Buffalo - Moxie Gardiner

Merry West Side Christmas

Grandma was happiest surrounded by loved ones on Christmas.

This will be a difficult Christmas for me and my family, so permit me to indulge in a nostalgia trip, back to a happier time. I’ve had many wonderful Christmases at various stages of my life, but this year my elder relatives are on my mind, as are the wonderful traditions and memories that may be lost when they pass on. So this month’s blog will reflect on a typical West Side Christmas when I was growing up.

*It was no doubt a lot of work for Grandma, but there was nothing we loved more than being at her house on Christmas.*

I suspect that our traditions were similar to those of many West Side families, especially if your Grandmother was Sicilian. The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas were a frenzy of cookie baking, house cleaning, gift-wrapping, and shopping at the Italian corner stores and butchers. Grandma often took me with her to buy preparations for the Christmas meal, and as a reward, I got a tiny box of nougat candy called torrone which I can taste in my mind to this day.

After school, Santa was on Channel 4 with his helper, Forgetful the Elf, and we kids would hold our breaths, hoping that Santa would read aloud one of the letters we sent him. My parents hung “The Chart” every year, a record of each child’s daily behavior, and some of us prayed that neither Santa nor his elves would see it, at least until after he left our gifts.

As Christmas drew nearer, I would walk with my brothers and sisters to either Woolworth’s or Kresge’s 5 and 10 cent store on Grant Street to buy gifts with our meager allowance. It was mandatory that everyone receive a gift, no matter how little money you had to spend. Rubber balls, paper dolls, chalk, and strips of caps for cap guns were among the affordable items.

*I’m sure Santa cringed when he saw our family coming.*

Once a year, of course, we would make our annual trip downtown to marvel at AM&A’s animated Christmas display, and to visit Santa. The downtown visit also included our once-a-year trip to a restaurant, usually the IHOP, where we got to eat breakfast for dinner, and put napkins in our laps like fancy people.

We went to church every Sunday during Advent, abstained from eating meat, and went to midnight mass on Christmas Eve when we were older (some neighbors were home grilling sausage just after midnight, to break the meatless fast). But when we were young, Christmas Eve was the night that we put up our un-decorated Christmas tree, hung our stockings, and went to bed early, only to lie awake most of the night, listening for the sound of reindeer landing on the roof and the rustle of Santa coming down the chimney.

*It seems that we often had White Christmases back in the day, and waited impatiently for Dad to clean the snow off the car before we headed to Grandma’s.*

*Santa often stayed up until the wee hours, putting toys, trains, and games together.*

At first light on Christmas morning, we would line up on the stairs according to age (as the oldest, I was always last). When my father gave the signal, we rushed down to see our now decorated tree, and what Santa had brought us. It was a mad, happy, chaotic scene of searching for gifts, opening boxes, and playing with our new acquisitions. Our stockings were always filled with walnuts in the shell, an orange (a Sicilian tradition) and a handful of Hershey’s Kisses.

*There would be platters of homemade giuggiulena, pizzelles, butterballs, and other Italian cookies, but my favorites were always the figgy cuccidati.*

Sometime in the early afternoon, we would head over to my grandparents’ small apartment where an enormous assortment of gifts sat on the living room couch, one for each of her children and grandchildren. Grandma always had a huge pot of sauce on the stove that you could smell coming up the stairs, freshly baked bread, and some sort of pasta, enough to feed all 30 or so family members who lived in the area. Sometimes Grandma would make homemade ravioli, and line the sheets of fresh pasta on towels in her bedroom to dry before filling them on Christmas morning.

*I remember the year Grandma gave me my favorite doll, Cream Puff.*

How I loved these family gatherings with all these wild and crazy relatives! We would dance, sing, joke, tease, eat, and eat some more. Always, my youngest aunt would organize us children to put on a Christmas play or pageant for the adults. It was never exactly up to Broadway standards, but Grandma always pretended to love it.

*This was what Christmas was all about–having fun and being with family.*

Those were the years when my large extended family was short on cash but long on love, and we had no worries about crowding all those people into a tiny apartment. It was all about being together. This is what I will miss most about Christmas this year; homemade comfort food, hugs, and an abundance of love. I want the younger generations, many of whom are also having a difficult time this year, to know more about our family and its traditions, to carry them on, and to know that it’s possible that one day we can have Christmases like this once again.

