Archive: Around Town

We hope everyone had as nice a holiday season as we did. Frankly, it was so nice it's been hard to get back and take the time to write about it but we did find so new places to try and had some adventures to share along the way.

 Jim's Santa suit is finally back in the closet for the next ten and a half months and we finally took the really FAT tree that we got at Moore's Tree Farm out to provide shelter for the small birds while they wait for the greedy blue jays to finish stuffing themselves at our feeders.


We stopped first to check in on Jim's identical twin, John, who unfortunately had a massive stroke almost 4 years ago and is currently doing rehab in a nursing home in Williamsville. John's wife is still recovering from hip surgery after a fall that put her in a nursing home as well so they are hoping to get John more able to care for himself this time. To that end, Jim is working with John's therapists to get him retrained (John was also a computer programmer before the stroke) on a new laptop so he can communicate again. Mary made John a one man apple pie and the twin geeks worked up an appetite. Unfortunately, we couldn't bring John out with us this time for lunch but we will be back at the end of January and see if that's possible. Jerry, their older brother, tries to go as often as he can too.

Jim's older brother, Jerry is, for many folks in the Western NY area, a well known figure. For over 40 years he has trained and promoted youth and little league soccer in the western half of our state. He still sets up and oversees scheduling for tournaments as far east as Cortland and from PA to the Canadian border.This has, over the years, caused Jerry to spend a lot of hours on the road so, if you want a good breakfast place or a real beefeater's steak or ribs place west of Rochester in particular, Jerry is the source and he hasn't picked a bad place yet.


The latest favorite place for lunch is in Tonawanda on Young St. just off of the Colvin exit called "Athena's" and it was packed by 11:30 am. Luckily, Jerry and one of the young referees who Jerry has been training since junior high were there ahead of us and had a table steaked out or the wait would have been about 40 minutes. After trying one of their full size burgers I can see why it is so popular but they serve a full breakfast and lunch menu as well in the tradition of Greek - American diners. The food here though is several notches above the local diner food but the prices are great and even on a really packed and rushed day the long time really professional waitresses kept their cool and the banter with their regular customers going. They turned the tables over there faster than I've seen just about anywhere, but we never felt rushed and we always had coffe in our cups until we said we were done.

I'll have to finish catching up next week since I'm already past our deadline for this piece. We're looking forwar to another year of eats and treats as we travel out and about in upstate New York.

              Happy New Year!
                             Mary & Jim