I plan on moving back home!

by Letter to BRO

Reading the BRO stories has made me realize I am not alone in standing behind Buffalo and Western New York. My family has very deep roots in the area, settling in the mid 1800’s during the boom years following the construction of the Erie Canal. My great great grandfather built a number of structures in the Lockport area, the Niagara County Courthouse being one of the buildings erected by the Blackley Brothers contractors. My mother was a member of the first graduating class of Bennett High; at 16 she was one of Buffalo’s youngest telephone operators in 1930. Her father was a ticket agent at the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Terminal when it first opened. The house he bought brand-new in 1917 still stands in North Buffalo!

I have missed Buffalo ever since I left in 1963. The sense of community and good vibe here makes me long to come back home…so I am. I live in a cold, plastic city with no sense of community and a transient population and landscape—anything older than 10 years old is razed and replaced with concrete, glass and steel.

Plus, I firmly believe the area will run out of water in the next few years…the great drought in the west shows no sign of easing, on my property I get water from a well. I have had to have three wells drilled in the 20 years I’ve lived there, all failed due to a falling water table and geologic faults (yeah, we get earthquakes here, too!)

So, I’m starting to look for a job, getting resume packages out there and lining up some interviews when I visit. I really needed to dust off the resume; it’s been 15 years since I applied for a gig! I’m coming home to visit first, and then I plan on coming home for good. Better get some real estate before the prices skyrocket—which is bound to happen when the southwest runs out of water!

Look forward to hearing from you, and I will continue to enjoy getting up to speed on my home through the pages of Buffalo Rising.

-George Thomas Apfel (On the radio as “George Thomas”)