Merry Christmas to the thousands of you who have read my blogs and given me wonderful feedback in your comments. Virtual hugs to all of you, along with my sincere hope for a happy, healthy 2022.

Love to all, Moxie

Moxie Gardiner is a writer and gardener who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, NY. In a previous life she was a journalist, magazine editor, speech writer, and policy wonk. Back in the day she made three solo parachute jumps, flew in an F-15 fighter jet, and crawled through mud pits at the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama. She now meditates and practices yoga. She is almost ready to publish her first novel, set in Buffalo.

My Mad Crush on Commander Tom

Alas, though Commander Tom was charming and kind to everyone, he never paid any attention to me, even when I won a giant Tootsie Roll.

I remember the day I got the letter from WKBW-TV. “We are indeed pleased to enclose your tickets to the Super Pal Club,” it read. I jumped around the house waving the letter and screaming as if I’d just won the lottery. I was going to be on television with the man of my dreams, Commander Tom!

*Yes, I still have the letter to this day.*

Every day after school, especially during the long, cold winter months in Buffalo, my siblings and I would gather in front of our TV to watch the Commander Tom Show. The theme song would play and there was the Commander, with his twinkling eyes, dazzling smile, cheeky sideburns, and perfectly coiffed hair, standing upright and resplendent in his red military uniform, talking to his sidekicks Bat Head and Super Mouth, and later, to his handmade hand puppets, Dustmop and Matty the Mod. My brothers waited impatiently for Commander Tom to quit talking and air “The Adventures of Superman,” but my 11-year-old self only had eyes for the handsome man in red. Imagine my rapture at the thought of meeting him in person!

I was not alone in having a preteen romantic crush, as five decades worth of Tiger Beat readers will attest. According to a recent survey, some 90 per cent of young adults have felt a strong attraction to a famous person at some point in their lives. As I thought back to this innocent time I began to wonder, why do people, especially young people, love to love celebrities? Are these fantasy romances healthy, or—as some parents worry today, unhealthy?

*I was thrilled to pieces to get an autographed (auto-penned?) photo of my hero.*

Back in the 1950s, Professors Donald Horton and R. Richard Wohl were the first to describe the personal bond people feel with a favorite actor or talk show host as a “parasocial relationship.” More recently, Dr. Dara Greenwood, an associate professor of psychology at Vassar College, has written about how social media has heightened parasocial attachments. “We see certain celebrities in movies and TV shows…and with the advent of social media, we often have a seemingly direct pipeline into their personal ‘off screen’ lives,” she says.

Most of these “relationships” are harmless, but they can go too far. “Social media may make celebrities seem all the more accessible as potential romantic partners, and perhaps lead to increased frustration or disappointment when we can’t turn fantasy into reality.” On the other hand, “In my research, participants have identified qualities such as kindness, authenticity and humility as top reasons for their celebrity affinities,” Greenwood adds. “We do tend to gravitate towards media figures who are like us in certain respects – who reflect our own values or interests, whether actual or aspirational.”

I suspect Commander Tom was such a popular local celebrity because of these very qualities. WKBW-TV decided to capitalize on his ratings by creating the Super Pal Club for those of us who in today’s parlance would be called his “Super Fans.” This included most of the kids in my West Side neighborhood, as well as the rest of Buffalo and southern Ontario.

*Some of our Super Pal Club winnings, to include my giant Tootsie Roll.*

Like with many live TV shows of that era, “Super Pals” were randomly selected from the studio audience to compete in games of skill. I wanted so badly to have Commander Tom notice me that when the show’s producer scanned the audience for possible contestants, I jumped and waved my hands like a crazy person until I was selected. Alas, though Commander Tom was charming and kind to everyone, he never paid any special attention to me. Even the giant Tootsie Roll filled with candies that I won shooting baskets, failed to impress him.

