Day 5: Lakewood, and Return to Buffalo

Our last day before returning to Buffalo, Mom and I ventured to our old neighborhood in Lakewood.

We found our home, 130 Erie Street, and rang the doorbell to see if we might have a look. The current owner, M, graciously invited us in. We knew that one of Dad's colleagues from the job he left at Empire Life Insurance bought our home when he took a job in Connecticut. Then, after he died, his widow sold it. Apparently, the next owners made a mess of it, and when they put it for sale, it was on the market over a year. The new owner has taken major TLC of our house. She has refurbished the beautiful hardwood floors that my parents put in. She also built an addition with a large master bedroom and added a two-car garage (we had a one-car).

I thanked her for taking such good care of our home. To one side and the back, what used to be fields were now forested. I spent time in both running around. In the back, we used to see only one large tree, where my brother built a treehouse. Now all the trees are large. At the front of our property, Mom and Dad had planted several pine samplings. We found the stump of one. It was over a foot in diameter.

We also had a very brief visit across the street at the home of one of Mom's friends and the home of one of my childhood friends. Originally, we were going to stay with this friend. However, she received a diagnosis of a brain tumor just before our travels, and went into hospice care. In spite of dramatic physical changes, her likeness was so familiar. She was only awake for about a minute, and I doubt she knew who we were. We were grateful to have one last chance to say hello.


From our neighborhood, Mom and I visited old haunts of Lakewood Beach, Southwestern High School, and Celeron (home of Lucille Ball). We saw the "ugly" statue of Lucy and the yet

unveiled new one, to be shown on August 6, 2016. We met up with Celeste at the Main Landing Restaurant in Celeron for lunch. The feeling of friendship with Celeste was so powerful for me; it was as if we had never been apart.

And then we drove back to the hotel across the street from Buffalo Airport, where we would depart the next morning.


Can you go home again?

This is a complex question. I cannot imagine that Trenton, NJ, would ever feel like home. Nor would Connecticut, nor the other New England states I lived in, perhaps because of bad memories of my first marriage and in-laws.

But those places in western New York, especially Lakewood? Oh, yes, they felt like home. Not only that, but they seemed to change little, much to my surprise and delight: they were still quiet, slow-going places where it seemed that children could safely roam, and enjoy bicycling and playing in the water. Families picnicked in public parks and their home backyards. Life felt sustainable at a decent work/life balance. I envied it.

My friends and I compared our lifestyles - their domestic lifestyles and my globetrotting one. I have loved what I have seen and learned of cultures, so I would still choose mine. But there is something about their more settled lives that is also quite wonderful. Neither is better than the other; both are worthwhile ways to spend one's life.

In spite of our different lives, we felt at home with  one another. I had come home.

And now that I have come home, it is my hope to welcome them to my newer home, by creating a cruise or travel destination where we can get together once again. Let's do it!

Day 4 - Lakewood, NY

In the morning, Jeff took my mom and I through the little town of Findley Lake to enjoy the small shops. After that, I prepared to find my dear friend Celeste and other good friend, Bonny, at Bemus Point, near Lakewood. We had hoped that others could join us, but as it happens, some were not in town and others had other plans.

That did not matter. The three of us had a wonderful reunion. We began at a hotel with rocking chairs

all along its front porch, where we had a drink. We then gravitated to the Ellicottville Brewery, where we got a great porch table for dinner. Bemus has bands on summer weekends that imitate well-known bands, and this weekend was Chicago. They were terrific!

Bonnie invited two other couples to join us over the evening ("Such a social butterfly," was Celeste's comment), and she later called her daughter to join us, who has a degree in public health and has been to Kenya twice.

In many ways, it felt as though we had never been separated. We were so comfortable together. We talked about our marriages, our children, my travels, our work, friends who had moved on and those who were still in the area. We remembered football games and silly events and old crushes. Bonney had married Randy Smith ("Oh!" I said. "I had a crush on him!")

The night passed like minutes.

Days 3-4: Findley Lake

After leaving Aunt Jo and Uncle Ron's, Mom and I found ourselves on the roads we traveled so many times between Jamestown, NY and Niagara Falls during my childhood, when we would go to visit the relatives in Niagara Falls: the NY Thruway and Route 60 through Dunkirk/Fredonia, Mayville, Lilydale, Cassadaga, Sinclairville, and Gerry. I had memories of all these places: goatmilk fudge in Fredonia, the palm-readers in Lilydale, summer rodeo in Gerry.

We detoured through Jamestown, NY and nearby Fluvanna, where we lived first in a trailer, then two rented homes. I had forgotten about the beautiful
red-brick roads in Jamestown; they are still there.


We easily found the beautiful brick home on a hill that we rented on Fluvanna Ave. It looks well-cared for. I asked Mom if she remembered the road of our other rental, and she did not. Then, out of nowhere, I said, "Bentley Road." I had not thought of that road name in decades. I was right, and we found the much changed house that we once lived in.


We arrived mid-afternoon in Findley Lake, the home of my brother's ex-wife, my friend Dede, and

her new husband, Jeff. Dede was in Atlanta helping out her daughter Amy and her family, as Amy's husband Zac is quite ill. Jeff welcomed us to the beautiful home he built and took us for a drive around the lake and nearby areas. My time in western New York, high school years in Ellington, CT, and undergrad years in Clarion, PA, were notable for the pastoral settings and slow-moving schedule of days.

None of the roads were crowded, and where we stopped, people were friendly. Many knew Jeff. People were enjoying outdoor picnics. No one sped on the roads. There was an overall sense of calm. Children were playing, and I guessed that they might be having the same kind of childhood as I had, with unsupervised time.

