Be Fit on Conflict Wardrobe

Well, as promised the other day, things are deteriorating with Lazarus and he is on his way to the hospital for 'observation' as I type. I just got the call from the Assisted Living place- they are so funny, all about 18 it seems, and apologetic about my dad! Well, we will see how this episode unfolds (or should I say unravels!)

So, here is what I did on my time off from my own personal 'observations' of the patient.

Here is the Mildew Motel! Both the room and the creepy crawly hallway where I could scream bloody murder and no one would even look through their peephole.



Next we have some very interesting photos of my dinner the first night there- see the Polish Cabbage Potato Soup and the special of Pirogies and Kielbasa?
You know for sure where you are when you see this so, I ordered a big tall LaBatts and a heaping pile of grandma's lasagna.
Note the 50's diner behind the beer. They have an HO gauge railroad that runs track around the ceiling peremeter: chug chug chug, and I am always wondering who gets up on a 12' ladder to dust off the little trees and rooftops. I topped off dinner with, what else, PIE. They had about fourteen varieties to chose from.


Next, I am headed back to the Assisted Living Place- from now on we'll call it the ALP, OK?- and here is Danny's Buffalo Cuisine! Talk about your oxymorons. But note the special of Chicken Wing Soup here- and believe it or not I have had it, just once, out of curiosity. It is really cheese soup with some hunks of chicken in it and lots of Franks Hot Sauce, the only acceptible brand of hot sauce for authentic wings- and apparently authentic soup now too. When the light changed I whipped ahead a few hundred feet and out my left window is the Bills Stadium.

Next I want you to note the lovely overhead wires strung everywhere- I never even noticed it all those years I lived there, but I sure do now- obstructed sky!

And my high school, one little edge of it, the wing I attended junior high, look carefully and behind the building is a watertower that some brave and inebriated member of the senior class climbs with a paint bucket every year to proclaim his class loyalty. My class opted to paint the driveway instead, landlubbers and teetotlers all. Next picture is my elementary school where I went for first grade, then third through sixth grades. The missing year I was in the new primary school. 'New' is relative- we are talking 1952! The building now is an ALP and a daycare or preschool and some other community based organizations.












I go past the old school Doctor Mann's house. then the municiple building and the police station, and then the Presbyterian church- this picture is of the original half of it where I used to attend. The minister was a fire and brimstone guy who looked just like Ichabod Crane--- and had the same warmth. He was sure a scarey guy, and even back then I thought that maybe scarey religion was sort of 'off'.




Here's the old train depot. We used to take the train into the city for field trips- I remember especially one first grade trip to the zoo the day after I returned from having my broken arm set. We came back and had to draw our favorite animals and I did the alligator with my left hand. Very impressive. Next is Green Lake. They have dug out this end to extend it and in the spring and summer every weekend there is a wedding or, at the very least, wedding pictures taking place in the gazebo. This is directly across the street from the country club where I learned to play golf. It took me 30 years to learn to NOT play golf and the world thanks me still.

Here is where I grew up. We moved here in 1950 from Buffalo and my dad had the logs sent from his home state- Colorado White Pine. A contractor built the shell and he and my mother did all the rest of the interior work. I grew up not knowing that most dads couldn't do this sort of stuff.

Around the corner was my friend-since-third-grade Carolyn's house (she lives in Wisconsin now where she is active in local politics), and further down 'the new girl', Sheila, moved in and we became fast friends until her dad got transferred to Mississippi as we entered high school. We are all still in touch. (Remember these are my 'Road Warrior' pictures and taken on the fly as I drove by- just thought they would want to see these houses again, even blurry and off kilter!) Carolyn could kick her leg up over her head and had an older sister who clued us in on things we probably shouldn't have known. She was the one who told us to pierce our ears with dental floss and ice cubes when we were 12 and it was a very hussy thing to do. NO one pierced their ears back then, it was all so...foreign-ish. Exactly what we were looking for- a touch of being bohemian and worldly and more sophisticated.

Sheila had a knotty pine room up under the eaves of this little Cape where we spent hours and hours talking about the meaning of life and boys. Her dad had a stash of Playboy magazines we would steal, and her mom had been a stewardess so they seemed very glamorous next to my boring family. I remember her parents would 'come for drinks' and smoke and laugh and eat New York State cheddar cheese and saltines from a little board. Sheila's mom is where I got my love of tamales too, even though my first experience was canned.

Next time I am in Buffalo I will take more pictures of more friends houses- I don't think any of them will ever get back any more without the pull of family. And lord knows, there isn't a good hotel, even for us PRIORITY members.

This weekend they were having an RV show at the fairgrounds (down the road a piece and probably the main source of revenue for the Ole Mildew). Too bad I just missed the Cat Fanciers Show, and won't be there for the Greyhound Convention (I don't know whether that is dogs or busses). Coming up in May, when I might possibly return for the Lazarus Run, I could hit the Spring Dairy Preview or the Woodcarvers Expo. Also featured is the Over 50 Show, right before the Hog Preview Classic. I kid you not. Go to the Hamburg Fair if you doubt my word! I will keep my schedule by my desk so I will know who will be residing in the Ole Mildew with me, because I'll tell ya, it may smell bad, but the bar was hopping.