Tom Jolls, aka Commander Tom, became even more well known as Buffalo’s most beloved weatherman until he retired in 1999. I learned recently that in 2019 he was inducted into the NY State Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

I, on the other hand, grew up and learned to be a little more selective about the men I became infatuated with. Unless the guy I was dating was kind, humble, authentic, and perfectly at ease when talking to hand puppets, I moved on. Thanks, Commander Tom!

Have you ever had a celebrity crush? More than one? Better yet, were you a member of the Super Pal Club? I would love to hear your stories in the comments below.

The Bodacious Gardens of Buffalo

When I was growing up on the West Side, little did I know that my crowded, urban neighborhood would one day host the biggest, most beautiful Garden Walk in America.

*Typical West Side lawns, back in the day.*

Long ago, when childhood meanderings were confined to exploring my city block, I knew every crack in the sidewalk, every pothole in the street, and every inch of what might be called grass on our pallet-sized lawn. I also knew which tiny West Side backyards hosted vegetable gardens, brimming with tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant, so Sicilian families could make their Sunday spaghetti sauce from scratch. But finding a flower garden in this urban hardscape was a rare and astonishing treat.

*Just one section of the Annual Buffalo Garden Walk, this showing the West Side ‘hood where I grew up. Note the number of houses on just this section of the tour alone.*

Though raised as a city girl, today I am interested in all things gardening, and everywhere I travel I seek out gardens, looking for tips and tricks to improve my own. So imagine my surprise when I went on my first Buffalo Garden Walk a few years ago, through the same crowded city streets of my youth, and found house after house with flowers spilling out of window boxes, former lawns, driveway strips, and sidewalk borders in a dizzying array of colors, shapes, and sizes—plots as healthy and beautiful as any found behind an English cottage or along Monet’s pond in France. Now in its 27^th year, Buffalo’s Garden Walk showcases more than 300 gardens on the West Side, and attracts some 65,000 visitors over a two-day period.

*Who would have imagined then, a front lawn could look like this?*

For those of you not from Buffalo, who know little about the city beyond its massive snowfalls and spicy chicken wings, it might surprise you to learn that Buffalo is now known for its greenspaces and gardens. Realizing this, I went to the Garden Walk this year with two questions in mind: why are flower gardens so unexpectedly lush and green in this cold weather (USDA Zone 6) urban environment, and what can I learn from Buffalo gardeners to improve my own?[1]

*The two-day Buffalo Garden Walk attracts thousands of visitors from around the country.*

Why are these gardens thriving? Well, here are my theories. As a northern city, Buffalo’s long summer days provide flowering plants with more daylight growing hours. Chilly temperatures in Buffalo last well into spring, allowing bad bugs and plant pathogens to remain dormant for longer periods. Summer temperatures, typically between 70-80 degrees, are ideal for most plants, especially annuals. Buffalo also has very good natural soil, typically fine to fine-loamy till, inherited from long ago glacial deposits, and its location, lying on the windward side of Lake Erie and the Niagara River, provides gardens with plenty of natural moisture throughout the year. Finally, after long, tough winters, Buffalo gardeners strive to make the most of their short growing season by devoting extraordinary time and energy to their gardens when warm weather finally arrives.

I now live in the mid-Atlantic region, an area with shorter, milder winters and hot, humid summers. What if anything did I learn from the Buffalo Garden Walk that I could apply to my own gardens?

*A clever integration of lawn and stepping stones.*

*Note the use of old household objects to create garden art.*

Recognize that gardens crowded into small spaces have high impact and give a visual impression of lushness and vitality. Make the most of any decent patch of soil you own.
Be unafraid of incorporating unusual things in your garden design for added interest. I loved the “recycled household objects” that were artistic elements in many of Buffalo’s gardens.
Make sure the hard structures surrounding your garden complement its beauty. This includes everything from garden sheds to stepping stones.
Use Milorganite (a product made from recycled wastewater) to deter deer, rabbits, and voles. It is organic and apparently highly effective.
Try the aesthetically and aromatically pleasing cocoa shell mulch many Buffalo gardeners use, both to suppress weeds and provide beneficial nutrients to the soil (just make sure your dogs don’t eat it).

Perhaps the most important lesson I took from the garden walk this year is that nothing transforms a neighborhood like beautiful gardens. Not only do they enhance the structural and architectural beauty of the old homes on the West Side (many built in the 1800s), they signal that this is again a neighborhood where people take pride in their homes and community. You can’t put a price on that.

