Forever Young May 2016

MAY 2016 |

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Western New York’s FREE Monthly Magazine For Adults 50+, With More Than 70,000 Readers

Excitement’s on Track at Batavia Downs Western New York in Bloom | The Cocktail Garden | Starting Your Sprouts for Summer

MAY 2016

Love Letters

11

WNY Gardens

20

Alison Stone

32

On the cover: Top: Batavia Downs lights up at night. Photo courtesy Batavia Downs Bottom, left: The Nannen Arboretum in spring bloom. Photo courtesy of Nannen Aboretum. Photo by Sean Huntington.

Middle: Refreshing mojitos made with fresh limes and mint. Right: Starting sprouts at home. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Cuthbert

Life & Leisure

Features: Home & Garden

5

Humor: A Gift for Mother’s Day.................................Ted Rickard

6

WWII Veteran Surviving and Thriving................... Frank Pacella

8

Crossword: Popular Expressions........................StatePoint Media

Gardens for Miles.......................................................Jana Eisenberg Natives and Heirlooms and Cultivars—Oh My!... Carol Ann Harlos It’s Grow Time!.........................................................Rebecca Cuthbert The Cocktail Garden................................................... Jodee Riordan

Food

Let’s Talk About 9

20 22 24 26

Older Women, Younger Men.......................................Judith A. Rucki

27 Light Bites.................................................................... Hilary Diodato

Getaways

Arts

28 Rochester, NY.......................................................................Ed Adamczyk

10 May Theater Preview.........................................................Donna Hoke

Lady Luck

My WNY Story

12 Craps: Sometimes It’s Right to Bet Wrong.......... Dennis Occhino

30 Amy Zeckhauser .............................................................Maria Scrivani 32 Alison Stone .........................................................Christine A. Smyczynski

Cover: Batavia Downs

Being Well

18 Excitement’s on Track..................................Wendy Guild Swearingen

34 Eat Your Asparagus ................................................. Cathi Stack 35 Spring into Beauty .......................................Samuel Shatkin, MD

Ever y Issue: Calendars 3 | Bingo Buzz 14 | Classifieds & Companion Corner 36 | Noteworthy 37

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EDITOR’S NOTE OUR 28TH YEAR

1738 Elmwood Avenue, Suite 103 Buffalo, NY 14207 Phone 716.783.9119 Fax 716.783.9983 www.foreveryoungwny.com

PUBLISHER

Laurence A. Levite

llevite@buffalospree.com

Editor-In-Chief............................................................................Elizabeth Licata

elicata@buffalospree.com

Editor......................................................................... Wendy Guild Swearingen wswearingen@buffalospree.com

Creative Director........................................................................ Chastity O’Shei

coshei@buffalospree.com

Production Director........................................................................ Jennifer Tudor

jtudor@buffalospree.com

Traffic Coordinator........................................................... Adam Van Schoonhoven Lead Designer............................................................................ Nicholas Vitello Senior Graphic Designers.............................................. Josh Flanigan, Kim Miers,

Andrea Rowley, Jean-Pierre Thimot Director of Marketing...................................................................... Brittany Frey

bfrey@buffalospree.com

Director of Advertising............................................................. Barbara E. Macks

bmacks@buffalospree.com Special Projects Manager ......................................................... Marianne Potratz Senior Account Executives............. Wendy Burns, Bruce Halpern, Mary Beth Holly,

Caroline Kunze, Robin Kurss, Robin Lenhard,

Marianne Potratz, Betty Tata, Lori Teibel National Ad Director...................................................................... Terri Downey Blitz – Creative Marketing........................................................... Louis J. Aguglia

From the Editor

Can you feel it? Spring is really, truly here and with it all the blooms, blossoms, and buds that Western New York can muster. Our flowering tree and bush season is brief in this region, so be sure to get out and enjoy them before they fade.

In keeping with this celebration of spring, you’ll find lots of stories about local parks and gardens that are particularly lovely, as well as tips on growing your own plants and flowers.

The Japanese Garden at Delaware Park (behind The Buffalo History Museum) should be in full flower as this issue goes to press, so check it out. Why not spend some time exploring your own neighborhood? There may be hidden garden gems you may have overlooked in previous years.

Our cover features Batavia Downs Gaming. Look for the story about all the great new

promotions and amenities, like the rite of spring Kentucky Derby party, that guests can expect in May and throughout the coming year.

If you do spy some lovely flowers on your travels, please post them on our Facebook page for others to enjoy. We love to hear from our readers.

Administrative & Finance Director.......................................................................Michele Ferguson Administrative & Marketing Coordinator....................................................... Angela Gambacorta Classifieds Sales............................................................................... Robin Kurss BUFFALO SPREE PUBLISHING, INC.

President & CEO.....................................................................Laurence A. Levite Associate Publisher/Editor-In-Chief............................................... Elizabeth Licata Associate Publisher/Advertising................................................ Barbara E. Macks Senior Vice President/Creative Director......................................... Chastity O’Shei Vice President/Administrative & Finance.....................................Michele Ferguson Vice President/Production.............................................................. Jennifer Tudor Corporate Counsel....................................................... Timothy M. O’Mara, Esq.

Wendy Guild Swearingen wswearingen@buffalospree.com 783-9119 ext. 2253

Forever Young is published monthly, with an annual Senior Directory. Copyright ©2016 by Buffalo Spree Publishing, Inc. 1738 Elmwood Avenue, Suite 103, Buffalo, NY 14207 and is open Mon. – Fri. 8:30 a.m.–5 p.m. The entire contents of Forever Young are copyrighted 2016 by Buffalo Spree Publishing, Inc. and may not be reproduced in any manner, either whole or in part without written permission from the publishers. All rights reserved.

Display advertising information and rates may be obtained by calling (716) 783-9119 ext 2250. Standard mail postage paid at Buffalo, NY 14207. POSTMASTER send change of address to Forever Young, 1738 Elmwood Avenue, Suite 103, Buffalo, NY 14207. Manuscripts and free calendar listings should be sent to the editor (wswearingen@buffalospree.com) at 1738 Elmwood Avenue, Suite 103, Buffalo, NY 14207. Material cannot be returned unless accompanied by a self addressed, stamped envelope of adequate size and strength. The publisher does not take responsibility for the accuracy or legitimacy of the advertising message or any aspect of the business operation or conduct of the advertisers in the paper.

This publication is a member of the North American Mature Publishers Association.

Membership in NAMPA includes verification of member’s print & circulation totals.

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www.foreveryoungwny.com | May 2016

The Nannen Arboretum in spring bloom Courtesy of Nannen Aboretum. Photo by Sean Huntington.

FOREVER YOUNG MAY CALENDAR 1+ Erie County STAY FIT DINING PROGRAM offers a hot noon meal at 45 locations in Erie County. Menus and site list at erie. gov/stayfit or 858-7639.

1+ West Seneca UNITED CHURCH MANOR’S LUNCH PROGRAM is looking for volunteers in the West Seneca/Cheektowaga area.

Information: 668-5804.

1+ Buffalo MEDITATION, 2:30 p.m., El Buen Amigo, 114 Elmwood Ave. Free every Sunday. Meditation unites with creative arts and pain management.

Practitioner Sondra Holland welcomes people of all ages. Wear comfortable clothes. For information, Sondra: 9475092; store: 885-6343.

3+ Tonawanda T.O.P.S. CLUB, weekly meetings on Tuesdays, 9:30 a.m. at Blessed Sacrament Parish, Claremont Avenue. For information, call 836-7255.

3+ Farnham T.O.P.S. CLUB (TAKE OFF POUNDS SENSIBLY) weekly meetings held Tuesdays at Holy Cross Lutheran Church, 10633 Church St., starting at 9 a.m. Call 934-9619.

3+ Buffalo TAI CHI: MOVING FOR BETTER BALANCE 10:30 a.m. every Tuesday, Tosh Collins Senior Center, 35 Cazenovia St. For more information, contact monicazucco@gmail.com.

