Buffalo Gal Read online

  Praise for Laura Pedersen

  1. God’s Frozen People

  2. The First Event Leading Up to My Death

  3. American Buffalo…The King of Cool and Demon Rum

  4. He’d Always Have Paris…Trading Up…Danish for Beginners

  5. Getting Up Your Irish…Family Diversity…Three’s a Mob

  6. When Johnny Comes Typing Home…Wedding-Bell Blues

  7. Onward Catholic Soldiers…Everything’s Good in the Hood…The Sinusitis Capital

  8. Buffalo Runs Riot

  9. A Full House

  10. Egg Salad Days…Beads of Paradise

  11. The Tundra Years

  12. Mary Tyler Moore for President…Hit Parade…The Americans with No Abilities Act

  13. Born in the UUA…Keeping Kosher

  14. Water Hazard…Is That Your Child?

  15. Will Joke for Food…It’s a Mad, Mad House…How I Learned to Cook

  16. The Birth of an Entrepreneur…From Socks to Stocks…The Wizard of Odds

  17. Everyone Was Groovy…Stardate 1965

  18. Sleet Happens: The Blizzard of ’77

  19. Taking a Turn for the Nurse

  20. Bus Stop

  21. Enter, Stage Left…O.B. (Order Big)…A Decent Docent Doesn’t Doze

  22. Down on the Farm…Doing Time…Beat It

  23. Real World 101

  24. Earl and Me…The Sewing Circle Turns Square

  25. Will Work for AC…Mom Turns Pro…The Mosquito Coast

  26. Home at Sweet Home…Class Clown…Dressing Down

  27. Can’t We All Get a Lawn?…Pedersen v. Pedersen…Telling It to the Judge…The Play within the Play

  28. Disappearing Act…The Walkway Less Traveled

  29. Are Red and Green Making You Blue?

  30. In All Probability

  31. Home Alone

  32. It Could Be Worse

  33. The (Sweet) Home Stretch…Faking It

  When the Chips Are Down, the Buffalo’s Empty

  The People’s Republic of Buffalo

  Praise for Laura Pedersen

  Play Money

  “A savvy insider’s vastly entertaining line on aspects of the money game.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  Beginner’s Luck

  “Funny, sweet-natured, and well-crafted…Pedersen has created a wonderful assemblage of…whimsical characters and charm.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “A fresh and funny look at not fitting in.”

  —Seventeen

  Going Away Party

  “Pedersen shows off her verbal buoyancy. Their quips are witty and so are Pedersen’s amusing characterizations of the eccentric MacGuires. Sentence by sentence, Pedersen’s debut can certainly entertain.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Last Call

  “Pedersen writes vividly of characters so interesting, so funny and warm that they defy staying on the page.”

  —Hartford Courant

  Heart’s Desire

  “Funny, tender, and poignant, Heart’s Desire should appeal to a wide range of readers.”

  —Booklist

  The Big Shuffle

  “Be prepared to fall in love with a story as wise as it is witty.”

  —Compulsive Reader

  a Memoir

  © 2008 Laura Pedersen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a

  retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Pedersen, Laura.

  Buffalo gal : a memoir / Laura Pedersen.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-55591-692-3 (pbk.)

  1. Pedersen, Laura--Childhood and youth. 2. Pedersen, Laura--Homes and haunts--New York (State)--Buffalo. 3. Novelists, American--20st century--Biography. 4. Novelists, American--21st century--Biography. 5. Floor traders (Finance)--United States--Biography. I. Title.

  PS3566.E2564Z46 2008

  813’.54--dc22

  [B]

  2008026025

  Printed on recycled paper in Canada by Friesens Corp.

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

  Cover and design by Jack Lenzo

  Cover images © Shutterstock

  Fulcrum Publishing

  4690 Table Mountain Drive, Suite 100

  Golden, Colorado 80403

  800-992-2908 • 303-277-1623

  www.fulcrumbooks.com

  Making friends is like investing in stocks;

  find a few good ones and hold for the long term.

