With Thanksgiving 2025 arriving tomorrow, and wintry weather in the forecast, my spirits need to re-experience the pleasures of summer and early fall.
With All Due Respect,
Art Giacalone
WNY Photos
OK, I’ll admit that “Cheery” was initially a typo on my part – but it accurately describes the good spirits I felt this past Sunday while walking amongst and photographing the cherry and other blossoms behind the Buffalo & Erie County Historic Society building at Elmwood Avenue and Nottingham Terrace.
Here’s hoping that the images that follow have a similar effect on you.
Thanks.
With All Due Respect (and Cheer),
Art Giacalone
[UPDATED 03-05-2024: I added several photos to the beginning of the post that weren’t initially available.]
I headed this afternoon to the Botanical Gardens on South Park Avenue in South Buffalo (officially, the Buffalo & Erie County Botanical Gardens). It was the last day of “Orchid Fest.” I should have grabbed my real camera as I rushed out my door, but the same lazy streak that has resulted in dependence on my iPhone to capture images for the past several years struck again.
Nonetheless, here are some of the flowers that caught my eye. Enjoy.
At this point, I truly am disappointed in myself for relying on my “smart” phone. Many of the pictures that I attempted to take somehow ended up thumb-size photos or are in an unopenable format. To remind myself to make the extra effort the next time I plan to capture images to share, here are a couple “minis”:
Humbly yours,
Art Giacalone
P.S. I’m adding one more picture of orchids, a plant given to me by a friend on my birthday in early December. I greatly appreciated the gesture.
Nearly six feet of snow fell at my South Buffalo home between January 13 and 19. It was a week of shoveling and little else as my world was reduced to my driveway, my house, and a view of my across-the-street West Seneca neighbors. I did feel extremely fortunate to have a warm and cozy place to call home. But I dearly missed my daily walks in Cazenovia Park and the freedom of driving to Wegmans, Office Depot, or wherever whenever I wanted.
[View from my front porch door 01/19/2024.]
[My back yard bird bath 01/15/2024.]
[Feathered friends at my window feeder 01/16/24.]
Mountains of snow and buried cars were eventually removed from nearby streets by the end of the day Saturday, January 20. The next morning the wind chill was a bone-chilling one degree Fahrenheit when crawled out of bed at 8 AM. I impatiently waited a few hours and, seeing that it had warmed to 10 degrees and a “feels like” temperature of zero, I bundled up and headed out my door to walk five blocks to Cazenovia Park.
I wasn’t disappointed. The contrast between the stunning azure skies and the pure white fields and hills (with crisscrossing boot prints and signs of sled tracks), snow-covered picnic tables and bleachers, and suddenly iced-over Caz Creek, was a joy to see and experience after a week of shoveling and “cabin fever.”
I’m not certain if the team of Olmsted landscape architects had South Buffalo winters in mind when they designed Cazenovia Park, but I’m pleased that this four-season gem adorns and defines my neighborhood.
With All Due Respect,
Art Giacalone
I have taken walks through South Buffalo’s Cazenovia Park virtually every day the past eight years. That welcomed ritual includes an admiring glance at Cazenovia Creek from the vehicular bridge on Warren Spahn Way. Not surprisingly (now that my eyes are wide open), the view changes dramatically depending upon the time of day, weather, presence of clouds, autumn hues, etc.
I’d like to share with you my favorite baker’s-dozen images from the past 80 days or so, working backwards from November 30.
[11/30/2023, 7:47 am]
[11/26/2023, 11:04 am]
[11/25/2023, 5:34 pm]
[10/24/2023, 8:35 am]
[10/22/2023, 5:03 pm]
[10/4/2023, 5:19 pm]
[9/11/2023, 7:47 am]
I hope you enjoyed the view from the Caz Park bridge.
With All Due Respect,
Art Giacalone
Emotions ranged from anger to sorrow to sympathy at the peaceful “Cease Fire Now” Rally at Buffalo’s Niagara Square on Saturday afternoon, November 18, 2023.
[See U.S. Joe Biden’s Washington Post Opinion 11-18-2023.]
With All Due Respect,
Art Giacalone
I’ve spent way too much time the past decade (or, two or three) lamenting the fact that I chose to become an attorney a half-century ago. The frustrations and disappointments associated with being a “public interest” lawyer – while offering me the “silver lining” of assisting and befriending many courageous and resilient clients – have weighed heavily on my once optimistic nature and view of the world. Nonetheless, I’m trying my best to look beyond such negative moments.
That being said, I decided yesterday – while exploring Buffalo’s Parkside neighbor on a perfect late-September day – that it must have been an incredible opportunity a century or so ago to labor as Darwin Martin’s head gardener. Imagine the sense of satisfaction and pride of being responsible for the development and maintenance of the remarkable grounds of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Prairie-style masterpiece at the corner of Jewett Parkway and Summit Avenue.
And then, after a hard day’s work, walking a few steps to your home, the Gardener’s Cottage (fronting on Woodward Avenue). Here’s a glimpse:
Being Darwin Martin’s head gardener – nice work if you can get it.
With All Due Respect,
Art Giacalone
P.S. This posting assumes – perhaps unrealistically – that Mr. & Mrs. Darwin Martin were pleasant and decent human beings and bosses (and, that Mr. Wright wasn’t overly oppressive in his oversight).