3, 17 Buffalo HEADWAY SUPPORT GROUPS, 2635 Delaware Ave. For individuals who have sustained brain injuries as well as their families and caregivers; exchange information and resources, and find mutual support and encouragement.

Peer Support (enter at Suite B), first and third Tuesday, 6:30 to 8 p.m.; Caregivers Support (enter at Suite B), first Tuesday, 6:30 to 8 p.m.; Women’s Survivors Support (enter at Suite E), first Tuesday, 1 to 2:30 p.m. Info: 4083100 or headwayofwny.org

3+, 5+ WNY IDEAL WEIGHT CLASSES taught by Ida Shapiro are offered every Tues. at 6:15 p.m. at Zion United Church of Christ (Koening and Parker, Tonawanda) and every Thurs. at 6:15 p.m. at St. Gregory the Great (Maple Rd., Williamsville). Over 40 years experience. 636-3698.

3, 21 WNY RESPITE SERVICES for those with Alzheimer’s and related dementia on first Tuesday, 5:30 p.m. in Williamsville, and third Saturday, 11 a.m. in Amherst.

Location info: (800) 272-3900.

4+ Williamsville WOMEN’S LYMPHEDEMA SUPPORT GROUP, 5:45 p.m. the first Wednesday of each month.

Sheridan Surgical room, 4510 Bailey Ave., Williamsville. Call 908-4149.

4 Amherst FREE RESPITE CARE PROGRAM, 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., Trinity Old Lutheran Church 3445 Sheridan Drive. Held first Wednesday of the month, for those caring for loved ones with Alzheimer’s or any form of dementia. Guests are partnered with a volunteer (trained by the Alzheimer’s Association) and they participate in various activities in a secure environment.

A morning snack and nutritious lunch are provided. For more information on registering for the program, call 836-4868.

7+ Lockport T.O.P.S. CLUB, weekly meetings 9 a.m. Saturdays at Odd Fellows and Rebekah Nursing Home, 104 Old Niagara Road. Call 433-1693.

10 Hamburg ALZHEIMER’S CARE-GIVER SUPPORT GROUP for males at Wesleyan Church, 4999 McKinley Pkwy.

2nd Tues. 626-0600, alz.org/wny 10 Depew BREAST CANCER NETWORK OF WNY Monthly meeting second Tuesday, 6 p.m., Bella Moglie Bldg., 3297 Walden Ave. Call 706-0060 or visit bcnwny. org. Professional support group will be held at 8 p.m.

10 Orchard Park ALIENATED GRANDPARENTS ANONYMOUS, INC., meetings 1 p.m. the second Tuesday of month, 4295 S. Buffalo St.

10 Springville CRAFT OF THE MONTH Register to the Springville Concord Elder Network at 592-2768 to ensure enough supplies. May 17, 10 a.m. Tin Can Luminary - FREE. This is a fun and easy project you might share with grandchildren.

Bring your own hammer please.

40 Commerce Dr., Springville 11 Williamsville MCGUIRE GROUP MEMORY CARE SUPPORT GROUPS: General Support Group is second Wednesday, 3 p.m. at Harris Hill Nursing Facility, 2699 Wehrle Dr., Williamsville; Daughters’ Support Group is also second Weds., 5 p.m. at Harris Hill Monthly support groups coordinated in conjunction with the Alzheimer’s Association, with caregiving tips and coping mechanisms. For more information, call 632-3700 or visit mcguiregroup. com

Spring Pre-Planning Event

5+ Buffalo GENTLE YOGA, 11 a.m. Thursdays, Tosh Collins Senior Center, 35 Cazenovia St. Bring a yoga mat. Info: 828-1093 5+ Cheektowaga T.O.P.S. (TAKE OFF POUNDS SENSIBLY) MEETING, Thursdays at 9 a.m., St. Luke’s Lutheran Church, 900 Maryvale Drive (corner of Union Road). Come for the love, support and friendship. For information, call Karen at 247-2334

3 Mausoleums l 6 Historic Veteran Sections Serving all Faiths l Historic Chapel l New Legacy Lawn for urns and caskets now open New Sunrise Walk for urns and memorialization now open New Montefiore II now open

Elmlawn Memorial Park 3939 Delaware Ave. Kenmore, NY 14217 716-876-8131 www.elmlawncemetery.com

May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 3

FOREVER YOUNG MAY CALENDAR 18 West Seneca FREE BEREAVEMENT SUPPORT SESSION, hosted by The McGuire Group for anyone coping with grief, sadness or loss at 5 pm at Seneca Health Care Center, 2987 Seneca St. Held third Wednesday of the month.

Those interested in attending can call 828-0500.

18 WNY NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS (NAMI) held third Wednesday of the month at 7 p.m. in two locations for families of people living with mental illness: St. Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church, 4007 Main St., Amherst.

Southtowns: Lake Shore Behavioral Health, 3176 Abbott Rd., Orchard Park.

22 East Aurora PSYCHIC FAIR, 12–7 p.m., Moose Lodge #370, 905 Main St., East Aurora. $5 admisison includes chance for door prize.

Astrology, tarot readings, medium readings starting at $45. Coffee, tea, desserts available. Proceeds benefit Ten Lives Cat Adoptions Group. Info: 646-5577 x1

25 Depew RPEA CHAPTER MEETING, 12–4 p.m., Retired Public Employees Assoc. general meeting and luncheon, Polish Falcons Clubhouse, 445 Columbia Ave., Depew. Reserve by 5/16.

Info: Maryalice, 536-8967 or Mike, 877-5515.

DANCE CALENDAR MONDAYS W.

Seneca

BALLROOM

DANCING BY CAROL is a 6-week class @ St. David’s Church, 3951 Seneca St. 7:30– 9:30 p.m. Info: 824-0504.

Sloan CLOGGING LESSONS

by Kickin’ Rhythm Cloggers, 6:30 p.m. @ St. Andrew’s Parish Hall, 111 Crocker St., Bldg.

1.

kickinrhythmcloggers.com,

(585) 457-4455.

TUESDAYS Buffalo LINDY FIX 8–10 p.m. @ Polish Cadets Hall, 927 Grant St. lindyfix.com, swingbuffalo.com.

WEDNESDAYS N. Ton. DANCING WITH DOTTIE

AND

FRIENDS

country-style line lessons, 7:30 p.m. @ Pendleton Center Meth.

Church, 6864 Campbell Blvd.

688-6026 or 625-8306.

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www.foreveryoungwny.com | May 2016

THURSDAYS Kenmore JACKIE’S THURSDAY NIGHT DANCES @ Brounshidle Post, 3354 Delaware Ave. Lessons: 7 p.m. Open dancing: 8 p.m.

691-8654.

Ongoing WNY BELLYDANCE CLASSES 560-1891, nadiaibrahim.com.

Kenmore JACKIE’S DANCE Monthly dance.

Call 691-8654 for details.

WNY BALLROOM SOCIAL DANCE, Argentine tango and belly dance instruction with Carol Allen; N. Collins and Amherst.

337-3092 or callen8801@aol.com.

West Seneca BALLROOM DANCE classes @ 1761 Orchard Park Rd., 771-3110, ballroomiliana.com.

WNY DANCE W/ ERIN BAHN 997-7190 or erinbahn.com.

ARGENTINE TANGO IN BUFFALO Dancing & Classes www.traviswidricktango.com Contact Travis @ 716.517.7047

LIFE & LEISURE

A Gift for Mother’s Day

BY TED RICKARD

L

ast year about this time, granddaughter Missy had her age-ten serious look on. “Mommy says she doesn’t want anything for Mother’s Day, Grandpa. Just for me and Bobby to stop fighting all the time.” She was referring to her younger brother. “But we don’t fight all the time.” The “all” was enunciated the way an experienced diplomat would leave open an endless opportunity for negotiations.

“I haven’t heard you fighting,” I said walking right into it. “Not all the time.”

