Happy ending

The machine that is in charge of reunions for my high school class is getting cranked up again. I've done some work over the years finding people as well as writing up such documents as invitation letters to former teachers. This year I added another job to my list of talents. I guess I'm now in charge of social media.

Here's the translation: Julie Kreher Porter asked if anyone knew how to set up a Facebook page for a group in anticipation of an October reunion. I've done that, and so I set up the basic page in about 10 minutes. It's not hard with a little experience, which I have.

I've posted a few items from my scrapbook and other sources - a couple of pages from the school newspaper, some pictures from past reunions, a link to my blog on the Abdul Rahman award. But there's a story I've never told anyone, and this isn't a bad format for it.

I graduated from high school back in the stone age, in a world of eight-tracks, in 1973. The ceremony was at Villa Maria College in Cheektowaga, and in the 40 years since then I think I might have been in the parking lot once.

The proceedings were in the afternoon. We had a class of close to 350 people. As I recall, there were instructions before the graduation event that applause was discouraged for each individual graduate, as it might drag the ceremony from Sunday into Wednesday or so. Naturally, I tried to make a few trades with other members of my class along the lines of "I'll clap for you if you'll clap for me." But I didn't really expect anyone to do it.

We went through the ceremony, which was pretty typical, and headed up to the stage by row. As I recall, I had planned while walking across the stage to smile at my two friends and classmates who were on the stage, Jane and Brenda. My name was announced over the public address system, and I started to walk.

And lots of people began to clap. I'm not saying it was a thunderous ovation, and nobody stood up. But it was certainly much more applause than anyone else had received so far, a warm sound that caught me completely off-guard. As I walked across the stage, I did the logical thing for a 17-year-old - froze emotionally - and completely forgot about smiling at anyone on the stage.

When I walked down the steps to return to my seat, I can still picture Mike Coppola sitting in the first row on the aisle. Our class president seemed as surprised as I was, and just shook his head and smiled at me.

After the ceremony was over, I saw my parents pretty quickly. My mother came out with this: "Oh my God, everyone in the place was clapping but your mother. I didn't think we were supposed to clap, so I didn't." She added that one of her friends had just come up to her and said, "Budd got more applause than Dr. Moomaw," the superintendent of the school system.

It turned out that my last moment as a high school student might have been my best moment. So, almost 40 years later, my fellow classmates, I finally thank you for that.

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A second act

I didn't realize it at the time, but I first visited the house of my eventual friend of the past 40 years, Glenn Locke, right about the time when his mother probably was going through the worst part of her life.

Glenna, who passed away on Saturday and who was the focus of a nice remembrance "ceremony" today, no doubt had thought her life was going to be nice and orderly when she approached the 50-year mark. She had grown up in a nice family, gotten married, had two smart kids and was living a very comfortable lifestyle in a fine home in suburban Buffalo. What was there not to like?

I must have showed up in the house for the first time at some point around 1972. Glenn and I stopped by to play bumper pool. (Note: I got clobbered.) I had heard at some point that Glenn's parents had split up. That hadn't happened to many of my friends at this point - an innocent age - and it wasn't something that I'd bring up first in conversation.

However, I did notice that the big house was pretty empty. Glenn's sister Beth was off at college, so it was just Glenn and his mom there. The building felt quiet and empty. I'm not saying that the house resembled the "castle" that was shown at the end of "Citizen Kane," but there was a little sadness involved in moving about it. Too many things, not enough people.

I can't imagine what the experience was like for Glenna. While she wasn't hurting for money, the sudden change in lifestyle must have been enormous and rather depressing. And there was the whole matter of dating again. That's a scary enough process when you're in your 20's. It must have been worse for someone approaching their 50's, knowing the statistical odds of finding another partner were long.

What do you do? The best you can. Glenna soon moved into an apartment a few miles away, bringing the college-aged Glenn along, and found a job. In other words, she adapted. I remember how much Glenna tried to make Glenn's friends welcome during visits, although talking with parents was never our top priority when we came home for a week or two for Christmas.

Glenn and I still can joke about the fact that his mom would come home from the grocery store during those times and the years that followed, having bought beer for the refrigerator for us. However, it was usually the cheapest beer in the place - Simon Pure or some other off brand. Most parents never quite fit in during those years with their kids, and at the worldly age of 21 or 22 we probably acted a little like "beer snobs" about that. However ... we probably would have confessed under interrogation that we appreciated the gesture more than we let on.

After several years of this had gone by - and the years must have been lonely and difficult for Glenna at times - Glenn passed along the exciting news that his mother had found someone new to share life's experiences. When I asked who was the lucky man, Glenn laughed and said it was Ralph Wilson. Football fans in Western New York know that name, of course. So when I chuckled and said, "Ralph Wilson?" Glenn replied, "Ralph Wilson of Bells (the supermarket chain), and not Bills." I commented that I couldn't believe she would marry the "wrong" Ralph Wilson. By the way, when something happened to the Bills in later years, the phone of Lancaster's Ralph Wilson often would ring as angry fans would call.