*Even the smallest front lawn can* *be transformed into a thing of beauty*.

Have you ever gone on the Buffalo Garden Walk? What was your experience like? Do you have garden walks in your new hometown and how do they compare? I would love to hear from you!

[1] For a wonderful reference book on Buffalo’s gardens see Buffalo-Style Gardens by Jim Charlier and Sally Cunningham.

Children of the River

We who grew up alongside the mighty Niagara know it as the artery that pulsed through our childhood. Photo courtesy of Maria Eley.

Few people outside of Buffalo know much about the Niagara River, other than that it is interrupted by one of the seven natural wonders of the world, Niagara Falls.

Historians might cite the battles fought on and across the Niagara River during the War of 1812, or its later role as a section of the Underground Railroad. Politicians recognize it as an important international boundary, and geographers as part of the great watershed that connects two of the great lakes, Erie and Ontario. Boaters and daredevils are in awe of this river that flows north over the Falls at nearly 70 mph, preceded by some of the most dangerous rapids in the world.

The class VI rapids of the formidable Niagara River.
Photo: Library of Congress

Buffalonians, however, think of none of that. We who grew up alongside the Niagara know it as the artery that pulsed through our childhoods.

I lived not far from the place where Lake Erie narrows and the Niagara River begins. We often walked to the river to fish, and could easily make it to the Foot of Ferry Street or the river’s break wall in 20 minutes. Our Sunday family outings often ended at one of the parks along the river’s edge, where we could play and enjoy delicious Ted’s Hot Dogs in the summer, and ice skate in the winter. At night, we listened to the sand flies, newly hatched down by the river, pinging against our window screens.

*We often rode our bikes across the Peace Bridge and into Ontario without having to show ID. Photo courtesy of Dean Gallagher*

When we were teenagers and could ride our bikes some distance, we would say goodbye to Mom in the morning equipped with a brown bag lunch and a bathing suit, and ride over the Peace Bridge to Canada. The Baby Hole beach, with its treacherous currents, was right over the bridge, but we preferred Crescent Beach, where other teenagers tended to congregate. If we had the energy, we would ride the 14 miles to the Crystal Beach Amusement Park, and then back again, arriving home sunburned and late for supper.

As I grew older, the river sickened. Steel, petrochemical, and chemical industries had flourished along the river, thanks to the availability of cheap electricity from Niagara Falls and easy access to the Great Lakes. In the late 1970s, many of these plants pulled up stakes and left the area, leaving behind hazardous waste sites and contaminated waters. In 1978, a neighborhood near the Love Canal, just outside of Niagara Falls, learned that it was sitting above more than 20,000 tons of toxic industrial waste. Many residents fell ill and died.

By the late 1980s, the Niagara River was officially designated one of the “Great Lakes Areas of Concern,” and the people of Buffalo were warned not to eat fish caught in the river or swim in its waters. I remember all too well the fetid smell of rotting fish, the abandoned factories along the river’s edge, and the greasy film atop the water from industrial runoff. It felt as if the river itself had died.

*Old West Side friends come together to celebrate at new bars and restaurants along the river*. *Photo by Moxie Gardiner*

Today, however, the river is alive again. Restaurants, parks, and upscale apartment buildings have replaced the derelict structures along its shoreline, and Canalside, Buffalo’s revitalized terminus of the Erie Canal, has become a popular tourist destination. Recently, a dozen or so of my elementary school classmates got together at the River Grill, a popular outdoor spot where we could sit and swap stories about the old days while enjoying the river’s cool breeze.

One of Buffalo’s Paddle People enjoying the wildlife near Grand Island.
Photo courtesy of Dean Gallagher

Last summer, I joined the Buffalo Paddle People to kayak around Grand Island, a piece of land the size of Manhattan that splits the river in two. We glided along its banks and out to smaller islands, looking for nesting birds and other wildlife. Off in the distance, I could see the Buffalo skyline, gleaming in the setting sun. I let my fingers drag through the cold waters of the river and was instantly transported back to the days when I would gingerly step out into the same cold waters in my bathing suit, and feel the swift water pushing through my fingers and toes.