“Yes we do,” said Bobby. “She’s always bossing me around.”

“That’s just because you’re...”

Missy saw my eyebrows go up. “Well, anyway,” she shifted smoothly, “Daddy said she didn’t really mean it—about not wanting anything for Mother’s Day. So he’s taking us shopping tonight, but he told Mommy he was just going to the mall to buy socks for himself.” Missy paused as she pondered the moral implications of dissembling. “But that’s not really telling a lie. He’ll probably buy socks, too.”

“Daddy wouldn’t tell a lie,” Bobby interrupted with the flat finality of an impatient judge ruling from the bench.

“Of course not,” I said as smoothly as I could. “He’ll buy a pair of socks, too. But this way he can surprise your mother with what he gets for her.”

Things were getting complicated. But maybe only to me. Bobby didn’t seem to have any trouble following.

“Oh,” he said, and it was an “oh” of approval.

“A sweater,” Missy said. “Daddy says Mommy looks great in a sweater.

Then every time he says that, Mommy makes a funny face at him then smiles.

I think she likes him to say that.” Missy looked into the distance. “They’re funny sometimes—the way they talk.”

“We got her a sweater last year.”

Bobby was monitoring.

“A woman needs lot of sweaters.”

Missy sounded like she was leading a feminist cause. “Just look at how many I have.”

“Right!” I interrupted. We seemed to be headed into the subject of wardrobe proportions or something equally complex and contentious that only the grandchildren would understand. Then I had a saving thought. “What should we get Grandma for Mother’s Day?”

This was a stopper. Both of them looked blankly at me as they worked the idea in their minds.

“We should get Grandma a sweater, too.” Bobby raced to be first.

“That’s dumb,” Missy made an automatic response but even as she said it she knew it missed the mark.

“But Grandma does wear sweaters, doesn’t she, Grandpa?” She tried to mask the correction but Bobby wasn’t to be denied.

“That’s a good idea,” he said, reclaiming it. “Isn’t it, Grandpa.”

There was no question mark the way he said it.

“We don’t know what size Grandma is.” Missy was not going to let her younger brother be right. He was, after all, younger. “I’ll bet Grandma is the same size as Mommy. Don’t you think so, Grandpa?”

“That sounds good to me.” I put on my hearty-yes voice. I was certainly not going to suggest that maybe a size larger would be a better fit. Things you

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say to the kids have a habit of getting back. And, besides, I was wondering what I was going to come up with for Mother’s Day, now that I thought about it. Last year it had been earrings, which were still in their little box in the top dresser drawer, next to the little box from the year before. Then, inspiration!

“Daddy’s taking you shopping tonight?” I asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“Tell your Mommy I’ll call her this evening.” Our daughter would be able to think of something besides earrings.

Maybe a sweater? She’d certainly know the size. FY

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LIFE & LEISURE

WWII Veteran Surviving and Thriving

BY FRANK PACELLA

F

rank Pacella, executive producer of WKBW’s AM Buffalo, recently helped his father, Salvatore Pacella, celebrate his 100th birthday. Frank also shared that his mother is ninety-five and that she and Salvatore celebrated their seventy-eighth wedding anniversary at Ilio DiPalo’s this past January.

Below is Salvatore Pacella’s remarkable story as told by his son. We’re sure it will be of great interest to our readers. After all, as Frank says, “How many 100-year-old POW concentration camp survivors are there?”—Ed. Before the war January 16, 1916. 100 years ago my father, Salvatore Pacella, was born to Angelina and Eusebio Pacella in Pacentro L’Aquila, Italy. He had a brother, Antonio, and sisters Rosina, Virginia, Loretta, and Ersilia, who was adopted. He is the sole survivor of his family.

February 1, 1921. Ninety-five years ago my mother, Fiorina Lepore Pacella, was born to Luisa and Pasquale Lepore in Pacentro, L’Aquila, Italy. She had two brothers, Carlo, Pasquale, and four sisters, Marianina, Concetta, Adelina, and Elena. She and her brother Carlo are the sole survivors of her family.

My mother and father have both

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lived through remarkable times. They have witnessed changes in lifestyles and technological developments unimaginable at the time of their births.

In those days, when they were both growing up, times were extremely difficult. A day’s pay for a laborer in the fields was five lires (about one dollar). There was very little money in circulation. Many people went to work in foreign countries, and a few would work in Pacentro with landlords who owned land. They both had very little education; in those days, working in the fields for survival was a priority.

They grew up in a world of such desperate poverty that people actually died of hunger.

At the age of twenty-one, my father married my mother on December 2, 1937. She was sixteen years old. After just three months of marriage, he left for the Italian army and was assigned to the 11th infantry regiment in Forli, Romagna. After a few months, he was sent to the Infantry and Cavalry section in Modena. He served in administration and was discharged from Modena on August 25, 1938. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland and he was called back to active duty in the 11th regiment in Forli and sent to Albania on Sept 12, 1939.

Concentration camp During World War II in 1939, he served in the Greek and Albanian Front. On Sept 8, 1943, Italian General Badoglio surrendered. The Germans

6

www.foreveryoungwny.com | May 2016

told the Italians they were taking them back to Italy, but actually took the Italian prisoners to a concentration camp in Bislich, Germany. My father witnessed atrocities against the Jews.

He witnessed the Germans send women, children, and men into a building the size of a big church. They were being told they were getting showered. Instead, the Germans gassed them. Afterward, he saw the Germans pick up their dead bodies with a bulldozer and bury them in a nearby pit. This horror is forever engrained in his memory.

They marched about a mile every morning to the factory to work and back at night. He worked twelve hours a day, six days a week. On Sunday, they boiled the lice out of their clothing. The conditions were deplorable and the suffering of the prisoners extreme. He managed to get additional nuggets of bread by trading cigarettes with a German guard. The rations were one loaf of bread for five people. After five months of working in the concentration camp, his weight plummeted from 160 pound to 60 lbs.

A skeleton form, they walked him to a field hospital for prisoners sick with malnutrition. They humiliated him in the street along the way.

At the hospital, a nun secretly fed him food. After a month, he was lucky enough to be sent to work in a farm with cows, because the Germans were looking for people with farming experience. Although, he had no education beyond the fourth grade, he

LIFE & LEISURE all the overtime he was offered. He also worked part time for fifteen years for the Columbia Market driving a truck, delivering supplies to pizzerias.

His wife and three boys joined him in Buffalo in May of 1954. Three more children were born: Nancy, Daniel and me, Frank. After working for thirty years and raising his family, he returned to Pacentro for a vacation. It was his first time back to Pacentro, and it was interesting to see the changes that

have taken place. It was a visibly more prosperous society than the one he remembered as a child. Salvatore and Fiorina today are doing remarkably well.

They are both amazing and intelligent and they remember every detail of their past. Dad maintains a garden and helps take care of my mother. They are active and still living in their home. FY Frank Pacella is the executive producer of AM Buffalo.

Salvatore Pacella and Fiorina Lepore Pacella on their wedding day - December 2, 1937.

Photo courtesy of Frank Pacella

had farming skills that saved his life. At the farm, my father tended to livestock and grew produce for the Germans.

He regained some weight and grew stronger as he was able to eat farm produce.

At last, the allies broke through Germany. The Bislich area was the last front of the war where the Germans were finally crippled and the war ended. My father was able to return to Italy from prison camp on September 5, 1945. He hitched back home to Italy.

Meanwhile, earlier in the war, my mother was living in Pacentro, Italy.

She was forced from her home by the Germans and delivered her first son in a stranger’s home in a nearby town. With no money, the villagers scrounged for food. The Nazis had a curfew: anyone out past 9 p.m. was shot and killed.

Other villagers were rounded up and relocated to another city. Many did not survive the relocation and died.

After the war Making a living in Pacentro was almost impossible when my father returned home from the war. On October 29, 1948, he left for Caracas, Venezuela, to find work, along with some relatives and friends. The agency Celidonio lent him money for the trip ($400).

