories supplied, and there’s plenty more to come as well. Literally hundreds more quick videos to come for all of us to pause and remember for a moment.
Video especially has a great power to transport us back to another time and place like no other medium. That’s why I can honestly say that I don;t think I’ve ever been so excited about a project as the one I’m embarking on here in putting this video online to share with the world.
What it comes down to for me is…. my stuff is useless unless it can be of some use to somebody. I’ve already seen the smiles from these small bits already released that proves the usefulness. I won’t make a million dollars on my finds… In fact, I’m in the red getting them ready to share. But it really hurts my brain to know that many of the wonderful archival videos you’ll see, in fact, much of what is posted at staffannouncer.com, could have just as easily made it’s way to the land fill.
No matter where you fall on the “saver/saves-nothing” scale, I ask you to join me in finding good use for your saved stuff, or finding a good home for the stuff you want to get rid of.
One man’s trash can become an entire community’s treasure.
Reformatted & Updated pages from staffannouncer.com finding a new home at buffalostories.com
This page first appeared on staffannouncer.com on September 19, 2012.
BUFFALO, NY – It was thirty years ago today, September 19, 1982. I was in my second week of kindergarten, and the last editions of the Courier-Express were hitting Western New York front stoops with a thud. It was a thick Sunday edition, and most of the “A” section was dedicated to the forever silenced presses of the liberal morning newspaper.
This is page is simply that A section, presented one page at a time. Click on each page for a larger, easier to read version. I photographed, then edited each page. If anyone has a better idea for “scanning” newspapers, I’d love to hear it… and maybe would do more.
Reformatted & Updated pages from staffannouncer.com finding a new home at buffalostories.com
BUFFALO, NY – For the second half of the twentieth century, industry was on a steady decline in Buffalo– but it was really at it’s height when Fortune Magazine did a 10-page cover story on manufacturing and the industrial might of Buffalo and Western New York in its July 1951 issue.
The Frederick Franck painting of Buffalo’s waterfront and downtown is great by itself, but the 27 photos of humming industry, almost half in color, and the rich accompanying text show the general sense of optimism about the future of the Niagara Frontier just after World War II.
There’s even a reference to one corporation deciding to build a factory elsewhere because there just weren’t enough people looking for work in Buffalo.
Outside of a few big names, many of the mid-sized factories that came and went here are all but forgotten to the collective memory. Buffalonians often use “Bethlehem Steel and GM” as shorthand for the providers of thousands of blue collar jobs that were once plentiful in Western New York.
And while those two giants may have employed 30,000 men here at the height of it, there were more hard working Western New Yorkers punching a clock in dozens and hundreds of other smaller factories. Large corporations and mom and pop outfits.
As you’ll read below, ‘the 200,000 factory workers (of Buffalo) make everything from pig iron to pretzel benders.’ It also says that Buffalo is heavily Polish, mostly Catholic, and anti-Red.
Just like many of you, my own family history is reflected in these photos. My great-grandfather worked at Westinghouse, my grandfather scooped grain at General Mills. My father-in-law worked for Hooker Chemical.
Of course, the mere mention of Hooker is a reminder of what a truly mixed blessing the high paying jobs of dirty industry was in so many cases. Western New York became ground zero for one of the first disasters to call attention to the disposal of toxic waste. The the company was found negligent, along with the City of Niagara Falls, in what was to become known simply as ‘Love Canal.’
Enjoy this look at Buffalo’s “fascinating industrial kaleidoscope,’ and make note that the photographer on this story was Victor Jorgensen, more famed for his V-J day shot of a sailor and nurse kissing in Times Square.
General Mills: The world’s biggest grain plant
American Brass
Wickwire Spencer
Fedders-Quigan
AMF: American Machine & Foundry, bowling pin setters and pretzel makers
Allan Herschell
Wood & Brooks
Rudolph Wurlitzer Co
Richardson Boat
Niagara Machine & Tool
Worthington Pump
Symington-Gould
Chevrolet Tonawanda Engine
Ford Stamping Hamburg
Birge Wallpaper
Kittinger Furniture
Irving Airchute
American Optical
Sylvania Electric
Westinghouse
Western Electric
Big double boiler at Durez Plastics cooks plastic resins
Carborundum
Hooker Electrochemical
The white hot glow of Vanadium’s Electric furnaces
Reformatted & Updated pages from staffannouncer.com finding a new home at buffalostories.com
Buffalo, NY – As the Catholic Church gets ready to make the first major changes to the Mass in a few generations, we now look back at the mass before the last big change, the granddaddy of ’em all… Those made at The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, usually known as Vatican II.