There is an old adage: “No man steps into the same river twice, for it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.” As I paddled back to Grand Island’s green and healthy shore, these words deeply resonated with me. For as much as the river has changed, I have changed more.

One thing, though, has remained the same: I love this river and always will. The mighty Niagara still runs through me, and I now know that for many future generations, it will do the same.

Did you grow up loving a river? Leave me a comment, below. I look forward to hearing your stories.

Change is Gonna Come

When I go home to Buffalo, I never pass up an opportunity to visit my old neighborhood on the Upper West Side. Photo courtesy of Maria Eley.

Several times a year, I head home to Buffalo to visit friends and family and reconnect with my past. When I do, I never pass up an opportunity to visit my old neighborhood on the Upper West Side.

I still have friends there. Some live in the houses where they grew up, others remain in homes where they raised their children. Still others left when Buffalo hit its nadir in the late 1970s, only to return in the past 20 years as the city regained its footing.

photo of abandoned Spark's Dairy building — Boarded-up Spark’s Dairy, circa 1970. Photo by Moxie Gardiner

Yes, the street where I grew up has changed. Our old house looks smaller than I remember, and the length of our block, the one I raced down on the way home from school, seems so much shorter. There isn’t an Italian grocery store within walking distance, and my old elementary school and church, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin May, closed its doors some years ago. But lest you think I’m one of the old timers about to bemoan the loss of the West Side of my youth, let me quickly say this:

I love the New West Side.

family catching school bus — New residents of the West Side settle into work and school. Photo courtesy of Maria Eley.

When I visit, I find a neighborhood just as lively and interesting as the one where I grew up. My old school, Nativity, is now owned by Catholic Charities, a social services organization which helps refugees resettle into new homes. The staff who work there teach English and assist the refugees in looking for jobs or starting micro-businesses. They provide services not all that different from Catholic Charities’ original mission back in 1910, when they helped Sicilians and other immigrants do the same. I’ve talked to the new students who attend classes at the old Nativity, and they are thrilled to be living in their new, my old, neighborhood.

Some of the front lawns on my street, once filled with crabgrass and opportunistic weeds, have been replaced with environmentally-friendly vegetable gardens—there is one next door to where I lived. Photo courtesy of Doreen Regan.

boho apartment building on Buffalo's west side — The old dairy has new life. Photo courtesy of Doreen Regan.

The abandoned dairy across the street is now a Bohemian-looking apartment building. The garbage-strewn “Triangle” as we called it, where 15^th, Massachussetts, and West Utica streets meet, is now a pretty little garden with benches where dog walkers can sit.

Grant Street, where we shopped for everything from shoes to groceries, is vibrant again with old stores like Zarcone’s Meat Market being bought and run by a young couple named Moriarity who sell specialized cuts of locally raised meat. Next door to the meat market is the West Side Bazaar where you can stop in for lunch and sample food from many nations.

Remedy House, an upscale cafe, serves great coffee. Photo by Moxie Gardiner.

The new Five Points Bakery on Brayton Street. Photo by Moxie Gardiner

Two blocks down and two blocks over from where I lived is an up-and-coming area called Five Points. There is a fabulous bakery there, as well as a wine shop, garden shop, clothing store, and a café with really good coffee.

Gardens in Buffalo are second to none. — West Side flower garden. Photo courtesy of Maria Eley.

As a writer, I was thrilled to learn that every year, one of Buffalo’s “Reading Invasions” sets up in front of the Five Points Bakery, with people of all ages gathering to relax on chairs and blankets and read on the bakery’s lawn. (I want to go next year!)

And as a gardener, I am as proud as can be of the exquisite West Side gardens I saw on Buffalo’s Annual Garden Walk, reported to be the largest garden tour in North America. I tend to admire gardens wherever I travel, and the gardens I saw gracing the old Victorian homes that still dot the West Side are second to none.

The micro-business West Side Bazaar sells food and clothing from many nations. Photo by Moxie Gardiner.