When he left for Venezuela he had a wife and three sons in Pacentro: Eusebio, Tony, and Mario. In Venezuela he worked for five years for the Texaco Oil Company earning $5 per day and sleeping in a shack with nine other people to support his family back home.

Like many others, he had the American dream and the capacity for hard work, so he applied to immigrate to the United States. He arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana, on March 3, 1953. He then settled in Buffalo, New York, where he was employed at Hanna Furnace for twenty-eight years prior to retirement at age sixty-five. He never missed one day of work and worked May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 7

LIFE & LEISURE 25. *”____-watch” a lot of TV 26. Wet nurses 27. *”Wreak ____” 29. Coarse file 31. Kind of apple, gritty and acidic 32. ____-____-la 33. Bar by estoppel 34. *”____ of cake” 36. Table in Mexico 38. African river 42. Idealized image 45. Group of performers 49. Afghan monetary unit

THEME: POPULAR EXPRESSIONS ACROSS 1. Santa and Uncle Sam have this in common 6. Be in a cast 9. Plural of cecum 13. *”____ beaver” 14. *”Pitching ____” 15. Sacrificial spot 16. Less than 90 degrees 17. Grass bristle 18. Had in mind 19. *”Retail ____” 21. *”____ it” 23. Bruin legend Bobby 24. Forbidden fruit, e.g.

25. *”____, humbug!”

28. Ready and eager 30. Foot part 35. Mosque V.I.P. 37. Indian restaurant staple 39. Bodies 40. Part of cathedral 41. Binary digits code 43. Interest ____ 44. Writer behind a writer 46. Rodeo Drive tree 47. Cold War’s Warsaw Pact, e.g.

48. Protective embankment 50. *”You ____ what you sow” 52. King Kong, e.g.

53. Kick out 8

51. Thick soup 54. Dangerous movie trick 56. Plural of amnion 57. Desktop picture 58. Lunch time?

59. Worn from walking 60. Great Depression drifter 61. *Don’t put these into one basket 62. Vegas bandit 63. They make up a tennis match 64. R&R spot 66. “The ____. The Proud. The Marines”

55. India’s smallest state 57. *Add this to injury?

60. *Disorderly person or thing 64. Ice cream amount 65. Roswell subject 67. Figure with vertex and rays 68. Coastal town in southern England 69. Animal’s nose 70. Leg of lamb 71. Actress Hathaway 72. *”A bird in the hand is worth ____ in the bush” 73. Cardinal compass point at 90 degrees, pl.

DOWN 1. *”Don’t ____ around the bush” 2. *”To ____ his own” 3. Chills and fever 4. Old but in 5. Like rainy afternoon?

6. *”An apple a day keeps the doctor ____” 7. *”Don’t have a ____!”

8. Polynesian kingdom 9. Horsefly 10. Short for “and elsewhere” 11. C&H crop 12. Product of creativity 15. Quantity 20. Vital life, in Sanskrit 22. ____-Wan of “Star Wars” 24. Server on wheels

www.foreveryoungwny.com | May 2016

The solution for this month’s puzzle can be found on page 36.

LET’S TALK ABOUT...

Older Women, Younger Men

BY JUDITH A. RUCKI

T Sure, if you are a talented, gorgeous, internationally known woman of means, it might be easy to find a man decades younger than you and keep him interested. But what about an average woman interested in dating younger men—who is she, and what are her chances?

She’s often known by the less-thanflattering term, “cougar.” She is a woman who is at least forty years old and dating a significantly younger man.

In this case, “significantly” is usually defined as a ten-year or more age gap.

If a man is dating a woman tens of years younger, well, so what? But when women engage in the same behavior, they can be viewed as predatory and desperate. Some younger men may see an older woman as a “sugar mama.”

So, what draws older women and younger men together?

Writing for WebMD, medical journalist Star Lawrence says, “The women like the flexibility and sense of adventure of their more spontaneous, younger companions.” Men, for their part, enjoy the “sophistication and life success of their older mates.”

Lawrence cites The Unofficial Guide to Dating Again, by Tina Tessina, PhD, when explaining the reasons behind this trend. For starters, women no longer wear drab housedresses and gray buns once they reach forty. They are taking better care of themselves and take advantage of beauty products, gym memberships, and medical intervention. Older women are looking younger every day.

Not every woman wants to settle down. Perhaps she is divorced, done with the white picket fence routine, and looking for a man who can be a fun

he following joke is making its rounds online: Madonna is 57; her boyfriend is 24. Tina Turner is 77; her boyfriend is 42. JLo is 44; her boyfriend is 28. No need to feel sad, single ladies. Your boyfriend just hasn’t been born yet.

adventurous companion. A younger man may fit the bill.

From a man’s point of view, these relationships have their merits. Nicholas Pell, a writer for Made Man, cites an AARP magazine survey that showed 34 percent of women over age forty date younger men. This cougar business is not a passing fancy. As Pell says, “It’s a phenomenon that’s here to stay.”

While dating a younger man can be fun for a woman, Pell wonders what younger men are getting out of the relationship. He feels cougars tend to have the same mindset as young men.

It’s all about hanging out, having fun together, and no strings attached sex.

But what if it isn’t just sex, fun, and games? Can an older woman/younger man relationship work?

Older Women, Younger Men: New Options for Love and Romance, by Felicia Brings and Susan Winter, includes feedback from the more than 200 men they interviewed. They asked the men what they felt an older woman has to offer. The men mentioned relationships that weren’t based exclusively on sex but were built on trust, respect, and love.

They also mentioned women who had common interests with them, a sense of humor, and the ability to build up a man’s self-esteem. Sharp intellect and high level conversations, coupled with playfulness and a confident attitude, go a long way. Older women can offer emotional stability and high levels of honesty. They have life experience, know what they want, and may communicate better than their younger counterparts.

A study published in the journal Psychology of Women Quarterly found that women who are ten or more years older than their partner “report more satisfaction and relationship commitment compared to women who are the same age or younger than their partner.” Additionally, an older woman may feel she has more equality with a younger partner, and greater equality tends to make couples happier.

Cheektowaga residents Wayne and Kathy Krzyzykowski have a nineyear age difference; she is fifty-five to his forty-six. When asked if there are advantages to being married to a (somewhat) younger man, Kathy

jokingly said, “My hope is he’ll stay healthy so when I’m old and decrepit, he can take care of me!”

She says when they first met, she never thought about their age difference. “I would have gone out with him no matter what; he is good looking and funny.”

The one piece of advice she has for women considering dating or marrying a younger man is, “Don’t think you can mold or change them. I tried, and it did not work.”

As they are getting ready to celebrate nineteen years of marriage, Kathy says, “He makes me feel young!”

When you are happily married to the love of your life, age isn’t an issue at all. FY Judith A. Rucki is a public relations consultant and freelance writer. Readers may contact her via the editor at wswearingen@buffalospree.com with ideas for making the golden years sparkle, sizzle, and shine.

May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 9

ARTS

May Theater Preview

Irish Classical Theatre Company’s exciting collaboration: The Yeats Project

BY DONNA HOKE

The Yeats Project Irish Classical Theatre

By William Butler Yeats Director: Vincent O’Neill Director of Design: Dan Shanahan Director of Choreography and Movement: Jon Lehrer Cast: Land of Heart’s Desire: Christian Brandjes, Mary McMahon, Arianne Davidow, Connor Graham, Gerry Maher, Faith Walh, Mary Ramsey, Inga Yanoski; At the Hawk’s Well: David Oliver, Anthony Alcocer, Christian Brandjes,

10

Connor Graham, Immanuel Naylor, Mary Ramsey, Inga Yanoski; and the LehrerDance ensemble: Kurt Adametz, Cristiana Cavallo, Laura Curthoys, Rachael Humphrey, Tyler Malone, Ryan Moguel, Colleen Walsh

A

n unusual theatrical experience is happening at Irish Classical Theatre Company (ICTC), which, in April, premiered a multi-disciplinary production of two rarely produced plays by William Butler Yeats, the Nobel Laureate Irish poet. In order to

www.foreveryoungwny.com | May 2016

release its full dramatic and theatrical potential, ICTC created an in-depth three-way collaboration between ICTC, Lehrer Dance Company, and the experimental and adventurous Torn Space Theater Company: the Yeats Project.