  For Mary, Debbie, Heather, and Karen:

  thanks for four decades of friendship.

  And to my teachers Pete, Russ, Linda, and Kathy,

  who made learning fun.

  It is impossible for a man who is warm to fully understand one who is cold.

  —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Preface

  I was fourteen years old when I first stepped onto the trading floor of the American Stock Exchange in downtown Manhattan. A retired stockbroker who happened to catch me studying data banks in The Wall Street Journal had kindly organized a tour. Since I was unaware that shorts and a tank top were not part of the official stock exchange dress code, the security guard provided an extra-large men’s trading jacket that hung down, dresslike, to my knees. On Wall Street less than an hour, and I was already taking part in a cover-up.

  Moments later, I was standing at the pulsating heart of capitalism, inside a noisy, cavernous building six stories high that covered almost a full New York City block. Like the interior of a giant casino, there were bells ringing, wild shouts, and no natural light. You couldn’t tell if it was night or day, summer or winter. However, unlike a casino, there were clocks everywhere and, high overhead, an electronic ticker tape with feverish green neon digits racing from left to right.

  Throngs of middle-aged men hurtled past me while hollering and furiously waving their arms, using extended hands and fingers to throw signals toward clerks up in balconies. Every few seconds a burst of staccato yelling erupted from another area of the trading floor like a round of machine-gun fire and a rush of brokers sprinted past, heading in the direction of the cacophony. If the stock exchange didn’t already exist, Stephen King would’ve created it.

  Toward noontime, not everyone was as frantically busy. Traders munched on sandwiches like horses that feed while standing in the front of their stalls, able to gaze out and remain alert while chewing. Others leaned against counters, talking and laughing and checking lottery tickets.

  Suddenly a broker wearing a bright yellow jacket and black trousers came barreling around the corner, slipped on the mess of paper that littered the floor like large squares of confetti and landed flat on his back, giving the appearance of a giant bumblebee that had crash-landed. Five guys standing at the post nearest to where he went down casually removed signs that they apparently stored within arm’s reach for just such occasions. The men proceeded to line up and solemnly raise numbers from one to ten, scoring the broker’s fall as if he were an Olympian and they were the judges. Then, something happened with one of the stocks they were in charge of trading, a roar went up, and the action suddenly shifted to this area of the floor. Goofing around time was over.

  I was standing in the way, mesmerized by the pandemonium, and my tour guide swiftly ushered me to safety so I wouldn’t end up as floorkill. Whatever they were doing, I wanted to do it too. Vowing to someday return, I went back to Buffalo to finish high school.


  What I didn’t know at the time was how well my unusual upbringing had prepared me for working in this strange and exciting place. It was Darwinian, or possibly Jungian. The spoils went to the quick and, it appeared to me, the crazy. When I did return, three and a half years later, I would become the youngest person ever to have a seat on the stock exchange.

  One

  God’s Frozen People

  Buffalo, New York, probably turns out more priests and nuns than any other city, except perhaps Rome. Not just because there’s a large Catholic population to begin with, but because big blizzards can make you a believer. They can also make you a serious doubter—

  of weathermen.

  I can’t recall the weatherpersons predicting many of the really spectacular storms that swept in off Lake Erie, the kind that fill a person with an odd combination of terror and exhilaration that’s better described as a spiritual awakening, or perhaps psychosis. Growing up in the Frost Belt, you learn to regard meteorologists as frustrated novel-ists—folks who wanted to study creative writing, but whose parents wouldn’t pay for something so frivolous, and so they had to study meteorology. Weather forecasters were consulted for fashion more than anything else: Will the toupee blow off without a hat today? Are platform shoes really a sensible choice in an ice storm?

  Our climatic soothsayers usually played it safe by predicting a “wintry mix,” which covered everything from rain to hail to sleet to a full-fledged blizzard. Over the years I noticed there wasn’t any springy mix, or autumny mix, or even a summery mix of sunshine, birdsong, and gentle zephyrs.