No, this isn’t the West Side where I grew up, but as the late, great singer/songwriter Sam Cooke once observed, “Change is gonna come.” I have learned I can still love my old West Side and embrace the new. I can choose to focus on the crime, empty lots, and blighted houses that still exist in pockets, or I can shift my lens to the new immigrants, recent college grads, and young couples buying first homes, who imbue the new West Side with an energy and enthusiasm business investors and entrepreneurs are beginning to notice. It’s just a matter of time before the West Side is the best side, once again.

What do you love about the place where you grew up? Has it changed with the times? I would love to read and respond to your comments!

Empty Playgrounds

Friday was one of those beautiful June days, when the sun kisses the skin with just the right amount of warmth and gives the landscape sharp edges. When I was young, it was the kind of day that flung me out of the house and into the street as if I was attached to the end of a stretched rubber band.

In those days, 15^th Street was so full of kids you only had to step outside to find one of your favorite street games underway. Hide & Seek, Red Rover, Cops & Robbers, Ringolevio, Duck-Duck-Goose, Freeze Tag and the ever popular Kick the Can. If you had one of those 10-cent pink balls from Woolworth’s you played 7up or Wheaties/Clapsies, taking turns bouncing the ball off a brick wall. If you had a flat stone and some chalk, you played Hopscotch. A piece of clothesline served as a jump rope.

broken water main — Then: What could be more fun than a water main break on a hot summer day?

I was in the midst of this happy reverie, driving down a suburban street chock-a-block with four bedroom houses separated by wide, green yards, when I noticed something that struck me as odd.

Where were the children?

I began to scan the backyards as I passed, then the front porches, the expensive jungle gyms, the in-ground swimming pools. Not a child in sight. I drove by a baseball field, the bleachers filled not with parents, but with tall weeds. Next came an empty playground, the swings hanging forlornly, the ground covered with rubberized mulch. To protect whom, from what, I wondered. I finally saw someone on a bicycle, pedaling rapidly down a bike path, but she appeared to be about 30 and commuting home from work.

School is out, so what explains the absence of children playing outside on a beautiful summer’s day? Of course, times have changed since I played on 15^th Street. Mothers work. Young children spend the day at summer camp or daycare. Even stay-at-home moms and dads bring their children to safe, supervised activities, because that’s where all the other children are. The kids old enough to stay home alone, if they do venture outside, are glued to their smart phones and iPads.

There are any numbers of reasons why the all- day, unsupervised, unstructured play of the 15^th Street crowd doesn’t exist in today’s world. It’s a shame though, because free play is what bound our neighborhood together, almost as family. We kids knew every parent on the street, just as they knew each of us. We loved the elderly woman who gave us cookies and Kool-Aid in the middle of a sweaty afternoon. We all feared the old man who lived alone and yelled at us when we hopped his fence.

Though we lived in the city, we knew our little patch of earth as intimately as we knew our shared secrets. Every crack in the sidewalk, dying elm, fire hydrant, street lamp, and abandoned building. We could name every swimming pool and playground within five miles because we rode our bikes to all of them. We could walk to the corner store and find the candy counter blindfolded, we’d done it so many times.

We were more than friends…we were family

My point is that we had a very physical and emotional connection with our external environment—our street, our neighborhood, our city—that doesn’t seem to exist for children today. It is the kind of connection made only with the freedom to explore, to discover on your own what is around you.

I am grateful that I lived at a time when we played, wild and free, and every minute of a golden summer day was lived to the fullest. However, as the poet Robert Frost observed, “Nothing gold can stay.” Except in our memories.

What do you remember about your childhood summers? Leave me a comment and I’ll be happy to share your stories!

Gardens That Heal

photo of Buffalo Botanical Gardens — Buffalo Botanical Gardens, all photos by Moxie Gardiner

Last summer I visited an old friend: the Botanical Gardens in the south of Buffalo. I’d had a tough year, with multiple loved ones suffering a variety of serious illnesses, and I needed a respite from the stress. My son and his girlfriend, knowing I’m a Master Gardener, suggested we visit the Botanical Gardens and I readily agreed.

