Off Main Street
The offbeat side of the news
Know your limitations
Hillary Rodham Clinton has her hands full these days with diplomatic fires all around the world, now that she is secretary of state.
So when she showed up last Saturday at the Rainbow Bridge for a ceremony commemorating the centennial of the 1909 Boundary Waters Treaty, Clinton was busily greeting government officials on the U. S. side before the event with Canadian officials began.
As she greeted the gaggle, Assemblyman Robin Schimminger of Kenmore shook her hand and made a request.
“Secretary Clinton, we in New York have a mission for you. It’s in Albany. We need you to broker a deal in the New York State Senate,” he said.
Clinton paused before responding, Schimminger recalled.
“Robin, that would be more difficult than solving the Middle East,” she replied.
A lasting sign of peace
Somewhere, there’s an aging peace activist—probably some long-haired graying hippie in his 50s or 60s—enjoying a last laugh.
If you traveled inbound on the Skyway last week, you know exactly what we’re talking about. There, for everyone to see, is one of the surprises unearthed as part of the demolition of the old Aud:
A three-foot high peace sign with the word “Pax” spray-painted on the east wall near the roof.
Who, when and how are just a few of the questions Off Main found itself asking, so we took our speculation—it must have happened in 1970 when the Aud roof was raised and new outside walls were added—to George Gould, the longtime and now-retired Aud director.
Gould pleaded ignorance at first. But when told about the sign’s location near the roof, he offered his own conspiracy theory.
“A Grateful Dead fan,” Gould said. “They were always high.”
Thurman scores again
Thurman Thomas is looking to score a touchdown for another team: inner-city kids.
The former Buffalo Bills star and Hall of Fame player was named to a community board Thursday at Johnnie B. Wiley Amateur Athletic Sports Pavilion, site of the former War Memorial Stadium, the Bills’ first home. He will help oversee the neglected facility that’s about to get more than $2 million in renovations.
“When I moved back here, I told my good friend and Hall of Fame buddy Jim Kelly, OK, you got the suburbs, I got the city. We got everything covered now,” said Thomas, who moved back to Buffalo in 2007.
“It’s great to be back in the City of Buffalo to really help inner-city kids, and try to give them a better understanding of not only sports, but life, also,” Thomas said.
Here’s an idea:How about staging an exhibition game with former Bills players in their former home, when the new football field is completed later this year. What a fundraiser that would be.
Thurman?
Bonnie at the bat
First Democrats took Congress in 2006. Then they took the White House last year.
Then, the ultimate indignity for Republicans: The Democrats took the annual Roll Call Congressional Baseball Game, and a St. Bonaventure grad helped them do it.
Rep. John Boccieri of Ohio donned his St. Bonaventure uniform for the game, which the Democrats won, 15-10. It was their first win over the Grand Old Party since 2000. News stories about the game reported that Boccieri “just wouldn’t stop stealing bases and sliding on his stomach.”
And why not? Boccieri led the nation in stolen bases as a member of St. Bonaventure’s baseball team in 1990. Before Wednesday’s game, he was lobbying to be the leadoff hitter against the Republicans.
“I think I can run on them,” Boccieri told the Daily Record of Wooster, Ohio.
He’s a congressman; he’d better know how to run.
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