Though William Butler Yeats was a prominent Irish writer, it’s taken this long to bring him to the ICTC stage because, as director O’Neill says, “to properly bring out the dramatic potential of the pieces, you really do need a lot of creativity and different skill sets to activate what’s underneath the surface. Like Beckett, Yeats is rich in terms of resonance and layers, and we found as we worked on it, we discovered more and more, which is always the sign of a good playwright.

We discovered that he is a forerunner of Beckett in many respects in his minimalism, the depth of what he deals with, and a sense of existentialism.”

“From the start, this project was conceived as a collaboration, drawing upon the strengths of the participating companies,” says Torn Space artistic director Dan Shanahan. “ICTC would determine casting; work with text and actors; and oversee diction while also being the producing organization of the project. Lehrer Dance would work with movement and choreograph the dancers. Torn Space would oversee design to include costume, video, sound, and set. “ Not surprisingly, as Torn Space is known for its multi-sensory sitebased performances, the Yeats Project was originally intended to follow that track, but finding an appropriate site proved difficult. “We also understood a strength for this piece is its intimacy between performance and audience,

and the performance space at ICTC accommodates this,” Shanahan points out. “We do want to maintain an element of site-based practices so, in our design, we will be considering ICTC as a space and designing for parts of the space that may not always be considered performance space.”

“The ultimate aim is to render accessible through a dynamic and overtly theatrical presentation these plays that exhibit extraordinary power and lyricism, but are often regarded as esoteric and inaccessible, to large and demographically diverse audiences,” says O’Neill. “The production will use every aspect of dramatic expression, from mime to ritual choral performance; from athletic and narrative dance forms to imagistic scenic expression; from visceral use of acting techniques to mask and physical expressionism.”

Indeed, Yeats is often described as a great poet but an awful playwright.

Both O’Neill and Shanahan take exception to the limited interpretation of that assessment. “Yeats understands text to be one component, and text does not need to adhere to crisis to crisis to climax to resolution while adhering to a tightly contained dramatic timeline,” Shanahan contends. “He is working with a concept of total theater-integrated performance that draws from the arenas of sculpture, ceremony, gesture, and live and recorded soundscapes all in order to design a ritual—a shared space for both the audience and the performance.

He is much more akin to Artaud or Beckett, others who have often been unjustly labeled as awful playwrights.

We see the influence of Yeats and his concept of performance on the leading

ARTS

Ryan O’Neal, A. R. Gurney, and Ali McGraw Photo courtesy of Shea’s Performing Arts Center

practitioners of the avant-garde, from Robert Wilson to the Wooster Group to more current companies such as Nature Theater of Oklahoma. In these works, we see theater creators using narrative as one element but one that will shift and disperse to allow ‘performance’ to enter; this may be formal movement, song and dance, inclusion of ‘amateur’ or community members into the creation, or breaks in action to disrupt a more traditional dramatic arc. The goal is to design a theatrical space that is self-referential working within its own rhythm and performance language.”

“I wanted to do these plays because it’s the twenty-fifth anniversary of Irish Classical Theatre Company, and my and my brother Chris’s roots are with Abbey Theatre, the national company of Ireland, which was co-founded by Yeats,” says O’Neill. “Ironically, the play opened April 22, which is the 110th anniversary of Easter Rising and Irish independence, and Yeats wrote the famous poem about that revolution called ‘Easter 1916.’ We’re also coming off the 150th anniversary of Yeats’ birth, so the three anniversaries coinciding seemed to touch base with our roots.

Another reason to take them on is that the two one-act plays are an entire evening, but they comment on each other incredibly and similarly with thematic material, but, more important, they show Yeats’ evolution from a young playwright, twenty-nine, with his very first produced play, Desire, to the first of his plays for dancers, the Noh plays, after he met Ezra Pound,

At the Hawk’s Well. Are they narrative?

Yes, they are, but more than that, they’re symbolist, and impressionistic, and very avant-garde for his time, and we hope to show that. It’ll be different, tangential, unusual, innovative, and really an experiment bringing all these extraordinary people together to illuminate the works of the greatest poet of the twentieth century.”

Irish Classical Theatre runs The Yeats Project through May 8 (irishclassicaltheatre.com, 853-4282).

Love Letters 710 Main

By A. R. Gurney Director: Gregory Mosher Cast: Ryan O’Neal, Ali McGraw

T

his month’s production of Buffalo native A. R. Gurney’s 1989 epistolary play, Love Letters, reunites Love Story stars Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw, and puts them on stage together for the first time. “I’ve seen them; they’re excellent,” says Gurney, who calls Love Letters the biggest surprise of his career.

The playwright, who’d first sent the letter-story chronicling the relationship of Andrew Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner to the New Yorker, was surprised to find it rejected because the New Yorker doesn’t “do plays.” That assertion led Gurney to actually try it as a play, with friend Holland Taylor reading Melissa to his Andrew. “I had to lecture at the New York Public Library, and thought, ‘Let’s do this

instead,” he recalls. “Halfway through, we put in an intermission and all these women left, and I thought, ‘What have I said?’ But they ran out to call their nannies or sitters to tell them they’d be home a little later and they all came back. I was extremely surprised that happened.”

It took a while to catch on, but Love Letters is now Gurney’s most produced play—“if you can call them productions,” he says. It’s been on Broadway, gone on several road tours, been nominated for a Pulitzer, and been read by countless A-list actors from Elizabeth Taylor to Christopher Walken. “It’s done all over the place, in libraries, in churches, all over the world, a lot in France, German, India, China, Korea, and Japan,” Gurney marvels. “The one place it’s never done is England. We opened it there and they slaughtered me, and nobody’s dared touch it since.”

ALSO PLAYING

And this month, in Buffalo, as part of a national tour following a critically acclaimed Broadway run, Love Letters comes to 710, twenty-five years after it was first produced. “I’ve written about three or four plays which seem to go on a great deal, and have helped children and grandchildren through college, but then there are so many that don’t last, because theater is such a specific form, speaking to an immediate audience,” Gurney says. “Over the years, not all my plays are done, but many are done in different contexts and I become proud of the fact that they are still done and of the fact that they are so resilient.”

Love Letters is certainly one of those.

Love Letters runs at 710 Main May 11-22 (sheas.org, 847-1410). FY Playwright Donna Hoke writes about theater for Forever Young

(in order of closing)

• Women on Fire closes May 1 at O’Connell and Company (oconnellandcompany.com; 848-0800).

• MusicalFare continues How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying through May 15 (musicalfare.com; 839-8540).

• See Quartet at Kavinoky through May 22 (kavinokytheatre.com; 881-7668).

• Farragut North runs until May 22 at Road Less Traveled Productions (roadlesstraveledproductions.org; 629-3069).

OPENING THIS MONTH • Dirty Dancing opens May 3 at Shea’s and runs one week only.

• See Detroit 67 at Paul Robeson beginning May 6 (aaccbuffalo.org; 884-2013).

• New Phoenix and Subversive Theatre Collective open Judgment in Nuremberg May 6 (newphoenixtheatre.org; 853-1334).

• Theatre of Youth begins The True Story of the Three Little Pigs May 7 (theatreofyouth.org; 884-4400).

• Love Letters runs at 710 Main May 11–22 (sheas.org; 847-1410).

• Stephen Sondheim’s Company opens May 26 at O’Connell and Company (oconnellandcompany.com; 848-0800).

