A year's worth of writing columns always involves hundreds upon hundreds of conversations with unforgettable people. As we step into a new year and begin the 2020s, here are just a few examples of memorable quotes from men and women whose paths I was lucky enough to cross in 2019:
Jan. 10: "I’m not worried about our stuff. I’m worried about that fireman.” Alex Battle, 22, after a fire tore through his family home on Butler Street in Buffalo; city firefighter Eric Whitehead suffered severe burns to his hands.
Jan. 26: “It’s a tough way to get to be famous.” Vivian Volk, while celebrating her 93rd birthday, recalling how she earned a national spotlight in North Tonawanda in the years after World War II when she gave birth to four straight sets of twins.
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Feb. 19: “I’ve been blessed with my corners.” Zollie Simmons, who met her husband Clarence in coal mining country in West Virginia and then spent decades working a block apart from him in Buffalo, where they became longtime crossing guards.
Feb 27: "Oh, my God. I can't believe I actually got it!" Anthony LaMonte of Fort Erie, Ont., who achieved viral fame with millions of views on YouTube through his astounding, profanity-laden video of piano-sized chunks of ice cascading onto shore from the Niagara River.
March 1: "It's a survivor." City forester Ross Hassinger on what is indisputably one of Buffalo's oldest trees, a massive, ancient sycamore in the heart of the city on Franklin Street; the tree casually withstood fierce windstorms in February and on Halloween.
March 10: "I love you. What will you do without me?" An old note discovered by Patty Diacumakos, written by her 7-year-old daughter Marina, who died from cancer of the brain more than 20 years ago; the note caused Patty to help reignite Compassionate Friends of Western New York.
March 11: “If I do it for other people, why wouldn’t I do it for my own family?” Megan Ann Mattiuzzo, a professional photographer, explaining how she managed to photograph the instant when she gave birth to her newborn son, Easton.
March 12: “I should have filled it with helium.” John Katalinas, a 280-pound Scottish Games athlete known for throwing heavy weights, on the kilt he wore while doing the Fight for Air Climb at the Main Place Tower to honor his mother, Dorothy, who died of lung cancer.
March 19: “We’ve been having that conversation for their whole lives.” Darren Brown-Hall, a Buffalo schools administrator, on how he consoled one of his children, who faced ugly taunts for being African American during a youth hockey game in Amherst.
April 2: "I cry a little to let it out, and then I stop." Kris Scharoun-DeForge after the death of her husband Paul; at more than 25 years, their marriage was believed to be one of the longest in the world for a couple with Down Syndrome.
April 13: “Gosh, I sure would give a lotta money to be able to step foot in Buffalo again.” From a letter to his parents written by Vince Rogers Jr., a young airman killed during World War II; he was among several local casualties in 20th century wars – including Coast Guard hero Jimmy Crotty – whose remains finally came home in 2019, thanks to DNA testing.
May 15: "I’m not surprised in Buffalo, to be honest. I knew it all along, as I was growing up, how well this city was with each other's people, and it's just, I'm not surprised from Buffalo." Ezra Castro, a Texas-raised Bills fan known as Pancho Billa, shortly before his death in May; his grace during his struggle with cancer made him a beloved figure.
May 26: “Someone’s got to speak for them. I owe that to my brother.” Casimiro Rodriguez of Buffalo, recalling the passing of his brother Gabe, upon the dedication of a waterfront memorial meant both to underline the urgency of a nationwide crisis involving veteran suicides – and to offer a place of respite and honor.
May 30: "Is it too much to say that fish fry is part of our collective soul?" Ann Graham, a reader, after a column on haddock fish fries in Western New York touched off a torrent of passionate reader reaction.
June 21: “That’s what we were going for!” Alicia Myers, a "cannabis consultant" at Choom, a store that sells legal marijuana in Ontario, when told the place has the look and feel of an upscale phone store.
June 26: "This is why you should never flush your fish!" From a tweet that went around the world by Marcus Rosten of Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper, which showed Rosten lifting a 14-inch goldfish pulled from the Black Rock Canal.
June 27: "It turns into survival, and you hold in your tears." Fidele Dhan, a "Lost Boy of Sudan" who is now a Buffalo school bus driver, on making it through a 1,000-mile walk in the wild as a child refugee. Dhan founded a medical clinic to help those suffering in his homeland.