P.P.S. Now that I think about it, despite the challenges of my 47-year legal career, I have had the luxury of being my own boss for much of the past 34 years, choosing the issues to fight, and applying my own standard of ethics. Nice work if you can get it!
The vibrant hues and views that customarily greet me on my walks in South Buffalo’s Cazenovia Park were obscured today – September 11 – by a veil of fog. That seems appropriate on this date, the twenty-second anniversary of 9/11.
Of the images that follow, the first one touches me the most: a weeping willow tree to remind us all of the many weeping widows and widowers who continue to grieve their painfully personal and tragic loss.
The past two months have been a bummer for me. Sciatica has prevented from taking my daily walks through my South Buffalo neighborhood and, most importantly, Cazenovia Park, accompanied by my trusty camera (a/k/a, iPhone). This afternoon I broke free from the confines of my home, and took the liberating stroll I’ve been waiting for.
That walk – and this posting – is dedicated to one of Buffalo’s remarkable nonagenarians, Mrs. Raymond G. Peterson. (Hopefully, her daughter will figure out a way to share this collection of photos with her).
By popular demand, I will keep my words to a minimum, and let the images of springtime in Caz Park speak for themselves. I hope you’ll enjoy their beauty, and feel their inherent energy and optimism in the weeks and months ahead.
[December 19, 2022 Note: Here’s a link to the 24 photographs that I entered in the Smithsonian Magazine’s 2022 Photo Contest: 2022 Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest AJG’s APPROVED photos. Each image includes a caption (with photo details). The photos posted below – with the exception of two images inserted in the P.S. – are included in this grouping.]
Thanks to the challenges of my 46-year legal career, I am not particularly fearful of entering a “contest” where the chances of victory may be slim. This approach extends to my favorite hobby, taking snapshots of the world around me with my smartphone. For the second year in a row, I have entered the Smithsonian Magazine’s annual photo contest (which hosts images taken by thousands of professionals and amateurs from around the world).
“The American Experience” is one of six categories available to a photographer, intended to capture, “Events, objects or activities connecting the American people to their history or their cultural heritage; photographs that tell us what it means to be an American and provide a sense of what it is like to live in this country.” I submitted 9 or 10 entries in this category, ranging from the intentionally silly, to the profoundly heartbreaking.
Given the unlikelihood that my photos will gain exposure by winning a prize or honorable mention, I thought I’d share them with the readers of my underdog blog.
East Aurora’s “Vidler on the Roof” ignores approaching storm
Vidler’s, “America’s largest 5 & 10 variety store,” attracts tourists to quintessential small town East Aurora. It continues to thrive thanks to the village’s rejection of Wal-Mart in the mid-1990s. A larger-than-life Vidler on the roof, oblivious to an approaching storm, greets customers.
Snow-capped picnic tables in South Buffalo (hopefully, available next spring)
Buffalo’s harsh, long winters motivate locals to spend as much time as possible outdoors the rest of the year. Neighborhood taverns have outdoor tables. These 3 picnic tables were nearly buried when a Nov. storm dropped 4 feet of snow. Hopefully they’ll be usable next Spring.
“Doughnut Tree” maintains its dignity (and beauty)
“Little Ukraine House” in Buffalo NY
Orange-clad walkers and Seneca casino tower proclaim “Every Child Matters” (N.F., NY)
Participants in the annual walk, in memory of the lives lost and horrors at Indigenous boarding schools, approach the Seneca casino tower, which was appropriately proclaiming “Every Child Matters” while aglow with the sunset’s golden hue.
Indigenous grandfather and grandson walk to remember Every Child (N.F., NY)
Indigenous peoples on both sides of US/Canadian border commemorate lost and traumatized victims of “Indian boarding schools” on Sept. 30. This Tonawanda Seneca elder and his grandson join the orange-shirt walkers in Niagara Falls USA.
“PeacePrints” honor the lives of victims of Buffalo’s 5/14/22 supermarket massacre
On 5/14/22, ten human beings, just going about their lives, were slain in a racially-motivated massacre at TOPS Supermarket on Jefferson Ave. in Buffalo NY. Soon thereafter, the life of each victim was memorialized in a row of PeacePrint doves, planted beneath unavoidable yellow police tape.
Memorial for 10 victims of Buffalo’s racially-motivated mass murder
Front Porch display of defiance and white supremacy in South Buffalo (5/17/22)
Ten Blacks tragically lost their lives in a racially-motivated massacre in Buffalo NY on 5/14/22. Public calls for restrictions on the sale of semi-automatic weapons immediately followed. In an apparent response, one Buffalo household defiantly displayed symbols of white supremacy and hatred.
“This is Our City” sign at Buffalo NY unity walk
With All Due Respect,
Art Giacalone
P.S. I would like to have entered the following images in the Smithsonian contest, but the first one did not meet the minimum-pixel-width requirement, and I did not know how to go about obtaining the “model releases” required by Smithsonian Magazine from all the people whose faces are visible in the second picture.
Indigenous dancer at Strawberry Moon festival in ArtPark (Lewiston, NY)
Children participate in Haudenosaunee “Tree of Life” planting on Indigenous Peoples Day (Rochester, NY)
With All Due Respect 