A Magical Weekend

Together with a culture of work, there must be a culture of leisure as gratification. To put it another way: people who work must take the time to relax, to be with their families, to enjoy themselves, read, listen to music, play a sport.

-Pope Francis

An hour and thirteen into a cattle call that will require maybe five minutes with the judge. A ridiculous waste of time. Yet another reason to get out of this business soon.

So far I'm the second oldest lawyer on the Zoom meeting. The oldest was 74, a grouchy old litigator who seemed to enjoy being irascible. Those folks are out there. They can have all this.

But this weekend was pure magic, as good as it gets.

Saturday midday we flew out of KELM, bound for Buffalo to drop off the Columbia for a little maintenance. The weather cooperated, with a high stratus, smooth air, and beautiful fall foliage for the 34 minute flight, which included flying over Letchworth State Park and the falls on the Genesee River, long recognized as one of the most visually stunning parks in America.

Once on the ground in Buffalo, ground control sent us to the wrong place, and the grouchy lady at Signature Air gave us all kind of hell for clogging up her ramp. We taxiied right behind the team jet of the Detroit Red Wings, who were in town for a game against the Sabres. Very cool.

Finally we parked, and a nice young man drove us over to the rental car counter, and soon we were on our way to East Aurora and the Roycroft Inn.

I've wanted to stay at the Roycroft for years, and was amazed that they had one room left on a Bills home weekend. The place was opened in 1905 as part of the community established a decade before by Elbert Hubbard, one of my favorite epigrammatists of the last century. Hubbard had this idea of creating a colony of artists, writers, and skilled craftsmen out in the hills east of Buffalo. It's still there, and they operate antique printing presses, and craft fine furniture, bowls, glassware and the like. The streets are leafy with lots of well-maintained old houses, sidewalks teeming with kids and dogs and nice families. All a tonic for the soul.

Peg characterized Hubbard as the early 20th century version of an influencer, which seems accurate. All sorts of luminaries, Rockefellers and Roosevelts among them, came to Roycroft to stay at the Inn and check out the little utopia.

We enjoyed a wonderful meal in the hotel restaurant, and noted that although they had no available reservations available and had to make an exception to squeeze us in, there were lots of empty tables. It seems the management won't take a reservation if they're short-staffed, worrying the dining experience would be a disappointment for their patrons. Try finding that in the South.

The next morning we gorged ourselves at the Poked Yolk, again surrounded by families with cute kids. After breakfast, it was off to Highmark Stadium for the Bills and the Saints. I fretted over horror stories of traffic and parking availability, but we breezed into someone's front yard about a mile from the stadium, gave the nice owner $40, and walked into the melee that is a Bills pregame.

These people are nuts. There are live bands, miles of tailgaters, and a carnival atmosphere like nothing I've seen before a football game. We'd done a little research the night before, and set as a goal finding the Hammer's Lot and the legendary Pinto Ron, who's not missed a Bills game in something like 40 years. As I was about to give up, Peg suggested looking at my phone to see if someone had posted a location. Sure enough, Pinto Ron maintained a Facebook page, and it included a map showing where he'd set up. We were coincidentally standing maybe a hundred yards away.

So we checked out Pinto Ron's old Pinto.

And of course Peg charmed the socks off of Pinto Ron hizzelf.

Ron and his brother were cooking ribs, wings, and hot dogs on the hood of the old Pinto. A guy next door was baking pizzas, and they simply gave the food away to whoever walked by and looked hungry. A real ministry of sorts there. These are just the nicest people. Peg and I ate a rib.

And I drank a cherry liqueur shot out of Ron's bowling ball, a disgusting tradition that involves drinking after the dozens of other folks who'd done the same thing. I had a scratchy throat this morning, to no one's surprise.

Finally we made our way to the stadium, just as Josh Allen was taking the field to a deafening roar.

The crowd in Buffalo is bonkers for Josh, a genuinely nice guy by all appearances who also happens to be probably the best QB of his generation.

The Saints proved a tougher opponent than anticipated, and the game was very much in doubt into the fourth quarter. Peg was hoping to leave sooner, because it was quite hot and we both had boob sweat. She also isn't a fan of the blaring locomotive horn they blast whenever the Bills defense makes a stand, or the repurposing of the classic song "Shout" at 100 decibels every few minutes. It is in fact quite loud. The fans are all just so damned nice, however. The crowd was sprinkled with Saints jerseys, and for the most part everyone seemed to just be having fun.

Western New York is a world my Southern friends couldn't imagine, a place filled with tidy homes and farms and kind, generous folks who seem to be raising nice kids and sort of nice dogs. Five years into this split-home life, I still walk around with a sense of wonder.

When the Bills went up 31-19 in the fourth, we decided it was safe to start the two hour drive home through those beautiful farms I just mentioned to the condo on the lake. We curled up on the couch to eat pasta and watch Shakespeare in Love, and P fell asleep on my shoulder. The perfect end to a perfect weekend.

Now sitting in a Zoom hearing that's still limping along a half hour after I started writing. How wasteful.