There were many important, substantive changes made at that series of meetings held in Rome from 1962-65, but the one that had the greatest, most immediate effect on every day Catholics, was the introduction of vernacular languages into the Mass.
Up until 1967, Catholic Masses were still said in Latin, and were mostly said by a priest facing away from the congregation, and facing the tabernacle. The decisions made at the Vatican II opened up mass for more lay participation in the service, and allowed a greater number of people to take an active part by being able to listen and understand the Mass.
This missal, obviously meant for children, gives some great illustrations, the basic outline and explanation of the old Mass, and many of the old Latin responses that were changed to the ones that are about to be changed again now about four decades later. The book was necessary, because, again, nearly everything was said in Latin, and a young child certainly wouldn’t be able to follow along.
Remember Your Sunday Mass Missal? In a plastic binder like this one, you could carry a rosary, scapulars, prayer cards, and your missal
Note that the last page is a prayer to be said for those being persecuted in Russia. These prayers were added to the mass by Pope Pius X, and it was ordered that they be said in prayer for those in Soviet Russia by Pope Pius XI in the 1920s.I’m not sure where I picked up this particular book, but it was originally owned by George Clemens, who made his communion at Annunciation Church, Lafayette Avenue in Buffalo, in 1962. There was a George Clemens born in Buffalo in 1954, and died in 1987, living in the same zip code as Annunciation Church, so that could very well have been him. Again, I don’t exactly remember where this book came from, but it was likely with a pile of other things.
Why the Change?
In 1963, The Vatican Council decreed the following:
“[T]he rite of the Mass is to be revised … the rites are to be simplified, due care being taken to preserve their substance. Parts which with the passage of time came to be duplicated, or were added with little advantage, are to be omitted. Other parts which suffered loss through accidents of history are to be restored to the vigor they had in the days of the holy Fathers, as may seem useful or necessary. The treasures of the Bible are to be opened up more lavishly so that a richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God’s word … A suitable place may be allotted to the vernacular in Masses which are celebrated with the people … communion under both kinds may be granted when the bishops think fit…as, for instance, to the newly ordained in the Mass of their sacred ordination, to the newly professed in the Mass of their religious profession, and to the newly baptized in the Mass which follows their baptism…”
The next year, biblical readings and the prayers of the faithful where introduced in local languages, as were the ‘Our Father,’ and other chants and parts of the Mass in which the people participated.
In 1967, the canon of the Mass was allowed to be said audibly, and in vernacular languages, and several of the vestments previously required of priests were made optional.
The Mass was further changed, to the service now familiar to most Catholics, in 1970.
Read more in a very thorough wikipedia article on The Tridentine Mass, also known as the Latin Mass.
Here at staffannouncer.com, we have dozens of church anniversary booklets, and other items from churches all over Western New York “on the pile” of great items to shared right here at your home for Buffalo’s pop culture memories.
Reformatted & Updated pages from staffannouncer.com finding a new home at buffalostories.com
BUFFALO, NY (staffannouncer.com) – Quite simply, the most fun I’ve had in nearly two decades of working in radio and television. Bar none. And six years later, people still talk to me about the show. And I wasn’t even on the air.
Mike Robitaille
Jim Kelley
Mike Schopp
Howard Simon
Steve Cichon, Program Director/Producer
Ricky Jay, Sports Ticker Updates, Jerk.
In August 2000, Adelphia Communications completed it’s purchase of country music station 107.7 The Bullet, WNUC. Much of the staff and equipment were moved to a brand new studio, carved out of the former garage of the Empire Sports Network. WNSA Radio was born, to carry the play-by-play of the Buffalo Sabres, and to compete with WGR in the Buffalo Sportstalk game.
