I'm really taking this diet and exercise thing serious this time 🤣 It's finally starting to warm up a little in Buffalo NY and I thought now would be a good time to start doing #WednesdayWalk posts. So, hopefully this will be the first of many Wednesday Walks posts.
There are a ton of interesting places to walk around in Buffalo NY. For my first walk I selected a park along the Niagara River in Tonawanda NY. This place is about a 20 minute bicycle ride from my house and when I was growing up (teenage years) I just about lived in this park. As I walked, I came to the realization that my entire childhood is now illegal! I'm about to share some of the best memories of my life with you, and they're all illegal now!
Today I drove in my car but the walk down the bike path really was a trip down memory lane.
Image 1: This is cute in a weird way. Never seen an art installation along this bike path. I have no idea who made this, just thought it was interesting so I snapped a picture.
Image 2: As you can see in the above image it was a really dark dreary day! A steady stream of damp mist filled the air. Nothing to bad, the fresh cold air felt invigorating. This park goes for several miles along the coastline. It was around 50°, cold enough to need a jacket, but comfortable enough to enjoy the walk. This river empties into Niagara Falls.
My thoughts turned to nostalgia as I thought about this park in my youth and how much time has changed. In the late 80s and early 90s on any warm summer day this park was almost standing room only for as far as the eye could see. Thousands of people filled this park under the warm summer sun. If it was a holiday, or the weekend, forget about it. It was quite the spectacle! People would also dive in and out of the water along the shore. That's been outlawed. NO SWIMMING!
Image 3: This park road used to run along the shore for several miles. They didn't have all these parking spaces back then. Back in the day muscle cars and motorcycles would line both sides of the road parked side by side on the grass. Cars filled with all kinds of people both young and old would cruise up and down the park road checking out all the Mustangs, Chevelle's, El Camino's (I had a Mopar orange El Camino back then), Camaro's and motorcycles. You could drink alcohol in the park back then and kegs of beer filled several car trunks as everyone partied throwing frisbees and hacky sack circles formed. 🤣 Every car had their trunk open and blasted 97 Rock radio station. It was almost like a concert!
It was a one way road back then, so you'd start at the far end of the park and slowly make your way at about 3 miles per hour until you reached where that yellow awning is on the left side, at the end of the row of houses on the left. You then cruised up that street at about 10 miles per hour on a good day, until you reached the park entrance a few miles down the road. Then did it all over again! Each round trip took at least an hour if you didn't stop to talk to friends or family. It might sound boring to the uninitiated, but it was great fun. Like one massive outdoor party!
People hung out the backs of pickup trucks and car windows talking to passersby on the street or on the park road who were walking by. You'd find a clique of people you knew with a keg of beer and stop for a beer or two or three. It was also a great way to meet girls. It really was great fun.
I have to ask myself if maybe democracy failed here. It's supposed to be majority rules. Obviously some asshat politician seen thousands of people having fun and decided something must be done. So throughout the 90's they did everything they could to tame the park. The first thing they did was put an end to the cruising. They separated the park and made sure you couldn't cruise the distance. They put an end to kegs with a no keg policy. They put these parking spots in and stopped parking on the lawn.
Now instead of several thousand people showing up on any given weekend, it's several hundred. Many of the businesses along the side road closed too because of the lower attendance. The side road was all ice cream stands, bars, and restaurants. It's a completely different vibe now too. Ironically, the only thing you couldn't do back then was smoke pot. The local cops had undercovers all over the place just looking for pot smokers 🤣 Well, at least one things changed for the better. Don't have to worry about that anymore!
I think it's ironic that we pass these laws for the greater good, but the park attendance went from several thousand people to several hundred. Obviously, the majority of the people preferred it the other way, or there would be more people in the park now than then. Sad really. I call them the "fun stoppers" putting an end to a good time near you! We have to stop allowing them to tame us!
Image 4: Looking at this sign, we have to come to the conclusion that bitcoin and cryptocurrency may be to complicated for some people. Still, another sign of the times. Pun fully intended! Like we really needed a sign for that! I wonder how much tax money it costed? Sorry, Now I'm just getting grumpy 🙃
Image 5: This was the end of the path back in my day. It now goes for several miles connecting to yet another park in the next town. When we were kids, early teens, we would ride our bicycles to this train bridge and swim here all day long. We'd actually climb to the top and jump off. 🤣 Friends would stop by in boats and we'd boat around the river for awhile then return back here. This is the mouth of the Erie Canal. It was a big thing back in the day. There were always at least 30 or 40 kids hanging out at the train bridge.
There was an older kid we called animal. I never knew his real name. He would climb to the top like a monkey, then climb to the top of that tripod looking thing at the very peak at the center of the top girder. It was in much better shape back then, less rust. Everyone would be chanting, "animal, Animal, ANIMAL!" louder and louder as he climbed. He would then do a flip in the air off the very peak and dive into the water. The guy probably could have tried out for the Olympic diving team!
Yup, you guessed it. Anyone caught on the train bridge now gets arrested! Sure occasionally people got hurt, but these were good freakin times! Sad to see future generations deprived of such fun 🤣
Where these houses now stand. used to be our vacant field. The picture below was taken directly opposite the train bridge.
When they started building the houses for the rich people, we all knew the party was over. It didn't take long before they ended everyone hanging out by the train bridge. My understanding is anyone caught on the train bridge is arrested and charged with trespassing. IDK, the libertarian in me, says, there should be a sign that says, "Swim at your own risk".
Another thing we used to do was take car inner tubes, fill them with air and float down the river on them. Sometimes we'd get a huge group of people and tie them together and fill the center inner tube with beer! We'd stick the inner tubes in the water just outside the city of Buffalo, then get out at the train bridge. Which was at least 5 miles away. Yup, that's illegal now also. The coast guard will actually arrest you for floating down the river in an inner tube.
It's funny, I enjoyed this post so much. The nostalgia I felt as I snapped these pictures and remembered people I hadn't thought of in at least 30 years. I'm really saddened to actually realize these bastards have outlawed my entire childhood. And we wonder why these kids coming up don't go out and stare at their mobile phones all day! These were such good times, it's a shame future generations will be deprived of these experiences.
Sure, some of these things might have been a little dangerous. But that's part of growing up. We live, we learn, we make mistakes. In between all that, we enjoy life to the fullest. I'm really grateful for the childhood I had growing up. On top of that, I can't help but think that this is the "freedom" true freedom, that we're slowly letting go one petty law at a time. Just sayin...
Well, this post is long enough. Now I'm actually a little depressed. Thanks for taking this trip down memory lane with me on this Wednesday Walk!
I'm curious now, if you're older (above 40), are there things you were allowed to do growing up that are illegal now? What were they and how do you feel about that?