May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 11

LADY LUCK

Craps:

Sometimes It’s Right to Bet Wrong

T

his title may sound confusing, but a strategy known as wrong or don’t bettors is when a craps player wagers against the shooter, hoping that she or he will lose the roll. Such bettors are in the minority, less than 1%. Since you are going against the crowd, it’s advisable to find the most secluded corner to play the game.

DENNIS OCCHINO Why is it sometimes right to bet wrong? The house edge on the don’t bets are slightly less than the house edge on the right bets. What that means is, over time, the house expects to win a certain amount of money from the players. This is a built-in monetary advantage for the casino. The edge on the pass line (right bet) wager is 1.41%.

The don’t pass (wrong bet) wager

edge is 1.36%. Simply put, this means that the theoretical loss to the player over time is $1.36 for every $100 wagered on the Don’t Pass Bar, or $1.41 for every $100 wagered on the Pass Line.

There are numerous ways to bet the numbers in this volatile game, but for simplification I’ll focus on the most common bets, the Pass, Don’t Pass, and the Place Bets.

Pass Line – When this wager is made at the start of a new game, the right players are hoping that the shooter will roll a 7 or 11 on the initial toss. This is a win. If the shooter rolls a 2, 3, or 12, it is a loss for the player(s). If one of the other numbers, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, or 10 are rolled, that number becomes the point. For the player(s) to win, the shooter must roll the point before she or he rolls a 7. Once the point is established no other number matters. No matter how long it takes. If the 7 is made before the

point the house collects all pass bets.

Don’t Pass Bar – This is the opposite of the Pass Line bet. The wrong bettors are hoping that the shooter will roll a 2, 3, or 12 on the first toss for a win. If the 7 or 11 is made it’s a loss for the don’t player(s). As for the aforementioned point numbers, if the 7 is rolled before the point, then it’s a win for minority player(s).

Place Bets – Bets can be made on any of the point numbers during the roll. All bettors (right and wrong) want to hit the numbers multiple times before a 7 is rolled.

Here are the payouts: Numbers 4 and 10 5 and 9 6 and 8

Payouts 9 to 5 7 to 5 6 to 5

Simple strategy for the wrong bettor:

First off, do not jump in on a crowded hot table. There may be a player on a winning streak.

You’ll know it when you hear the thunderous roars of the crowd among the high-fives. Look for the ho-hum action table where the house is collecting most wagers.

First put your wager on the Don’t Pass Bar. If a point number is rolled on the come out roll (start of a new game) make place bets on the 6 and 8. There are five ways to roll the 6 and 8. Each time either is rolled before a 7 you’ll win 6/5. Of course if the point number comes in first the don’t pass wager loses.

Remember that the 7 can be rolled the most number of ways and if Lady Luck is with you, you’ll be collecting your wager when the house collects everyone else’s chips.

Have a gaming question? Contact Dennis at Doaks39@gmail.com.

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VALLEY COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION 93 Leddy, Buffalo 7:30 p.m........ 823-4707 MATTHEW GLAB POST 1965 Abbott Rd., Lackawanna 7:30 p.m...........................

K OF C HAMBURG COUNCIL 2220 36 Pierce Ave., Hamburg 7:30 p.m........ 649-9830

TUESDAY AMVETS MEDALLION POST NO. 13 25 Review Pl., Buffalo 7:30 p.m........ 874-0559 ASSUMPTION PARISH 435 Amherst St., Buffalo 1 p.m............. 876-1038

FATHER JUSTIN K OF C 2735 Union Rd., Cheektowaga 1 p.m............. 681-7231 ST. ANDREW’S CHURCH 1525 Sheridan Dr., Kenmore 7:30 p.m........ 873-6716 OUR LADY OF POMPEII 129 Laverack, Lancaster 7:30 p.m........ 683-6522 WHEATFIELD NO. 1451 6525 Ward Rd., Sanborn 7:25 p.m........ 731-4712 AMERICAN LEGION TONAWANDA NO. 264 60 Main St., Tonawanda 7:30 p.m........ 692-9785 GEORGE F. LAMM POST 962 Wehrle Dr., Williamsville 7:30 p.m........ 633-9242 RESURRECTION BINGO 130 Como Park Blvd.

7 p.m............. 683-3712 JOSEPH HRICZKO VFW POST NO. 6245 29 Clemo St., Buffalo 7:30 p.m........ 854-1000 HARTLAND VFC 8945 Ridge Rd., Hartland 7:30 p.m.

ARMOR VOL. FIRE CO. 4932 Clark St., Hamburg 7:30 p.m........ 649-9821 ST. STANISLAUS RCC 123 Townsend St., Buffalo 7:30 p.m........ 849-4980 ST. ANDREW CHURCH 111 Crocker St., Sloan 7:30 p.m........ 892-0425 OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP CHURCH 115 O’Connell Avenue, Buffalo 7:30 p.m........ 852-2671 SENECA GAMING AND ENTERTAINMENT 11099 Route 5, Irving 7 p.m........................ 549-4389

WEDNESDAY ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI 4263 St. Francis Dr., Athol Springs 7:30 p.m................... 627-2710 SHAWNEE VOL. FIRE COMPANY 3747 Lockport Rd., Sanborn 7:30 p.m. ................. 731-3666

Bingo Calendar AM. LEG. MCKEEVER POST 1770 S. Park Ave., Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 822-6400 KENMORE K OF C 1530 Kenmore Ave., Buffalo 1 p.m........................ 875-5780 POLISH CADETS CLUB 927 Grant St., Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 875-3211 FATHER JUSTIN K OF C — SPONSORED BY THE JUSTINETTES 2735 Union Rd., Cheektowaga 7:30 p.m................... 681-7231 QUEEN OF MARTYRS 180 George Urban Blvd., Cheektowaga 7:30 p.m................... 892-1746 POLISH FALCONS 445 Columbia Ave., Depew 7:45 p.m................... 684-2373 FATHER BAKER K OF C 2838 S. Park Ave., Lackawanna 12:45 p.m................. 825-5150 LANCASTER K OF C 6114 Broadway, Lancaster 11:45 a.m.................. 684-1905 RESCUE FIRE CO. NO. 5 1241 Strad, N. Tonawanda 7:30 p.m................... 695-3923 SENECA GAMING AND ENTERTAINMENT 11099 Route 5, Irving 1 & 7 p.m................. 549-4389

ST. ALOYSIUS RCC 156 Franklin, Springville 7:30 p.m................... 592-2701 ST. AMELIA 2999 Eggert Rd., Tonawanda 7:40 p.m................... 836-0011 ST. MICHAEL’S BINGO 140 Warsaw, Lackawanna 7:15 p.m................... 825-9415

THURSDAY FATHER JUSTIN K OF C 2735 Union Rd., Cheektowaga 1 p.m........................ 681-7231 AMVETS BINGO 600 Ward Rd., N. Tonawanda 8 p.m........................ 694-6290 BLESSED TRINITY 317 Leroy Ave., Buffalo 8 p.m........................ 833-0301 BUFFALO IRISH CENTER 245 Abbott Rd., Buffalo 7:45 p.m................... 825-9535 ST. BERNARD’S CHURCH Clinton @ S. Ogden, Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 822-8856 PVT. LEONARD POST 2450 Walden Ave., Cheek.

7:15 p.m................... 684-4371 ST. JAMES DEPEW 500 Terrace Blvd., Depew 7:30 p.m................... 683-2746

(continued)

ST. ANDREW’S CHURCH 1525 Sheridan Dr., Kenmore 7:30 p.m................... 873-6716 SENECA GAMING AND ENTERTAINMENT 11099 Route 5, Irving 7 p.m........................ 549-4389 AM. LEG. POST 1041 533 Amherst St., Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 875-9276 ST. CLARE’S 193 Elk St., Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 823-2358 FOURTEEN HOLY HELPERS 1345 Indian Church Rd., West Seneca 7:00 p.m................... 674-2374 K OF C MADONNA COUNCIL NO. 2535 755 Erie Ave., North Tonawanda 7:20 p.m................... 693-5470 NIAGARA FRONTIER AMERICAN LEGION POST 1041 533 Amherst Street, Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 875-9276 VFW COL. WEBER POST 989 2909 South Park Ave., Lackawana 7:30 p.m................... 823-9605

O’BRIEN HALL Lafayette at Grant, Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 885-2469 ASSUMPTION PARISH 435 Amherst St., Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 876-1038 KENMORE K OF C 1530 Kenmore Ave., Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 875-5780 OUR LADY HELP OF CHRISTIANS 4125 Union Rd., Cheek.