As I think of it, I guess my years in West Lafayette, IN, and New England were similar. My first husband and I built a home on a rural road in South Berwick, Maine, where we began our family. My kids grew up much as I did in western NY, roaming freely and safely through the wild blueberry fields behind our home and into the well-established old logging trails in the woods beyond. We had a small horse farm, and Kat and I would ride throughout the many miles of trails adjacent to our home. We had no fears of strangers who might harm our children, much as my parents were safe to let us kids roam throughout the neighborhood and beyond on our bikes and on foot, getting to the beach, fields to play kickball, and more.

The students I teach now at my university are afraid to let their kids out of their sight, and all of their activities are regulated, either by parents creating child play visits or organized sports. They don't have the opportunities to create their own games and times and free play. I think they lose out so much on learning the skills of self-regulation and socialization. It makes me deeply grateful for the opportunities that my children and I had when we were young.

The next morning, Jeff and I indulged in a nearly 2-hour songfest, with Jeff on guitar and me singing harmonies whenever I could pick one out. Guitar and singing are another part of my youth. My Gidlow grandparents bought me a guitar when I was an undergrad, and I picked it up quickly.

It tied in with my early years of religious sampling. I was raised mainstream Protestant and attended a Methodist church in Lakewood. In high school in Connecticut, I had a crush on a boy who had become a fundamentalist. I'll never forget the day when all these people hovered around me, laying hands on me, and assuming I would receive "the gifts of the Holy Spirit." Most of them uttered weird sounds that were supposedly "speaking in tongues." At the time, I thought to myself that I could either try to fake it (and I didn't think I could make those sounds) or remain silent. I chose the latter, and eventually, they decided I must have other gifts of the spirit... Once in college, I joined an evangelical group called Crusade for Christ, knocking on dorm rooms, asking if the co-eds were "saved."

And then a former date from CT told me he was becoming a Catholic. Of course, I assumed he would be damned as a result. Wanting to save him, I took a look into the religion. In the process I became a Catholic convert, first wanting to enter a convent, then determining that my greater penance to help sinners would to be marriage (talk about a warped sense of self!!!). Indeed, my journey through religion, from fundamental to agnostic, has been varied and unique.

Days 1-2: Niagara Falls

Niagara Falls

Mom and I arrived at Buffalo Airport around midnight after a long trip through Newark on July 26, 2016. On the 27th, we drove to Uncle Ron and Aunt Joanne's house on Grand Island. Ron had been

in the hospital for a week with pneumonia, so Jo and I went to bring him home. My uncle has been enduring multiple illnesses for many years, but his mind is a sharp as any, and he maintains a great sense of humor.

The next day, Mom and I revisited the Falls and did something neither of us had ever done, even though we spent so many years in Niagara Falls: we went on the Maid of the Mist, the tourist boat that travels to the bottom of the American and Canadian falls. We had a great time on it!

Later, I went with Aunt Jo to visit the graves of my cousin Rhonda, Gidlow grandparents, and great-grandma Gidlow. When we got back, Aunt Jo cooked a feast of a dinner! We had a wonderful time catching up with one another.

Home Page: Going Home

Thomas Wolfe wrote You Can't Go Home Again. As someone who lived in at least seven places before graduating from high school, it can be difficult to determine just where "home" is: my birthplace, Niagara Falls; early childhood, in Trenton, NJ; rental homes in Fluvanna, NY; our first owned home in Lakewood, NY; high school graduation in Ellington, CT? Throughout my life there have been countless trips to the Niagara Falls area to spend time with grandparents, cousins, aunts, and uncles. I have vague memories of times at the New Jersey shore, especially when I floated out in my Donald Duck inner tube and decided that I should turn back, as I was closer to England than the US (WHERE does a 4-year get a notion like that? And a memory that has stuck with me throughout my life?!) I had good times as a member of the Ellington High School gymnastics team and ski club. But New England, beautiful as it is, was never really home, although I spent three years there in high school; returned to my family home on vacations from undergrad and master's degree studies; and returned to live in Connecticut, Maine, and New Hampshire as an adult, all totaling 26 years of my life.

The past 20 years of my life have been spent in the Atlanta, GA area and in Sarasota, FL. Between Maine, New Hampshire, and Georgia, I have raised my two beautiful children.
In Sarasota, I have had my most productive years as a professional, as a professor at the University of South Florida.

I lived in Ireland in 1980-81 as a graduate student on a Rotary Graduate Fellowship, attending Trinity College, Dublin. And I have returned many, many times, more than I can count. My parents spent the better part of 17 years in Ireland in their retirement years. Whenever I go there, my heart feels at home.



I have also lived in New Zealand, and I find it the most beautiful place on earth, with the best government I have ever encountered. I would move there in a heartbeat.

And yet, when I think of "home," my mind takes me to western New York; Lakewood, in particular, where I lived between the ages of 8 and 14 in a home that my parents built. I lived there longer than any other place as a child, and some of my best memories hail from Lakewood Elementary School and Southwestern Regional High School. I had not returned since I was 14 years old, and I had lost touch with my best friend from that time in my life. Several years ago, a friend of my parents from Lakewood helped me to reconnect with that friend, Celeste, and we communicated on Facebook.

This summer, for several reasons, I suggested to my mom that we spend a week back in western New York. We had not seen my dad's brother Ron and his wife Joanne in about 20 years since they moved from Massachusetts back to the Niagara Falls area, and my uncle has not been well. We both wanted to see them. My brother-in law Jeff and sister-in-law Dede had invited us to visit them in Findley Lake before they sold their home there, and we wanted to do that. And, in Lakewood, we wanted to see our former home, Mom wanted to visit her good friend who lived across the street, and I wanted to reconnect with Celeste and other school friends.

And so, after 45 years, I was going home. This blog will offer details, photos, and thoughts as I traveled back to the favorite part of my childhood.