After wandering around the familiar rooms with their dazzling colors and earthy smells, I picked up a brochure that talked about a part of the gardens I hadn’t visited before, the Healing Garden. I had long been aware of the therapeutic effect working in the garden has had on me, but a separate, formal garden devoted to healing? Weren’t all gardens “healing” gardens?

photo of healing garden in Buffalo — Entrance to the Healing Garden

As it turns out, a great deal of research is underway into the connection between nature and healing. Many hospitals (including Mercy Hospital, one of the sponsors of the healing garden mentioned above) now realize that nature is an important factor in reducing patient as well as staff stress. They have begun to specifically design green spaces to improve health outcomes.

When I began my own research into this new trend, I learned that therapeutic gardens, healing gardens, medicinal gardens, herb gardens, and meditation gardens are all based on the same premise, i.e. nature as healer, but are often designed differently with a particular purpose in mind.

Therapeutic landscapes or gardens are designed to meet the needs of a specific patient population. Our Master Gardener Demonstration Garden, for example, has a therapeutic garden designed specifically for autistic children. Other therapeutic gardens focus on “cut flowers,” used to help nursing home patients design flower arrangements they can keep in their rooms. The purpose of these gardens is the active and deliberate involvement of the patients.

Healing and meditation gardens, on the other hand, aim for passive involvement. They are places where anyone can come to take in the benefits of a soothing natural space. Veterans Affairs and the military, for example, are now seeking the advice of horticultural therapists to address Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Studies show that after a stressful event, images of nature have a calming effect. Healing and meditation gardens tend to combine elements found in nature: green vegetation, flowers, and water.

Medicinal and herb gardens focus on the qualities of certain plants integral to the development of modern medicine. The National Library of Medicine at NIH, for example, has a medicinal garden right on its grounds. Begun in 1976, the garden now features nearly 100 varieties of herbs, many of which have found new appreciation from doctors and herbalists alike.

St. John's Wort, Buffalo Botanical Gardens — St. John’s Wort in the healing garden

The Healing Garden I visited at the Buffalo Botanical Garden seemed to combine the best of healing and medicinal gardens. Tucked in a back corner of the property, I wandered alone among the bee balm, hyssop, and St. John’s Wort. The Secret Garden, a classic book by Frances Hodgson Burnett, immediately came to mind. I thought about the little orphaned heroine of the book and how having a secret green space of her own improved the quality of her life.

Gardens, with their natural rhythms of birth, life and death, have inspired many writers to examine the deep spiritual connection we have with nature, and to view our own mortality differently. As a gardener, I spend many hours nurturing my plants, but I left the healing garden in Buffalo with a new appreciation for how gardens nurture me. I plan to create my own healing garden at home. I’ll keep you posted on its progress.

Do you have a garden? I would love to hear your own stories of nature and nurture. Add a comment or write to me! Your email address is seen only by me and will not be made public.

Moxie Gardiner is a writer and gardener who grew up on the West Side of Buffalo, NY. In a previous life she was a journalist, magazine editor, speech writer, and policy wonk. Back in the day she made three solo parachute jumps, flew in an F-15 fighter jet, and crawled through mud pits at the Jungle Operations Training Course in Panama. She now meditates and practices yoga. She is almost ready to publish her first novel, set in Buffalo.

It Bit Me on the Rocks of Lake Erie

Lake Erie shoreline. Photo by Moxie Gardiner.

Several readers have put the question to me: “Moxie, your website says ‘A West Side Girl in the Big Wide World.’ We’ve heard about your West Side experiences. What’s this ‘Big Wide World’ stuff?” Fair enough. Living on the West Side of Buffalo shaped the outline of who I am. The big wide world has certainly filled in the details.

Since I left Buffalo, I’ve lived in four US states and a foreign capital, visited 45 countries and all 50 states. My most recent adventures were in Africa, where among other things, I caught a leopard (on camera) that was stalking me in the dark. On my journeys I’ve seen extreme poverty and extraordinary wealth, spectacular scenic beauty and tragic wastelands, humanity at its best and at its worst. Always, I keep a journal.

As a writer, my job is to look for and contemplate universal truths. A recent question I’ve been pondering is, what prompts a person to leave the comfort of their home to travel? What are we seeking on our sojourns, especially now when one can “travel” anywhere without leaving the couch, courtesy of the Internet? I’m not talking about annual beach vacations or trips to visit friends and family over the holidays. I am talking about traveling to distant lands that are culturally unfamiliar, sometimes uncomfortable, and not without risk. These are the places that tend to attract me because I’m a sucker for unexpected experiences, for the serendipitous surprise.

