Seasons of Buffalo

Garv had a good topic yesterday. I’ll see if I can’t tie it into a good topic for today too.

My most vivid Buffalo memory is St Patricks Day. In college, my old friend Denny would come over to B1 and tear the lid off with me and the rest of the B1 gang. Because I’m not really Irish, and because I grew up far outside the city limits, I had no idea the size and scope of the festivities that were happening mere miles from my Canisius townhouse.

It wasn’t until the days of 267 Franklin St that I witnessed first hand the Sunday parade. Families came downtown, pipers appeared in downtown bar doorways, crisp snare drums fluttered in the equally crisp early spring air. The sun came out for the first time in what felt like decades. After a miserable winter, we were seeing happy people celebrating and reveling. It was a tremendous feeling and it stuck with me.

In the succeeding years, this holiday continued to surprise me in very fun, powerful ways. Living on Delaware, I got to watch people setting up lawn chairs to watch what was about to March right past my window. I think we may have roof-porched that day. One Sunday morning the following year I came back from visiting my brother in Springville, was just finished showering and brushing my teeth back in my old place on St James when Wydysh and Butters began drunkenly pounding on my door. It was 9am, by the way. They invited me to Bunting’s yearly party exactly across the street from me, which turned out to be a great time. It felt as though the holiday was following me around, making sure I didn’t miss out on it. It was a good feeling.

More recent 17th’s have been spent apartment-hopping around, eventually settling in for a long marathon of drinking with friends at dear old FF, where people you haven’t seen all year suddenly show up to celebrate.

So maybe this is why I’m a little down that this year I’ll be away from the city that has consistently delivered this holiday to me in memorable ways. I’ll be hunting for a Guinness next Monday, that’s for sure.

To try and wrap up an already overgrown post, St Patricks has also signified a kind of end of winter. The season of “doing stuff” begins, with what better color than green, the color of spring. This rule by the Seelie Court (nerd!) continues up until around Halloween, another deeply festive atmosphere and probably my favorite holiday overall.

So what’s your favorite season? Are you a winter sports addict or cold weather fan? Is it Xmas? I’ve always loved the Autumn. You get a reprieve from the humidity of summer, beautiful hiking, Oktoberfest, and finally, Halloween. Second is Summer for me, being a wannabe outdoorsman and all, I enjoy the outdoors-friendly weather. Third is Spring, and finally, in dead last by miles, is Winter. I like skiing, but the darkness, the cold, the stale air and the gray muddy palor of the season wear on me every time. It gets a little harder every year.