Over the 4 years the station was on the air, there were numerous changes at almost every on-air and behind the scenes position, save two: Jim Kelley and Mike Robitaille. Every hockey game day. Sharpshooters. Must. Listen. Radio. “Better than the game itself,” as Jim used to say, especially when Sabres ownership was in question, and the Sabres were particularly bad.
From Day One, til the station became 107.7 The Lake, everyone knew the two hours leading up to Sabres pregame would be the most informative and entertaining radio they’d hear all day. These guys, Kelley and Roby, were old friends, old pros, and two of the funniest people you’d ever want to meet. Two legends in their own time.
The show was hosted by Mike Schopp at first, and later, by Howard Simon, I was the guy who pushed the buttons, and played the occasional sound effect, and Ricky Jay, Chris Atkins, Neil McManus, Jay Moran, Doug Young, Zig, and probably a few others did sports ticker updates during the time slot. But the show was Mike and Jim. They really brought out the best in one another. It truly was better than the game itself.
I’ve heard Roby say over and over again for the 30 years he’s been talking hockey on radio and TV, that if you have a good defense partner, that your comfortable with, it’s like stealing money on the ice. Each guy knows where the other one is going to be, what his next move will be.
That’s what listening to those to guys together, every hockey game day for 4 years, was like. It was pure, and it was raw, and it was great. They transcended sports talk, and even radio. I’m not speaking in hyperbole here, but for me, listening was like watching ballet or listening to great music. Masters, but not arrogantly erudite. These two Buffalo hockey greats… talking on the radio, made everyone listening feel like they were in on the conversation.
It’s been a long time since that show was on the air. Since then, I’ve spent hours talking with Roby, Jim Kelley, Schopp, and Howard about what a great time we had with that show, and how people still talk to us about it. Jim, God rest his soul, was the most vocal about it. For all his accomplishments in his professional life (He’s in the Hockey Hall of Fame, for crying out loud!) I know he counted his time on the Sharpshooters as some of the best spent of his journalistic life. there are thousands of fans who agree.
I was blessed to hear just about every episode of the show from the catbird’s seat in the control room, and got to hear and be a part of the even better, somewhat more R-rated show that went on during the commercial breaks. I saved dozens and dozens of hours of sharpshooters shows, and I’m glad I did. I’m also glad that I can share some of them here.
So sit back and enjoy some Sharpshooters, some Jim Kelley, and some Mike Robitaille. Its interesting to hear the gameday specifics from a decade or more ago, but listen past it for the joy that was had and shared on this show.
Remembering Jim Kelley
Jim Kelley 1949-2010
Longtime Buffalo Sports writer and Hockey Hall of Famer Jim Kelley died after a long fight with cancer. He spent decades as a no-holds-barred unforgettable writer and media personality. He was the kind of columnist that when he wrote in the Buffalo News, you felt like you should cut it out and keep it.
Whether in the paper, on the radio, or on TV over the last three decades, Kelley capsulized EXACTLY what you were thinking, but did it with razor sharp English and that wise-guy grin that was a trademark of his South Buffalo repetoir.
At his heart, Jim was a South Buffalo kid who spent his childhood sneaking into the Aud to watch the AHL Bisons. That guy was always there. But also there, was his amazing ability to connect with every day people, and unparalleled ability to turn a phrase that always seemed to fit perfectly. The combination of those assests, and working like a brute, allowed him to climb his way up from News copy boy, to general assignment sports reporter, to Sabres beat reporter and then sports columnist.
Having and known and worked with Jim for close to 20 years, I can tell you there may not be anywhere else in media someone more loyal, more knowledgable, more hilarious, more credible, and more brutally honest than was my friend Jim Kelley. He never pulled a punch.
I had the great pleasure of doing Jim a personal favor about 7 years ago, which I would have likely long forgotten, had he not brought it up every time we talked. “I owe you,” he’d say, even as he underwent treatment for cancer, and even as he was coming to the realization the treatments weren’t helping, and the the end was near.
I owe you, he’d say. Jim, we all owe you. I don’t know that he could have packed more into a life cut way too short. All I can say is I’m glad to have known him, and that I’m a better man for it.
