Everything Changes a Little, and It Should

The good ain’t forever and bad ain’t for good.

According to Roger Miller, at least.

When I get back to the Buffalo area, I always have to drive around and see the old stomping grounds. First, Tonawanda.

This corner is one I’d been meaning to visit for several years. This is the spot where I learned that President Kennedy had been shot. They always say you remember where you were when you learned Kennedy was shot.  Older folks remember where they were when Pearl Harbor was bombed and younger people remember where they  were when the World Trade Center was attacked.

The world changed for me that day.

When President Kennedy was shot, I was in third grade in Mrs. Brickell’s class and I was walking home from school. They hadn’t told us at school, but they had told the “big kids” who took the bus over to Alexander Hamilton Elementary. They were talking about the assassination when they got off the bus. When I heard the news, I ran all the way home.

The house has changed hands a few times since we moved out in 1964. I don’t know how, but somehow it shrunk in the past 51 years.

Next stop: Kenmore

I decided I wanted to take a photo of the old family home while I was in town. I had heard that it had gone on the market and had sold quickly. Oddly enough, the woman who bought the house from my parents, Judith, was just coming out the front door as I stepped out of the truck with my camera. Since I was standing in from t of her house with a camera in my hand, I had little choice but to introduce myself. We chatted for a few minutes. She told me that she had a meeting  she had to get to, but invited me to look around and in the garage, too. And so I did!

But inside the garage, things haven’t changed much.

In fact, the shelf Dad made from the sign from his steam cleaning business is still there. But, if you want to see it, you have to know where to look. The sign is on the bottom of the shelf!

Here is another street sign that has to do with a presidential assassination.

President McKinley was shot in Buffalo at the Pan American Exposition in 1901.  I always wondered where in the city it happened.

I knew it was outside the Temple of Music, but the Exposition was torn down after the it was over. I could never believe that they would put up such grand buildings for such a short period of time. But they were torn down and houses were built in its place.

This trip, I found where it the building was.

This marker is on Fordham Drive in Buffalo at the approximate location of the assassination. I found it with a wonderful new app I downloaded. It’s HISTORY Here, created by the HISTORY channel. I highly recommend it for finding unexpected things on your travels – or even in your community. Look in your App Store. It was FREE! (Probably one of my favorite words of all time.)

This is the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historic Site, where he was sworn in after McKinley died. McKinley was shot on September 6, 1901, and died on September 13 from gangrene caused by his wounds. Roosevelt was inaugurated the next day at the Wilcox Mansion on Delaware Avenue.

Interestingly enough, there is a direct relationship between the garage on McKinley to Wilcox Mansion. My brother’s wedding reception was held there. As we prepared to leave the house, my father went back to the garage to get a golf umbrella, as rain was threatening. He got stung by a bee when he was back there.  By the time we got to the church, he was having a reaction to the bee sting. He had his brother take him to the hospital and he missed the wedding. But, he made it to the reception later.

Just a mile or so down the street from the Wilcox Mansion,  in downtown Buffalo, is McKinley Monument.

More about downtown in my next installment.