I think I can trace the day I was first bitten by the travel bug to a place just 20 miles south of Buffalo. I was about 11 years old. Each summer, our family would pile into the station wagon and head to our rented cottage in Angola, NY and a windswept beach nearby called Point Breeze. This particular summer, my cousin and I were allowed to leave the family beach blanket and walk a half mile up the beach by ourselves to a rocky outcropping we grandly called “the sea cliffs.”

From a distance we could see the waves crashing over the slate rocks, and on stormy days the spray would leap 20 feet in the air. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, we thought, to sit on those rocks and get splashed by that wild spray? We hurried along the pebbly beach as fast as our flip-flops would take us. We scrambled up the hill, and as soon as our parents were safely out of sight, climbed carefully down the embankment to where water met rock. We sat and waited for the spray. To our disappointment, the waves had settled down and lapped gently at the rocks below us. We inched our way down further. The waves came up around our ankles, so we scooted down another foot, and waited.

Whether the wind shifted or it was simply the normal fluctuation of the waves, I’ll never know. But the next wave that hit came up over our heads. I’ll never forget the force of the water as it pulled us into the lake and the somersaults we turned as the water churned us below the rocks. We came up coughing and gasping for air. I looked at my cousin as we treaded water—and we started laughing hysterically. “Let’s do it again!” we both said and climbed back onto the rocks.

How did that prompt my love for travel and adventure? I learned that day about the adrenaline rush of exploration, of taking risks, the electricity of finding yourself in danger, and the thrill, afterwards, of being alive. Why, if I could survive this, I could survive anything! Sitting on those rocks I would let my mind wander to the Wide World of Sports and the cliff divers in Mexico, then on to climbing the Great Pyramids of Giza, Machu Picchu, perhaps even Mount Everest. My 11-year-old self decided that nothing would stop me from doing what I wanted to do, as long as I didn’t let fear get in the way.

Sure, there have been a few downsides. I’ve been injured, sick, lost, robbed, and harassed on my travels, and survived a few scary plane flights. I’ve had to flee more than one burning building, wear a flak jacket on a road favored by terrorists, and hold my breath when a bus driver did a u-turn in front of six lanes of oncoming traffic. But oh, the stories I could tell!

The big wide world is a fabulous place that provides grist for the writer, a classroom for the intellectually curious, and cultural and culinary immersion for us rank sensualists. Not least of all, it gives us a better appreciation of home and the things we sometimes take for granted.

Do you have an interest in travel, dear reader? Do you remember when you were first bitten by the travel bug? If so, drop me a line. If there is enough interest, I’ll add a few travel blogs to my website.

Chestnut Time at the Armory

One of my favorite memories growing up in Buffalo was the annual trip my brothers and I would take each fall to collect chestnuts at the Connecticut Street Armory. At least, we thought they were chestnuts.

Continue reading “Chestnut Time at the Armory”

Let Me Introduce Myself

Please call me Moxie.

No, it’s not the name I was given at birth. It was bestowed upon me late one night after a drinking contest in a bar…but that’s a story for another day. Suffice it to say it is the name I prefer to be called.

Here are a few things you should know about me before you decide whether it is worth taking the time to read my blog. I’m a writer and a dreamer. A Master Gardener and a schemer. I like the smell of warm wood and the sound of insects in the evening. I like island nations that cruise lines don’t visit, and the underbellies of airplanes when they fly over the setting sun. I cry when I hear music played in a minor key, or the song of the white-throated sparrow. I love cannoli, limoncello, and snow.

At one point in my life I wrote over 100 speeches. At another I published dozens of magazine articles. I never look at any of them, but I do enjoy perusing the 27 personal journals I have tucked away in an old steamer trunk. Most recently, I’ve written a novel about growing up on the West Side of Buffalo. Unfortunately, it makes me homesick every time I read it.

So reader, beware. My mind flits about like a honeybee in early spring, so there is no telling what I might blog about. I will try my best not to waste your time.

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