Listen to The Sharpshooters
Sharpshooters
December, 2001 Mike Schopp, Jim Kelley, Mike Robitaille. On this show, the guys are looking through piles of old hockey cards from the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and talking about the memories that came up with each name and each card. My favorite part of this show, and watching Roby pull a card, laugh quietly to himself, and put the card off to the side. we were treated to some great stories in the commercial breaks this day. Jim and Roby both in fine story telling form. I’m glad I didn’t embarrass myself, hearing my voiceover on the open to the show.
More on the audio above:
Sharpshooters 2001: Mike Schopp with Roby & Jim. This is a great show, just thinking about what’s missing from hockey “in today’s game.” The guys share some of their thoughts, and interact well with callers as well.
Sharpshooters 2001: Mike Schopp with Mike Robitaille and Jim Kelley. This show was not only about hockey, and not only about sports, which was one reason why the show was great. Here’s classic Kelley, railing against the political lethargy is Western New York. I told Jim more than once, I’d quit my job to work for his campaign.
Sharpshooters, November 2002: Howard Simon, Jim Kelley, Mike Robitaille. Howard and Roby argue about a lack of player moves on the Sabres, and Roby explains, to the merriment of Jim, that one can’t suck and blow at the same time.
Sharpshooters, November 2002: More from Howard, Jim and Roby… This time as they join Fan TV for a segment. I don’t think I have any video of the Sharpshooters on Empire, which is really too bad.
Hockey Night in Buffalo, April 1995: This one is from the first time Howard, Jim and i worked together… Then-WBEN Sports Director Howard Simon hosts Hockey Night in Buffalo on WBEN, with then-Buffalo News Hockey Writer Jim Kelley, on the day the Sabres debuted the black and red uniforms at the Aud.
Remembering Jim Kelley: December, 2010 This is a marriage of two Jim Kelley obituary stories I produced, which ran the day after Jim passed away.
Reformatted & Updated pages from staffannouncer.com finding a new home at buffalostories.com
BUFFALO, NY- As the Buffalo Sabres celebrate the team’s 40th Anniversary season, staffannouncer.com celebrates the voices that have brought us Sabres hockey for those four decades, over televisions connected to an antenna, TVs connected to a satellite dish, or from a transistor radio under the pillow for a late night West Coast swing in Winnipeg or with the Golden Seals.
The 1980s Sabres Broadcast Team:Rick Jeanneret, Ted Darling, Mike Robitaille, and Jim Lorentz. (Buffalo Stories archives)
On this page, we bring you the Voice of the Buffalo Sabres, Ted Darling, as he narrates the story of the 1975 Sabres Stanley Cup Season, featuring his own play-by-play calls and those of his broadcast partner Rick Jeanneret.
Ted Darling’s smooth voice and exciting yet still authoritative call of Sabres Hockey was heard on radio and TV from the team’s inception in 1970, through 1991, when illness forced him from the booth. Rick Jeanneret, who for generations of Sabres fans is the voice most associated with the excitement of Sabres Hockey, will to this day demur when called the ‘Voice of the Sabres,’ explaining that title belongs only to Ted Darling.
Prior to becoming the Sabres first play-by-play man in 1970, Darling was the studio host for the English-language Hockey Night in Canada broadcasts of the Montreal Canadiens games. His genuine excitement for what he was seeing on the ice, and the stunning pace with which he delivered the play-by-play certainly added to the buzz and excitement of NHL hockey as it was played in Buffalo’s Memorial Auditorium. This was true especially in an era when a play-by-play man’s description was vital: only a handful of games were televised, and the opening day capacity of the Aud before for the oranges were added was in the 10,000 range.
