This is it – everything has to be packed by tonight. The plan is to leave around dawn tomorrow. There’s a toll booth about 20 miles south of my Mom’s house that I want to get through before rush hour.
But … I’m still not getting up too early … and Ben isn’t getting up early at all. At least I’m tiring him out!
So I pack. It’s not too bad, but it’s enough to keep me busy all day. Mom is really bugging me now … I’ve found tons of photos that I’ve never seen before that I want to take back home and digitize and share … and she keeps pulling them out of the stuff I’m packing and looking them over. That’s not a problem, but she’s not returning them to be packed. I chased some down … but it’s a year later now … and some of those photos and albums never got in my hands and she says she threw them out because no one wanted them. Someone did Mom.
Eventually, Ben gets up. Grandma makes him french toast for breakfast. He’s gotten the message that I’ll be busy today, so he’s helpful and cooperative when he needs to be, and he stays out of the way when I don’t need his help. What a guy!
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In the morning I run down to my Mom’s attorney’s office to grab the finalized contract. I bring it back to the house for her signature. We have a sit down about what it all means, and if she’s sure about what she’s giving away. She balks at giving me one painting, and we cross it off the list. We also talk about how if she’s signing over stuff of value to me now, that she needs to make sure that my brother gets some larger amount of other assets when he eventually settles her estate. We agree, she signs, and its back to the attorney’s. They fax the signed forms to my insurance agent. At the end of the business day I get a call from them that we are good to go. Most people wouldn’t bother with all this
Ben isn’t going to have much fun today, and I have a list of things I’d like to do with him. A quick one to fit in was lunch at Ziggy’s on Main St. in Eggertsville. It’s a place that Mary Jo and I have always told him about. So we cruise down there in mid-afternoon, and have tacos and chicken fingers. I had him call Mary Jo to tell her where he was eating. Then back to my Mom’s.
In late afternoon, Bob shows up after work. We find more stuff, including some 8 MM movies. We drive over to Show Productions, and I offer cash to have them digitized. They’ll be ready when they open at 10 in the morning. Bob agrees to pick them up, since I’ll be gone.
Then we go to AAA. For the most part, they’ve eliminated the old-fashioned trip-tik in favor of an online one. But … in Buffalo … they still do things the 20th century way … and their office said they could prepare one. So we went and sat there for half-an-hour or so while they put one together. I was rude to the poor woman, and had to apologize … then we got along great. Chalk it up to stress.
Then we go to buy some flowers. Mary Jo had asked Ben to put flowers on the graves of her parents.
At 6 I decide that I have time to take Ben to St. Stanislaus Cemetery. I’ve been waiting all day for it to stop raining, and it hasn’t, so this is the cutoff time to get there today. It’s been so lousy I’ve even toyed with the idea of going there first thing in the morning when the gates open.
A typical May evening in Buffalo: long pants, long-sleeved shirt, pouring rain, muddy, and gray. Ever since we left Ben has said he liked the weather there; I guess it's totally different from what he's used to.
Here's Ben standing over the Urbanski family plot. There’s a lot more gravesite pictures if you click on these and then follow the links on that page (Ben got as much family history as he could handle on this excursion, but I’m guessing the MJ would find it creepy if I wrote it up here).
Afterwards, the plan was to drop Ben with Beth for a while, and that we’d meet at her parents’ house. So we drove straight there. Uncle Jim wanted to spend some time with Ben too, and they were looking for ideas. I suggested Barnes and Noble – Ben loves bookstores, and he’s never been to a big one … and off they went.
I drove back to my Mom’s. By now the whole Tufte clan has arrived. We chat, I pack. After an hour or so, Beth drops Ben off … the kids made out like a bandit! Beth even gave him a wrapped gift and told him he wasn’t allowed to open it until he was on the road, and really bored.
Mary Jo helps out a bit at this point. When push comes to shove, she decides that some of the furniture that I was interested in won’t really match our decor in Utah, and isn’t worth bringing back. She was thinking more clearly than I was …
And slowly the packing winds down, and the Wehrle Tufte’s say their good-byes.
I didn’t bother finishing packing … just a few items to tape shut … our personal stuff to throw in the truck … and we’re off.
I left orders with my Mom to get me up early, but I didn’t set an alarm.
I had a bucket list of things I wanted to do with Ben in Buffalo, and there were a lot of things I didn’t fit in: seeing his Uncle Matt and Aunt Kathleen, going to the Albright-Knox gallery, going to the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, seeing Lake Erie, going to Fort Niagara or Fort George, visiting and introducing him to my friends Dan Troy and Mike Donnachie, eating at Duff’s, perhaps a trip out to the cemeteries for my side of the family, and so on. Well … we made a good run at completing the list.
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