At some point I will laud London, venerate Venice and praise Prague.  Milan was marvelous, Istanbul – inimitable, Manila – massive, and Cairo – creepy.

     We live in a very old part of the world and have access to places rife with history.  I look forward to discussing these places at some point.

     But I must start this written journey somewhere.  And from whence does one begin a journey?

     One starts from home.

     America was young.  Forty.  Fifty years old.  She was vibrant and growing.  She was bursting with intuition after having thrown off the yoke of the old world.  She was adventurous.  Her eastern seaboard continue to swell with cities like Boston and Philadelphia and New York continuing to grow.  But she was looking West.

     Daniel Boone, Lewis and Clark and scores of wilderness men were pioneering the vast continent of North America.  Towns were popping up in western Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan and Indiana and Illinois.  America was ready to morph but she had no physical way to transport her materials.  No railways yet.  No steamships yet.  They would be coming soon from the undeniable march forward of industrial progress, but America could not wait.

     So she began to build the most ingenuitive and influential human-built waterway system in North America.  Beginning in 1817 and running from Albany, New York East towards the Great Lakes she started digging.  With the goal of connecting the Hudson River and Lake Erie, the Erie Canal took 8 years to finish.

     Containing 36 locks and cutting transportation costs by over 90%, the Erie Canal was a undeniable catalyst in young America’s life enabling her to mature quickly and resolutely.  Born in this process was a little town of 200 in 1820.  By 1840 the little town on Buffalo Creek had hit 18,000.  Buffalo was a microcosm of the budding America.

     Soon the steamship and the railroad took over.  The Erie Canal would peak in 1855 in its unique endeavor of creating the empire of America.  The Erie Canal is the reason that New York is known as “The Empire State”.

     Europeans soon realized that America was on to something.  Buffalo was one of the 10 biggest cities in this new land of America.  She sat on the waters of Lake Erie and she became the final destination for Germans and Irish as the sun started to set on the 19th century.  The Poles and Italians also took a liking to the city.  In 1901 my great-grandfather Paul Maulucci and my great-grandmother, Bridet Pelosi came to America from Italy as children through Ellis Island.  Final destination – Buffalo.

     My grandfather, Daniel Rocco Maulucci, found his Polish soulmate, Jean Cislo.  They made their home on Buffalo’s south side in Lackawanna.  My dad and his three sisters all grew up there in that catholic community attending catholic schools.  Two out of three  houses sported a Virgin Mary statue out in the front yard.

     And there I was born and lived the first 8 years of my life.  In Buffalo.

     So my first memories are Buffalo memories.  I am a Buffalonian.

     I have to chuckle when I hear about places going haywire over two feet of snow.  Only two feet is a good day in an average Buffalo winter.  I love the crunch of snow.  The smell of exhaust of a freshly started car mixed with the cold.  I remember the snow being higher than I was tall and my dad carrying me out to his 4wd Jeep Grand Cherokee.  Nobody prays for a white Christmas in Buffalo.  Are you kidding?  We have white Thanksgiving.  What are you talkin’ about?  I have seen white Halloween!

     I love getting bundled up to visit family.  Family.  Family was ultimate.  In order to enjoy family, one must have family, by the way.  Kids and cousins everywhere.  Scottie and Chuckie and Danny and Becky and on and on…noisy and loud.  Buffalo.

     And we never sat at a table all formal-like.  Dining room…what’s that?  Life takes place in the kitchen.  Life took place in grandma’s kitchen.  Two to a chair.  Lots of touch.  Lots of kisses.  Lots of neck massages.  Lots of embraces.  We are Italians.  We can’t fight.  We’re lovers.  Ahhh, Buffalo.

     And I could go for a pizza right now.  From Santoro’s or Nino’s or some other hole-in-the-wall Mom-and-Pop joint.  Dominos, Little Ceasars, Pizza Hut, Papa Johns…ha – if that is your idea of pizza you have never been to Buffalo.

     And pizza always is ordered with wings.  That is what they are called – wings.  Not “hot wings”.  Not “Buffalo wings”.  Not “chicken wings”.  They are wings.  Pizza and wings.  And there is no such things as barbecue wings.  They are all hot.

     And wings come with celery.  And it is Buffalo sacrilege to use ranch dressing to dip your wings.  You may engage in this faux pas, of course, but that is because you are not from Buffalo.  Bleu cheese, baby.  Bleu cheese.  Period.

     Every child’s parents are presented with two options before leaving the hospital with their newborn in Buffalo.  Will the baby have a Buffalo Bills tattoo on its back or Buffalo Sabres.  I’m not telling you what mine is.  That’s all we got, baby, so back off.

     We don’t really do last names with two or less syllables either.  Nelson, Johnson, Miller and the like – not likely from Buffalo.  Try Kazmierczak or Czechowski or Maulucci or Wojtkowiak or Carpino or Piccirillo or Smaczniak – yes, those are all real names of my Buffalo family.  Oh, yeah, my godfather is a guy named Dave Waskalevich.

    This is where I started.  This is where I am from.  This is home.

    This is Buffalo.