MY VIEW
Greg Slabodkin: You can go home again, but it won’t be the same
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In the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” the main character makes the following observation: “It’s a funny thing about coming home. Looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You’ll realize what’s changed is you.”
I first saw the movie when it came out last year, just as I started to make plans to move back to the Buffalo area. I had not lived here since graduating from the University at Buffalo in my early 20s, and Button’s theme about coming home struck an emotional chord with me. What I’ve learned lately is that you can certainly go home (as I have), but it can’t be the same as you remember because inevitably you are not the same.
Over nearly 20 years, I’ve lived in Baltimore, Minneapolis, Washington and Israel, which exposed me to a whole world beyond Western
New York. I was born and raised in the Buffalo area. But, like many young people, when I graduated I was eager to leave my hometown for better job markets and the alluring attractions of bigger cities.
As part of my journey, I’ve met amazing people from all walks of life, discovered wondrous places and experienced joy, friendship, love, heartbreak and loss — things we all experience as part of the human condition. Coming home to Buffalo in mid-life (I’m 44) has been bittersweet, reinforcing the old adage that you “can never go home again.” My parents have passed away and childhood memories are just that — memories.
Still, I would not have given up my adult years away from Buffalo, not for anything. Those life experiences are what made me who I am today. And, without having been away, I would not fully appreciate everything that is good and that I missed about Buffalo during that time.
Yes, there’s the food: real chicken wings (not what often gets passed off as wings), roast beef on weck and who can live without Wegmans? I’m a lifelong Bills and Sabres fan, and living away from Buffalo during the playoffs — when we actually made the playoffs — was excruciating. Whether watching the “no goal” in the 1999 Stanley Cup finals or all four Super Bowl losses — the one against the Redskins when I lived in Washington was particularly painful — being a Buffalo sports fan in exile was tough. At least here, Bills and Sabres fans can commiserate.
For me, however, what stands out about Buffalo most are its people. The Queen City has many attributes, including some of the greatest American architecture of the 19th and early 20th centuries. But what makes this city great are its residents.
Buffalonians have a well-deserved reputation for being friendly, helpful, generous, hard-working, gritty and good neighbors. I think what makes us who we are comes from our immigrant roots — a heritage of neighborliness.
The late Tim Russert, host of NBC’s “Meet The Press” and one of Buffalo’s favorite sons, said that when he would fly home to Buffalo from Washington he could literally feel the “armor peeling off” him as the plane got closer to its destination. That’s because when you are in Buffalo, you are home.
There’s no pretense, no ego. It is a place where you can truly be yourself among family and friends who accept you for who you are. That, to me, is what it means to be home.
When my kids ask me about the ribbing we get from the rest of the country about our snowy weather, bad economy and the losing records of our sports teams, I’ll tell them: “It’s OK. Buffalo is the best-kept secret.”
Published: December 08, 2009, 12:30 am