And so Glenna Locke turned into Glenna Wilson, picking up an all-new family along the way. Widower Ralph had children from his first marriage, and Glenna seemed more than thrilled to treat them like her own kids. There was always lots of food around when I'd visit, and always some laughter.

Glenna watched the stepchildren turn into adults, get married and have children. Eventually Ralph died, but Glenna stayed close to the "other" family (her own children lived out of town) and enjoyed musicals and mysteries if her DVD collection was any indication.

I didn't speak at today's ceremony. But if I had, I would have said just how happy I was that this nice lady really did have a nice second act to her life after the considerable drama that entered it right before intermission.

(Donations can be sent to www.jdrf.org/westernny)

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New man in charge

It's been a busy few days at One Bills Drive in Orchard Park.

On Sunday, the Buffalo Bills defeated the New York Jets to close out a disappointing regular season. Fans came in with high expectations thanks to some high-profile roster moves, but they didn't quite work out. The offense was inconsistent, and the defense was worse than that - allowing points in bunches in too many games.

That all made Monday feel inevitable. Head coach Chan Gailey and his entire coaching staff were dismissed. Gailey had three years to try to turn the Bills around, and couldn't do it. Buffalo was under .500 each time, and that was about as much patience as any team in the NFL has these days. If Gailey had come back, he might have been greeted by some serious numbers of empty seats on opening day.

Was that it for trips to Orchard Park? Nope. The media made the drive back to Ralph Wilson Stadium on Tuesday as well. The Bills held a news conference to announce that Russ Brandon had been promoted to team president. Owner Ralph Wilson was "passing the torch" after being in charge since 1960.

Brandon said many of the right things at the news conference. The team's record clearly has been unacceptable for more than a decade (not a single playoff appearance in that time), and the Bills have frequently been less than relevant in any discussions about the NFL. (In other words, they are the Columbus Blue Jackets of pro football.) Brandon wants to get to work to change that, and supposedly he and other executives are off on a interview tour at this writing.

There's no way at this point of knowing what will happen with this change completed. I had heard that Wilson had taken a major step back from day-to-day operations some time ago, and that the Bills were more or less telling him what they planned to do - and having Wilson essentially rubber-stamp it - as opposed to having Wilson make all of the decisions himself. Is this much of a difference?

I'm the opposite of an insider when it comes to the Bills' organization, but I'll be looking for one immediate clue for a possible change of philosophy. Wilson was never a fan of coaches who were big names and thus on the expensive side. I'm not sure why; maybe Chuck Knox's time here was a bad experience somehow. Three years ago there were a lot of good-sized names out there, and the Bills hired none of them to take Gailey. If someone like Lovie Smith shows up for a news conference at One Bills Drive soon, that would be a pretty clear signal that times had changed.

Then again, it's easy to wonder just how much of a different a coach can matter, even at the NFL level. There are all sorts of good people out there that more or less know what they are doing. The ones who succeed for the most part seem to be the ones who have a very good quarterback.

Let's think about that. The Bills have never really replaced Jim Kelly. Doug Flutie and Drew Bledsoe had some moments but their good days didn't last long enough. You can go through Todd Collins, J.P. Losman, Trent Edwards, Alex Van Pelt and now Ryan Fitzpatrick, and you won't find anyone that has been even average statistically. Come to think of it, the Bills went through the quarterback wilderness between the end of the Joe Ferguson Era and the start of Kelly's time here.

Around the league, teams like New England, Green Bay, Denver and Atlanta have top-notch quarterbacks and are in the playoffs. A few teams have won Super Bowls without someone very good at the position, but not many.

The problem is that you never know where the next good quarterback is coming from. That means Brandon and the rest of the Bills front office could use some luck in the upcoming season to identify a new face at that spot who can make a difference. Otherwise, we may be having more news conferences in a relatively short time.

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Fish story

This one is funny for Western New Yorkers, mostly. So I'll give them the joke first, and then tell the backstory to the rest.

I was in Florida last week and picked up a newspaper. The headline on top of the local section made me burst out laughing.

It read "Bass Pro payout put off." And when I brought the section back here and showed it to a friend, he burst out laughing too.

Bass Pro and Buffalo go way back in terms of comedy. When Memorial Auditorium came down some years ago, the original idea was to put some sort of big attraction in terms of a store in that area. Bass Pro was considered by some at the time to be a good choice, since it was known as a huge recreation outlet that was only available in selected markets and thus could be a huge draw for the outdoor set. A deal, contingent on tax breaks, was announced.

And then Western New York waited, and waited, and waited some more. It became a running joke. "What are you doing tonight?" "Oh, thought I'd go down to Bass Pro and look for ... oh, right, never mind."

When I was in Geneva, I visited a Bass Pro there just to see what it was like. It was a nice, big fishing store -- not some place that would be on my list of shopping destinations, although I'm not part of the target audience.

Finally, after five years of negotiations -- I'll repeat that, five years -- local politicians finally said "enough" and walked away. Bass Pro's only comment was that it hadn't had enough time to put together a final deal. Glaciers move faster, and not just because of global warming.