Tim Horton, perhaps now better known for coffee, was a veteran defenceman for the Buffalo Sabres when he died in February, 1974, after a traffic accident on the QEW driving back to Buffalo from Toronto, following a game with the Leafs. Horton was a mentor for many of the young defencemen on the Sabres, including Mike Robitaille and Jim Schoenfeld. The year after Horton’s death, the Sabres made the Stanley Cup Finals. (Buffalo Stories archives)
Like only few other voices, Darling’s is one that uniquely brings Buffalonians back to a different time. Just like hearing Irv, Rick or Tom… Or Van Miller… Or Danny Neaverth… there’s that feeling like home when you hear Ted Darling. His voice is like the gentle whirr of the AM&A’s escalator, or the taste of a Crystal Beach loganberry. If you close your eyes, it’s one of those things that can actually take you back through time for a few moments…
Ted was an original. Ted was a good man and a good friend. Though some in the press reprehensibly said that he was forced from the broadcast booth by alcoholism, it was actually Pick’s Disease, a rare form of dementia which manifests itself similarly to Alzheimer’s Disease, which lead Ted to leave broadcasting. He died from the disease in 1996. Those who knew him, love him. Those who listened to him, loved him. Buffalo loves him still.
Close your eyes now, for a moment, and remember Sabres hockey the way it was…..
Listen to Ted Darling!
Narrated by Ted Darling, these two tracks are Side One and Side Two of an album put out by the Sabres and WGR Radio celebrating the Sabres 1975 season.
Side One is a recap of the regular season. Side Two is a recap of the 1975 playoffs, including the Stanley Cup Finals vs The Flyers.
You also hear Ted’s voice along with Rick Jeanneret and Stan Roberts on “Memorable Sabre Highlights,” the 45rpm single record put out by WGR Radio following the 1975 season.
The highlights were on the “B” side of Donna McDaniels’ “We’re Gonna Win That Cup.”
Reformatted & Updated pages from staffannouncer.com finding a new home at buffalostories.com
The view of Seneca Street from the Cichon’s porch on Fairview Place. The building to the left is Heidi’s Tuxedo, since burned down. My great grandfather lived in an apartment in the yellow house on the right.
BUFFALO, NY – For me, hearing the name ‘Stan Jasinski’ conjures up images of my grandfather, sitting on his South Buffalo porch listening to cassette tapes of polka radio shows he had taped the previous weekend. Ed “Edziu” Cichon would sit out there, looking at the comings and goings on Seneca Street with a serene smile on his face, enjoying the music, his grandkids, and life in general.
It was a great break for Gramps, from his numerous jobs- from tinsmith at Buffalo Color and National Aniline, to ticket taker for the Bills and Sabres, to bet taker at Buffalo Raceway.
For most of my generation, I would imagine thoughts of Stan Jasinski beckon thoughts of grandparents, and this is true for Edmund Haremski as well.
Stan Jasinski, WKBW, circa 1955.
His family owned Lucki-Urban Furniture, sponsors of Jasinski’s broadcasts from the 50s-90s. He remembers playing the two transcription records from which these audio clips came in his grandma’s basement as a little guy.
The half hour program was recorded on these transcription records, sometime before Christmas Day 1954, for playback on that date. The program is completely on Polish, save the opening and closing voiceover by an WKBW staff announcer, perhaps Larry Brownell.
For those who remember listening to Jasinski near the end of his broadcast career as I do, his cadence and voice is amazingly consistent, sounding virtually identical, and very much recognizable, 40 years earlier.
You’ll hear Stan speaking between the songs, and if you’re like me– with a very limited understanding of Polish– The only words you’ll understand are a few numbers, and the words “Lucki-Urban’ and “Stromberg-Carlson,” the latter being a manufacturer of some of the finest radios of that era.
You’ll also hear ‘Stas’ singing along with the Paderewski Singing Society, working Lucki-Urban into Polish Christmas carols, including a Polish version of Jingle Bells.
Pada Snieg-– Polish Jingle Bells.
Stan Jasinski’s Complete Christmas 1954 broadcast on WKBW Radio, with the Paderewski Singing Society.
After agreeing to give a lecture at Buffalo’s Forest Lawn Cemetery about some of the city’s great retailers of the past, I was deluged with people offering up their memories, and thirsty for the memories of the stores of Buffalo’s grand old stores.
By Steve Cichon
The Frederick Franck painting of Buffalo’s waterfront and downtown is great by itself, but the 27 photos of humming industry, almost half in color, and the rich accompanying text show the general sense of optimism about the future of the Niagara Frontier just after World War II.
Listen to Ted Darling!