July 7: "Oh, the lights, the people, the music, the food." Buffalo's Daisy Estelle Anderson, one of many readers who recalled the wonder of the city's Central Terminal on its 90th birthday; Daisy's death in July, at 97, was met with a wave of civic sorrow.
July 13: “I fell into a cloud." Roger Woodward, recalling the moment almost 60 years ago when he went over Niagara Falls as a 7-year-old and somehow survived, in what was called "The Miracle at Niagara."
July 17: “You ask me the key, and this is it: She loves to read. Get someone to read, to learn to finish a book, and they’re all set.” Amy Betros, a founder of St. Luke's Mission of Mercy, on Joanah Perkins, a graduate of the home school at St. Luke's who left for law school in Boston.
July 20: “If it didn’t work, they’d still be on the moon.” Fifty years after Neil Armstrong stepped onto the lunar surface, 97-year-old engineer Bill Swenson on the importance of an ascent engine built at Bell Aerosystems in Wheatfield, an engine that made all the difference in lifting two astronauts off the moon and sending them toward the command module that would take them home.
July 27: "I’ve been shot." Jason Phillips, a young man with developmental disabilities, who woke up his grandmother in Buffalo with those words after he was seriously wounded in an unsolved attack on his way home from his girlfriend's.
July 28: "If they decide to take that Skyway down, there still has to be something for these men." Florence "Mickie" Golba, whose father, Mitchell LeClair, a Mohawk ironworker, was one of three men who died during construction of the Skyway. The families are seeking a monument.
Sept 19: "This music. It has to live." Producer Barry Miles, who appeared in a documentary shown in Niagara Falls on the life and work of Coleman Mellett, a guitarist who was among those lost in the 2009 crash of Continental Connection Flight 3407.
Oct. 11: “It had to be God helping us.” Irene McVay, 85, longtime Buffalo educator, after returning to Farmville, a Virginia community where McVay played a major role almost 70 years ago in a student walkout that became part of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision.
Nov. 1: "I can tell you this: I was always pretty pumped up to get a hit off a lefty." Nate Parrino, now a state trooper in Geneseo, on his game-winning single in 2008 as a junior college ballplayer at Genesee Community College against Mohawk Valley's Pat Corbin, who went on to become a World Series hero of 2019 for the Washington Nationals.
Nov. 4: "I think the scow moved." The stunned words of a co-worker to Debbi Hogan of the Niagara Parks Commission, after a storm shifted an iconic scow that has been stuck near the brink of Niagara Falls for a century.
Nov. 27: “I’ll do it.” The spontaneous offering of Grand Island's Bob Merritt, whose decision to donate a kidney as part of a paired donation brought a life-changing transplant to his sister-in-law, Eileen Klein. Nine weeks after surgery, Merritt ran the YMCA Turkey Trot.
Dec. 4: “Look where we’re at. Look at what He gave me to run with.” Michael Whalen of South Buffalo – whose account of childhood sexual by a priest shook the Diocese of Buffalo and launched an ongoing cascade of revelations – on why he retains his faith in God.
Dec. 7: “They knew there was a war going on, and they thought it would be the perfect name for me.” Ruby Pearl Nelson of Buffalo, born on Dec. 7, 1941; her parents named her in recognition of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought America into World War II.
Dec. 11: "Seriously?" A joyous Zach Kilga of Clarence High School, after being told that a rule change by the state Board of Regents would again make him eligible for Unified bowling and basketball, in which students from special education and general education classes play side-by-side.
Dec. 25: “I was crying, he was crying; it was unbelievable.” Mary Sicienski on the moment a volunteer group called Sherlock Bones reunited Mary with Tucker, a dog that had been missing 13 days; the effort also led to a Christmas surprise for the family of Cindy Cirbus, a widow who played a key role in that connection.
Dec. 28: “You’ve always got to stay until the end.” Joan Hoak, an 83-year-old Bills fan who has embraced that philosophy in good moments and hard ones for the team since 1964, when she began attending games – even at a time when her late husband feared she was a little too close to giving birth.
Sean Kirst is a columnist with The Buffalo News. Email him at skirst@buffnews.com or read all of his work from 2019 in this archive.
