Sunday, August 10 2008
Buffalo, NY

This was walk-down-memory-lane day. Back in my hometown of Buffalo, New York and staying with my 83 year old grandmother and her 91 year old boyfriend, Phil.

I haven’t been back to Buffalo for 8 or 9 years, so there were definitely a few things that I wanted to relive while I was there. In the morning, my grandmother and I went to an antiques flea market that I used to attend every Sunday with my grandfather when I was growing up. It’s always a lot of fun seeing the old toys and furniture. Now that I was going with my grandmother, she was able to see a bunch of items from her past that have long gone out of use. For example, we saw a few refrigerators–the wooden kind, with a special compartment for the ice that the ice man would deliver in blocks to your door every morning. It made me think of all of the things from my own childhood that will be out of fashion and in an antique mall by the time I’m 60 or 70 years old. I’m almost certain that most of the telephones I grew up with will be completely obsolete. To say nothing of fax machines. Or cassette tapes, which are just about antiques right now, and CDs. How about 70 watt light bulbs? Or anything else we’ve all decided leaves too large of a carbon footprint? You can expect to find it all in the antique mart in a few short decades from now.

For lunch I decided that I was going to break a very personal rule. See, I haven’t eaten fast food since December of 1999. (unless you count Subway, which I don’t, and we can get into that another time) But I knew that since I was going to be back in Buffalo, a city I rarely visit, it would be a shame if I didn’t relive one of my favorite childhood meals: Mighty Taco. Mighty Taco is a local chain of fast-food taco vendors, and believe me they kick Taco Bell’s ass. If you’re in the Western New York area, you can’t go wrong with a little Mighty Taco.

Or so I thought. It turns out that, even though the tacos tasted exactly as I remembered them, the thrill had disappeared. They simply weren’t as good as when I had last had them 10 years ago. I guess that’s how it always goes.

And now it’s back on the wagon for me.

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