  However, it was difficult to determine whether or not it was snowing simply by looking out the window. That’s because nine months of the year our windows were shrouded in plastic to keep the wind from blowing the plates off the table and snowdrifts from accumulating behind the couch. Seen through these heavy-gauge tarps, the neighborhood appeared to be a gigantic blur that may as well have been McMurdo Station in Antarctica. You were on the other side of the looking glass and summer was just a rumor from there.

  Buffalo usually receives the second largest annual snowfall of any city in the state, with flakes beginning in October and finally tapering off sometime around April, like a bad chest cold. The city itself gets around 85 inches, the suburbs 120 inches, and the towns slightly to the south about 160 inches per year. And that’s the last you’ll hear about inches, because a true Buffalonian measures snow in feet. Syracuse, 150 miles to the east, is considered slightly snowier, depending on the winter and whom you choose to believe. However, Buffalo retains the distinction of being on the receiving end of the truly dramatic storms that make national news. Said snow is accompanied by a face-numbing wind howling off Lake Erie, shivering thermometers with mercury registering three clapboards below the bulb, and icicles that, if they were to break off the eaves and hurtle to earth, could easily harpoon a child or split a grown man’s head in two.

  Lake-effect snow occurs when cold air passes over the relatively warm water of a large lake, picks up moisture and heat, and upon reaching the downwind shore is forced to drop the moisture in the form of snowflakes that can chip your teeth. The accompanying winds will not just turn your umbrella inside out, but carry it directly to Neptune, right along with anyone dumb enough to hang on.

  And this is how Buffalo can have worse weather than neighboring Toronto, Canada. On the bright side, in summertime the lake acts as a massive air conditioner.

  Early on I became used to hearing my mother describe me as a “blond-haired, blue-eared child.” My first full sentence was most likely, “Turn the wheel into a skid.” Ask anyone raised in Buffalo during the 1970s’ energy crisis to complete the following sentences: If you’re cold…(put on a sweater). Close the front door…(are we heating the entire neighborhood?). Shut the refrigerator door…(is there a movie playing in there?). Ninety percent of your body heat is lost if…(you don’t wear a hat). Don’t complain about the rain because…(it could be snow). There’s no such thing as bad weather…(just the wrong clothing).

  What Dylan Thomas called “useful presents” in his classic short story “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” seemed to be the overriding theme when it came to gift giving. Christmas and Hanukkah weren’t complete without the ritual exchanges of jumper cables, flashlights, sweaters, flannel bathrobes, hats, scarves, gloves, electric socks, and quilted slippers. Nothing says “Happy Holidays” quite like a woolen face mask!

  Nowadays people dress lightly in winter on the theory that they only have to make it to the car and then into an office building or the mall. But those clunky automobile heaters of the seventies were slow to get rolling, and the inside of the vehicle was just beginning to thaw out by the time you arrived at your destination. Whereas people down South worry about their milk spoiling if left in the car, we were trying to prevent our fresh vegetables from becoming flash frozen.

  A white car, like a long white coat, was NOT a good idea. If you were parallel parked in the street, the plow would heave the vehicle over the curb right along with the snow. A black car wasn’t such a great idea either because of treacherous driving conditions on a dark night. The “be alert, don’t get hurt” families opted for fire-engine red. Even then, it was best to put some identifying mark such as a Wonder Woman bobblehead on the dashboard so you didn’t accidentally spend a lot of time scraping off someone else’s red car. After a big snowstorm and a few plow runs, the street doesn’t look anything like it did when you parked. You may as well be in The Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling’s hometown of Binghamton, New York.

  By the end of October, the Norse gods pulled the trigger on the starter pistol and winter was officially on. Some years it had already snowed and the temperature dipped below freezing by then. As a kid, you knew that your Halloween costume had better somehow incorporate a down parka, wool hat, mittens, and possibly boots. A ghost was a good idea; simply throw a sheet over your coat. A hobo worked well too: a little burnt cork on the face and a stick with a satchel made from a red bandanna over the shoulder. And you could never go wrong as the Abominable Snowman.