7:30 p.m................... 634-3420 SENECA GAMING AND ENTERTAINMENT 11099 Route 5, Irving 7, 10:30 p.m............. 549-4389 ST. ALOYSIUS GONZAGA 157 Cleveland Dr., Cheek.

7:30 p.m................... 833-1715 ST. KATHERINE DREXEL 122 Shiller St., Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 895-6813 NEWELL FAULKNER A. LEG. 2912 Legion Dr., Eden 7:30 p.m................... 992-3304

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AM. LEG. MCKEEVER POST 1770 South Park Ave., Buffalo 7:30 p.m.................. 822-6400

7:15 p.m................... 825-9870

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GASPORT CHEMICAL HOSE 8412 State St., Gasport 7:30 p.m.

OUR LADY OF PERP. HELP 115 O’Connell St., Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 852-2671 ST. STANISLAUS RCC 123 Townsend St., Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 849-4980 ST. PHILLIPS THE APOSTLE RCC 950 Lossen Rd., Cheektowaga 7:30 p.m.

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BLESSED JOHN XXIII 36 Flohr Avenue, W. Seneca 7 p.m........................ 823-1090 CORPUS CHRISTI CLUB 165 Sears St., Buffalo 2 p.m........................ 892-0469 INFANT OF PRAGUE 921 Cleveland Dr., Cheektowaga 7:15 p.m................... 634-3660 ST. ALOYSIUS GONZAGA 157 Cleveland Dr., Cheektowaga 1 p.m........................ 833-1715 VILLA MARIA COLLEGE 240 Pine Ridge Rd., Cheek.

1 p.m........................ 896-0700 LANCASTER ELKS 1478 33 Legion Parkway, Lancaster 1 p.m........................ 685-1478 OUR LADY OF POMPEII 129 Laverack, Lancaster 7:30 p.m. (1st Sa.)... 683-6522 O’HARA BOOSTER CLUB 39 O’Hara Rd., Tonawanda 7:30 p.m..695-2600 ext. 326 SENECA GAMING AND ENTERTAINMENT 11099 Route 5, Irving 1, 7, 10:30 p.m......... 549-4389 ST. BONAVENTURE 36 Flohr Avenue, W. Seneca 7 p.m........................ 823-1090 ST. ANDREW CHURCH 111 Crocker St., Sloan 7:30 p.m................... 892-0425

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Bingo Calendar KENMORE K OF C 1530 Kenmore Ave., Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 875-5780 ST. BERNARD’S CHURCH Clinton @ S. Ogden, Buffalo 7:30 p.m................... 822-8856 OUR LADY HELP OF CHRISTIANS 4125 Union Rd., Cheektowaga 7 p.m........................ 634-3420 O’HARA HAS 39 O’Hara Rd., Tonawanda 1 p.m...... 695-2600 ext. 326 SENECA GAMING AND ENTERTAINMENT 11099 Route 5, Irving 1 & 7 p.m................. 549-4389 QUEEN OF MARTYRS 180 G. Urban, Cheektowaga 1:30 p.m................... 892-1746 ST. PHILIP THE APOSTLE 950 Losson Rd., Cheektowaga 7:30 p.m....668-8370 ext. 35 DELEVAN VFC N. Main St., Delevan 7 p.m........................ 492-1910 ST. ANDREW’S CHURCH 1525 Sheridan Dr., Kenmore 7 p.m........................ 873-6716 FATHER BAKER K OF C 2838 S. Park Ave., Lackawanna 7:15 p.m................... 825-5150 OUR LADY OF POMPEII 129 Laverack, Lancaster 7 p.m........................ 683-6522

(continued)

CARDINAL O’HARA HIGH 39 O’Hara Rd., Tonawanda 1 p.m...... 695-2600 ext. 326 LOCKPORT ELKS LODGE 41 6791 N. Canal Rd., Lockport 7 p.m........................ 434-2798 PVT. LEONARD POST 2450 Walden, Cheektowaga 7:15 p.m.................684-43710 MATTHEW GLAB POST 1965 Abbott Rd., Lackawanna 7:30 p.m.

BINGO IN CANADA UNCLE SAM’S 427 Garrison Rd., Fort Erie 834-7718 GOLDEN NUGGET 655 Garrison Rd., Fort Erie 888-739-6149 DELTA MONTE CARLO 4735 Drummond, N. Falls 835-3564

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You Have One or More Missing Teeth?

BY DR. TODD E. SHATKIN If you are missing one or more teeth, as many adults are, you probably know the impact this has on your smile. You may also be suffering with changes to the outside appearance of your face. Tooth loss can create multiple problems including the dissolving away of bone structure, loss of support of the face giving an increased appearance of age and wrinkles, and damage to the remaining teeth making it difficult to chew. Your appearance, confidence and health suffer greatly from missing teeth impacting your overall quality of life.

1999, I immediately made their benefits Mini dental implants offer a permanent available to patients in the area. I have solution to your problems. Rather than placed more than 15,000 mini implants resting on the gum line like removable with amazing results and have seen them dentures, or using adjacent teeth as change the lives of my patients. They anchors like fixed bridges, mini dental leave the office with a restored smile and implants are long-term replacements that a new confidence and are surprised how are non-surgically placed in the jawbone. simple and quick the procedure is.

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COVER

Excitement’s on Track at Batavia Downs

BY WENDY GUILD SWEARINGEN Batavia Downs lights up at night. Photo courtesy Batavia Downs

B

atavia Downs, Western New York’s premier entertainment destination, has a lot of fun and excitement planned for guests all through the month of May. When visiting the newly renovated Batavia Downs Gaming, guests can expect a premier entertainment experience, including daily, weekly, and monthly promotions.

Batavia Downs is offering many new promotions in May, including celebrating horseracing’s biggest contests. Don your fanciest hat and be ready to get your julep on for the Kentucky Derby Party inside the Paddock Room on May 7. The Paddock Room is also the site of Preakness Party May 21.

Batavia Downs has added 150 new games, bringing the total of video gaming machines to nearly 800. The more games, the more chances to win!

Continuing May’s special events, May 18 is Batavia Downs’ eleventh anniversary and they’re celebrating all month long with

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themed promotions around the number “11.”

On Saturdays, they’re giving away $111 in Free Play every hour from 5:11p.m. until 9:11p.m. and then at 10:11p.m. they’re giving away $511 cash!

Each Wednesday in May, Batavia Downs will host drawings at 5, 7,

and 9 p.m. where six winning numbers will be chosen from a bowl of sixty numbers. If players match six out of six numbers on the game card, they’ll receive $111,111 in cash! Players can earn game cards each week up to a total of four for the month.

All that gameplay can really build the appetite. With three new restaurants: Fortune’s for elegant and hearty Italian fare; 34 Rush, beloved former Buffalo Bills Thurman Thomas’ sport bar (and home of the famous The Thurmanator burger); and Homestretch Grill for quick and casual dining, there’s a dining experience to suit everybody’s taste.

Players Club members can look forward to even more excitement.

The benefits of having a Player’s Club card include the ability to participate in all of Batavia Down’s great promotions while also receiving their monthly newsletter with great coupons.

Looking to extend your stay a bit? The new hotel

COVER at Batavia Downs has eighty-fourrooms with suites on the top level.