The city turned to other plans, and developed the area at the foot of Main Street as a park. Turns out people like to gather by the waterfront on nice days, because it turned into a popular spot in about, oh, an hour. And construction on a project on the Aud site is underway.

By the way, some of the credit for this burst of action goes to Congressman Brian Higgins, who moved the project along. You know those surveys in which people say they hate Congress but think their Congressman is doing a fine job? That's the story here.

As for the Florida Bass Pro, the plan was to put in a story just off an Interstate in Brandon. The company first asked for $40 million in subsidies, much of that in direct tax break. The burden on the county has been negotiated down to $8.25 million in local funds. It was difficult to say by reading the story if there are other tax breaks involved.

County Commissioners voted to postpone making a decision on the transaction until February. Based on what we've seen up here, I wouldn't plan on purchasing that new fishing pole there anytime soon.

Not fair

For whatever reason, it's been a busy couple of weeks in the obituary department of the newspaper. We've gone through quite a run of people who have passed away - some at least a little expected, others not so much.

It's difficult to think of Marvin Miller, Larry Hagman, "Macho" Camacho and Bob Swados in the same breath, but that's who we lost. I interviewed Camacho once when he fought a boxing match in Buffalo, and he was hilarious. Camacho was like an elf, floating around town in anticipation of the fight. Swados was one of the central figures in the history of the Sabres, so I worked for him when I was with the team. Anyone connected with the team has a supply of stories about Swados, an unforgettable personality by any definition.

But oddly, it was someone else that caught me off guard -- someone most people haven't heard of.

I wrote about the progressive rock band Renaissance a little more than a year ago. The group had some success in the 1970's, and put out some fondly remembered albums by fans of the genre. Disco and punk weren't kind to a classical sound late in the decade, and the band split up. Various combinations of the band tried reforming over the next 25 years or so, but nothing ever lasted.

Then Michael Dunford and Annie Haslam decided to give it one last try. They found some other musicians to round out a band, did some rehearsing, and took to the road. One of their stops was in Buffalo, where I saw them. The music still worked, and the crowd seemed enthusiastic. Renaissance even put out a DVD/CD of their performance.

Their next step was an unusual one. Renaissance needed money to produce a new album (or whatever you call it in this digital age), so it went to Kickstarter. That's a web site designed to raise money for a variety of projects. The target was somewhere in the $44,000 range, with a variety of premiums offered depending on the donations. Needless to say, U2 doesn't have to do that when it wants to put out some music, but at least the idea worked. Renaissance raised more than twice the money it needed - $92,000.

The band headed to the recording studio, and finished the album. The band tuned up with a few more live shows, although some physical problems kept Haslam off the road at times and thus some performances were postponed. Still, Dunford was autographing sheet music for backers as of a couple of weeks ago.

Then on November 20, Dunford was eating with his family in England and suffered a massive Instantaneous Cerebral Hemorrhage. He never regained consciousness and died that night.

There's never anything fair about such things. But in Dunford's case, leaving behind a wife and two children ages 13 and 10, and missing the opportunity to play new music in a style that he loved, this story seems particular cruel.

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Breaking news coverage

Ever wonder how the story of the Three Little Pigs would be covered today?

A British TV ad speculates. Great stuff.

Legal opinion

I had a chat with a lawyer the other day, and not because I was in any trouble with the law. I was interested in a good opinion about the NHL lockout, and he has a great deal of experience in dealing with the ins and outs from a legal perspective of a labor dispute.

He's not much of a hockey fan, so I had to explain some of the particulars of this case. His first question was why there was a lockout in the first place, since that's a last resort in most industries. I explained that almost 20 years ago the players figured out that they make their money in the regular season and the owners make their money in the playoffs, so it was better to go on strike in April rather than do it in September when the collective bargaining agreement expired. The owners, therefore, have called for lockouts to prevent that from happening.

Then we got into the particulars. I said how the owners had been giving up 57 percent of hockey revenues to the players, and wanted that share to drop down to 43. The legal expert was pretty stunned about that sort of drop. Then I pointed out that they seemed to compromise at a 50-50 divide a few weeks ago.

"So they are about ready to settle then?" he asked.

Well, no, I explained. There are all sorts of other issues that haven't been resolved. And our lawyer was not impressed.

He sort of wondered if the owners in this case had an alternative goal to just getting a better CBA. That could go in a number of directions, including breaking or intimidating the union for the long term.

But failing that, he concluded that there should be absolutely no way that, if the owners and players were anxious to work things out, it couldn't be done quickly at this point. The hard part was decided a while ago; the rest is just details. Yes, there are millions of dollars at stake, but there are ways to get to a fair compromise in such a situation with a little work.

That's about what I thought, but nice to hear it well presented by someone with legal training. It also means to me that there is still hope for some sort of hockey season in the coming months. It obviously won't be a full season, but they could pick up a 48-game season sometime in January and have a full playoff run. They did it before in the 1990s.

That's probably the next deadline, and deadlines lead to deals. And if we go sailing past that date, the owners and players will be trying to figure out what 50 percent of nothing is. You do the math.

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