The only way to really get to know a place is to get out there and see it and make use of its resources.

So, I have spent several days down at the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library using their genealogy resources to try and track down some information about Vajsha's family (who was mostly in Connecticut, but had some members in New York). The nicest thing about the New York relations is that they were in Westchester and Dutchess counties, whose boundaries didn't change once they were established in 1683 (except for minor boundary adjustments later on). I found one relative in the "1900 Upstate New York Census" whose name has always been spelled differently in every place that it has been written. The bad news is that there are no records that include the Brooklyn or New York City births, marriages, or deaths in this library. Those records may be housed in some other entity in Buffalo, but may be difficult to get access to unless I am a member of some particular organization. Otherwise, I can write to New York City with the particulars of an individual and pay $15 per item. Sounds like New York City doesn't want to give up a good moneymaker. If the particulars aren't exactly right, well, they can say "No such person found, and thanks for the $15."

Earlier this week, I went with Vajsha to an indoor picnic for new faculty members at the college. I got to meet several of the faculty members, and was quite pleased that there was actually plenty of vegetarian food available. That was very thoughtful, and is evidently a normal policy. Vajsha and I then took the subway downtown to the Seneca Street exit to see the Buffalo Bisons play the Scranton Wilkes-Barr (Pennsylvania) Red Barons. The Dunn Tire Park stadium holds about half as many people as the Brewers stadium in Milwaukee, but the Buffalo stadium really has you right down at the field level. The only thing I really didn't like was that so many balls went foul right into the stadium seating. Other than that, both teams played to win, but kept it clean and honest. I pleased to see the Red Barons pull off some spectacular plays, because I simply like to see skillful, well-thought-out plays pulled off by anyone with the guts to take a calculated risk. We left after the seventh inning because we didn't want to get caught up in a massive crowd trying to get home on the subway, and the Bisons had upped the score 6-4 over the Red Barons. There was just no way the Bisons were going to lose unless they fell asleep on the job. Sure enough, they won, 6-4. Good going, everyone. Oh yes - the advertising from local businesses every time the teams switched who was at bat was very heavy, but obviously family-oriented. I saw Buster Bison up close, and saw Bessie Bison down on the field. She is a blond. Vajsha even got to high-five Buster as he went up the bleacher steps. I got my real insight to Buffalo at the game: Buffalo is a small, family-oriented town. Forget that it is the second largest metro area in the state of New York, with over 500,000 people; you can still have a small-town mentality, no matter what your size. Those of you from New Orleans are well aware of such a fact of life.

Well, I have had an interesting reading up about the history and architecture of Bufalo (subjects for another day).

Vajsha and I went to the Elmwood Street Arts Festival yesterday, arriving at the time that it was supposed to start. We only had to park two blocks away from the beginning of the area that was blocked off for the festival. Our biggest problem was people who didn't look where they were going with their child-laden strollers. If you run into me with a stroller, I'm likely to take a fall on to the street, since I walk with a cane. The cane ain't for show, stupid. I also wasn't too thrilled with people who had their dogs out with them, either, although I did not see one single dog misbehaving. I also had to laugh at a beagle that was bugling (or "beagling," as Vajsha put it) a block away from the festival. I don't know what he smelled, but he sure thought it was important. The one indispensable item that we saw will be made especially by Larry, who happens to be the lab manager at the college. It simply says "STUPID SHOULD HURT." That is such a biologist-oriented thought. The stupid ones shouldn't even survive, much less survive long enough to reproduce!

In an art gallery here, Vajsha saw an oil painting that she wants to get when we have a few dollars. It really isn't expensive at all, and reminds me of some of the Impressionistic works in which heavy daubs of paint were used, with the colors themselves conveying the overall impression of what the eye is supposed to perceive. I told Vajsha that it looks like two shotgun houses to me. In case you aren't familiar with the term, a "shotgun" house is an architectural term common to many houses in New Orleans. The houses are laid out with all of the rooms in one row from front to back. If all of the doors are open, you can stand in the front porch doorway and see all the way straight through the house to the back yard (through the back porch door). Vajsha's parents own just this type of house in New Orleans. A great many of them were built in New Orleans from about 1880-1910, and many have only been altered just enough to put in modern plumbing.

It is very nice (from the aspect of a history major) that the actual terminus of the Erie Canal in Buffalo is being restored to its original state. This should be finished within a year, I believe. Many people may not appreciate it, but I believe that it is desirable not to bury or demolish existing structures in order to "advance." The Erie Canal was astounding in what it accomplished - it meant that highly desirable grain from the Ohio Valley could be shipped to New England and the rest of the United States, much of which had very infertile soils by that time (especially due to the widespread growing of tobacco, which depletes a soil of its fertility within three years of plantings).

More another day -