  Growing up in a cold climate you don’t realize how it is such a big part of your life until you leave. Upon moving to New York City shortly after my eighteenth birthday, I threw off my hat the way Mary Tyler Moore did in the opening of her show. Then I tossed out the heavy scarf, gloves, and boots like an ailing pilgrim reaching the promised land. Though only 450 miles away, Manhattan is usually ten to thirty degrees warmer than Buffalo and has about one-fiftieth the snowfall.

  While working on the floor of the stock exchange in Manhattan that first winter, I was shocked when all the traders, clerks, and brokers dashed off the trading floor one day in early January. With so much money at stake, people often won’t even leave during bomb scares or to use the bathroom, never mind to see a doctor or have lunch. There was so much paper scattered around that I thought a fire had broken out. Then a multimillionaire partner in a trading firm came skipping past and giddily announced, “It’s snowing!” New York City may be only seven hours away from Buffalo by car, but it truly feels like one has crossed into a more temperate zone.

  Another strange thing that New Yorkers do is open their windows in the middle of winter as a way of adjusting the temperature indoors. When Buffalonians raised during the energy crisis see an open window in winter, we practically faint, while hearing the distant voice of an irate father shouting, “Who is going to pay for that?!” It’s the Western New Yorker’s version of recovered-memory therapy.

  Manhattan gets a good snowstorm every few years, the kind that Buffalo kindergartners would think nothing of walking to school in. And it’s hit by the occasional nor’easter, a gale-force rainstorm that leaves in its wake a mass graveyard of take-out menus and commuter-sized umbrellas. When a storm is predicted, even one with only a few inches of snow that will last a day at most, New Yorkers stampede their neighborhood delis and grocery stores, purchasing enough batteries and food to be trapped inside their apa
rtments for a month. And not just your storm staples like milk, bread, and eggs, but pimentos, papayas, and taco shells, as if terrified by the thought of not being able to have an omelet with Gruyère cheese, capers, pearl onions, and shiitake mushrooms for eight hours.

  The only weather system truly indigenous to Manhattan is the trash twister. This microtornado of pedestrian refuse—discarded wrappers, unwanted subpoenas, parking tickets, takeout menus, newspapers, and plastic bags—hovers between skyscrapers for an hour or so prior to settling back down on the pavement or blowing out to sea.

  While New York City kids are taught how to ride the subways, in Buffalo I learned the correct way to pull on double mittens and wrap a scarf around my head, face, and neck mummy-style, so only my eyes showed through. My first driving lesson was how to rock the car back and forth in order to get unstuck in the snow. Next, I learned how to pump the brakes when skidding on ice (this was before antilock brakes). After a certain amount of practice we developed the fine art of banging frozen windshield wipers against the glass hard enough to chip off the ice, but not so hard that they snap in two.

  Outdoor parades between October and April could be a problem, with only the hale and hearty participating in the high school marching band. Picture the mouthpiece of a metal instrument as the equivalent of a flagpole or pump handle, or anything else you really don’t want to lick in the cold. The paramedics were called upon to deal with tongues frozen to flutes almost as often as they were for hypothermia.

  It’s only logical that a snowblower society like Buffalo is going to produce more gender confusion than the Bikini Belt, and perhaps for this reason it’s a hub of lesbian folk-rock music and the potential staging ground for a bisexual revolution. Snowshoeing around town semiclad was a handwritten invitation to frostbite. Buffalo is no place to show a little leg, or even a little nose, for that matter. When it came to outerwear, we didn’t care if it was from the men’s or the women’s department, as long as it was warm and waterproof. And menswear often claimed superiority in this area, antediluvian manufacturers assuming that only the menfolk were outside starting cars, while women in spike heels and pillbox hats warmed hot cocoa in the kitchen. Result: The Sasquatch Sisters. Darn, that would have been a good name for a band.