west side of buffalo

The West Side was a place where everyone knew everyone. A place where if you were in trouble you could knock on any door in the neighborhood and they would let you in because they knew exactly whose kid you were. The kids that you fought yesterday turned out to be your best allies tomorrow.

I try to describe to people exactly how it was, but if you weren't there you just don't know. I remember walking from my house (California & Barton) to West and California which was only 2 blocks and should only take a few minutes.It always ended up taking 45 minutes because because every neighbor would start a conversation and I would sit on their porches and talk for a few minutes, they'd give you whatever they just got done baking and it was just second nature to help them when they were carrying in groceries. This wasn't just something that I did though, it was something that all kids did. That's because all of the neighbors were like relatives.

There were the local crazy people, but everyone knew who they were and had nicknames for them. The people we encountered and the lessons we learned were priceless.

There were tons of different clicks, but we were able to hang out with any of them at anytime because we all played West Side baseball, West Side football or hockey at Nativity.

The red fruit truck would come around selling fruit at 8am and everyone came outside. You could hear that guy yelling from blocks away.

The guy on the bike that used to have a popcorn machine on the back of his bike and used to sell popcorn.

• Mr Softie
• PeeWee used to sell sinkers.
• The Easy Shop
• Blue Bird Bakery
• Todaro's store
• Mr Pizza when it was on Hampshire
• Rambo that used to ride down the street with the stuffed rabbit on his handlebars.
• Guercio's
• Suzy's Cloud Nine
• Everything Grant St
• Super Duper on Grant and Ferry
• Rt's Ice Cream
• The Foot
• ding dong dash
• hide and seek in all of the backyards
• roof hopping
• Tovie (Everyone knows Tovie)
• Huge house parties
• Precinct 5

Fireworks could be bought on every block. (Thanks Ben for triggering that obsession). Only on the West Side would the cops pull over and watch you blow off your display. When you were done they would drive by and say "thanks" and keep on going. Roman candle wars.

Chestnut wars were crazy. Apparently Chestnuts don't grow in the burbs. LOL

Egging people wasn't just on Freshman Friday. It was whenever you felt like your mother yelling at you for taking a dozen of her eggs was well worth watching the expression on someones face when it was covered in yoke.

Putting shit in a bag, lighting it on fire, putting on someones porch and ringing the bell wasn't just on the movies. The next morning somehow the person knew you did it and called your mother.

Throwing snowballs at every Metro was just routine.
So was jumping on the back of every UPS and Fedex truck so you didn't have to walk as far.

It wasn't uncommon to see your 14 year old friend driving by -or- beeping at your friends when you drove by them. Sometimes we just had to take our parents cars. We didn't have to go anywhere but we just needed to cruise.