Half of the rooms will face the track, so during live racing, guests will be able to watch a race happen right outside their window. The hotel is expected to begin taking reservations in September of 2016.

Live harness racing runs from late July through early December.

Guests can watch from the track apron in the enclosed grandstand or in The Clubhouse, the seasonal restaurant overlooking the track.

If you’re planning a conference or retreat, Batavia Downs boasts five distinct meeting rooms that can accommodate groups up to 500. Rooms include a smart board for virtual meetings, and catering is available for any group.

Stay and play at Batavia Downs, and bring a friend—or 500! FY

Wendy Guild Swearingen is editor of Forever Young.

The traveling food truck is available upon request for local sporting events, football games, local festivals, various fundraisers or private functions.

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May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 19

HOME & GARDEN

Gardens for Miles

BY JANA EISENBERG The Nannen Arboretum in spring bloom Courtesy of Nannen Aboretum. Photo by Sean Huntington.

W

hat’s your fancy, garden-wise? Chances are, a public garden near you has it. Roses? Check. Japanese landscaping? Check. Rock gardens, moon-inspired blooms, and cacti? Check, check, check. The options for enjoying large public gardens this spring and summer are many—and take from three to ninety minutes to reach from downtown Buffalo. Here’s a selection of our area’s loveliest and most well tended large gardens.

Buffalo and Erie County Botanical Gardens, South Park The conservatory and botanical gardens were completed around 1900—at the time, it was the third largest public greenhouse in the United States and was ranked as the ninth largest in the world. Today, it is still glorious. The venue offers seven outdoor gardens—including

a children’s garden, healing garden, and a rose garden. Inside the aweinspiring Lord and Burnham-designed conservatory are specialty plants and rooms to simply wow you, including succulents, ivy, bonsai, and carnivorous plants. Don’t miss the indoor cloud and rain garden environments.

Open daily from 10 a.m. 5 p.m.

Tickets for kids two and under are

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(off Millersport - 1 Block, North of Sheridan)

free; ages three to twelve and students with ID are $5, adults fifty-five and over are $8, and adults eighteen to fifty-four are $9.

and walk down toward the lake. Enjoy the cherry blossoms and the breeze off the lake.

buffalogardens.com

Free, always open bfloparks.org

Delaware Park The renowned Rose Garden along Lincoln Parkway is definitely a draw.

With its lovely portico and stonestrewn paths, it is a most photogenic spot, as well as a delight to stroll through. Hang on a sec, though: Did you know that Delaware Park also contains a sweet and sweetly tended Japanese Garden? The Friends of the Japanese Garden are champions of this shaded sloped spot behind the Buffalo History Museum. It’s incredibly charming, with a Japanese gate, three tiny landscaped islands, a restored lantern, and stone pathways.

To get there, park on Nottingham or in the History Museum parking lot,

Nannen Arboretum, Ellicottville Now owned by the town of Ellicottville and run by the Nannen Arboretum Society, this eight-acre parcel has a complex history. Originally part of the Nannen family farm, it was donated to the Cornell Cooperative Extension. Landscaper John Ploetz got involved and, over the past thirty plus years, the Arboretum has come into itself. Go see these wonderful spaces: the Ryoanji Temple Stone Garden, a meditation and contemplation garden with textured granite grit and large symbolic stones; Amano Hashidate Bridge, with views of Lake Nipponica against a mountainous backdrop; the Lowe Herb Garden; and the Al Cox

HOME & GARDEN days a year, twenty-four hours a day.

You can walk through the park or take the Niagara Scenic Trolley ride. niagara-usa.com/state-park

The Japanese Gardens at Delware Park Photo courtesy of Olmsted Parks Conservancy

Memorial Garden, a raised perennial flower garden. The site offers outdoor spaces for meetings and special events, including the Chapman Nature Sanctuary, studded with Kentucky coffee trees.

Free and open to the public from dawn to dusk 365 days a year 28 Parkside Drive, Ellicottville nannenarboretum.org Niagara Falls State Park, Niagara Falls, NY This riverside park is full of paths, flowers, gardens, and of course, one of the natural wonders of the world, Niagara Falls. The park, designed

by Frederick Law Olmsted, has

claims to be the oldest state park in the nation, and was established in 1885 as the Niagara Reservation, the first of several such reservations that eventually became the cornerstones to the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

The Niagara River Gorge is home to fourteen species of rare plants, some of them threatened and endangered.

The total number of flora species documented on Goat Island over the last two centuries numbers just over 600. Here, “natural splendor allows the park to be seen as nature intended it to be seen.” Recent upgrades include the rebuilt Three Sisters bridges and replanting on the islands with native species. The State Park is open 365

Sonnenberg Gardens & Mansion State Historic Park, Canandaigua Originally the summer home of New York swells Frederick and Mary Thompson, the Queen Annestyle mansion on the grounds was built in the late 1800s. To create the gardens, Mrs. Thompson traveled the world, visiting medieval walled gardens, Italian Renaissance gardens, English landscape gardens, classic Japanese gardens, and fashionable Victorian rock gardens. She created Sonnenberg’s unique gardens between 1902 and 1919. Now one of only two public gardens in the New York State Parks system, the nine formal gardens on the fifty-acre estate are beautifully maintained. There’s a Lord and Burnham greenhouse (they also designed the Buffalo Botanical

Gardens’ incredible conservatory).

“Past the Roman Bath-style swimming pool” lies the Sub-Rosa Garden, a secret garden enclosed by boxwood hedges, and features a marble fountain.

Admission includes access to the mansion as well. Check out the Flower Blooming Schedule (sonnenberg. org/sonnenberg-gardens-bloomingschedule) and know before you go!

Open every day, May 1–October 31, 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. (extended to 5:30 pm from Memorial Day through Labor Day). Tickets for kids three and under are free; four through twelve $1; military personnel with ID and students (thirteen through seventeen and college students with ID) are $6; adults over sixty and AAA members with ID are $10; adults eighteen through fifty-nine are $12.

151 Charlotte Street, Canandaigua sonnenberg.org FY Jana Eisenberg is a frequent contributor to Forever Young

Formal elegant walkways at Sonnenberg Gardens Photo courtesy of Sonnenberg Gardens. Image by L. Scott.

May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 21

HOME & GARDEN

Natives and Heirlooms and Cultivars—Oh My! G

ardeners hear these types of terms all the time. Some readers may be wondering what they mean or what it has to do with them. This column is my attempt to provide answers.

CAROL ANN HARLOS

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What does the term “native species” mean? Plants that live in the same place where they originally developed without the help of humans are called native species. This is important for the plants because this allows plant species to grow and adapt to a certain environment. This also means the insects that have evolved along with the plants may act as their pollinators or eat them! Think about this: insects that eat plants can’t eat all of them

www.foreveryoungwny.com | May 2016

because, if they did, there would be no food for them in the future. How does all this work out? The plants developed protection against the insects that eat them; their chemistry actually changes after they have been attacked. So you might say that the plants and the insects have worked things out over time.

Many species that gardeners are familiar with are “introduced species,” which simply means that they have been brought to a new place by people.

An example of an introduced species in some Western New York gardens is yucca, a beautiful plant with rosettes of evergreen leaves and large white flowers.

While it is very beautiful, it certainly didn’t develop here. It grows naturally in the Western United States down into Central America. It is a native species there but not here! The flowers are never pollinated here because the yucca moth lives out west. Yucca are the host plants for the larvae of the yucca giant-skipper, the ursine giant-skipper, and Strecker’s giant-skipper—butterflies that simply don’t live here!

Should you grow native species in your gardens? Of course! Growing native species provides benefits for your community and for wildlife.

Your garden can be an oasis for wildlife that would otherwise disappear due to loss of habitat. It can provide food for birds, nectar for butterflies (monarchs, swallowtails) and hummingbirds, and seeds (nuts, fruit) for squirrels.

I personally think a garden is sterile if there is no wildlife present. In addition, if you choose native species that are appropriate for where you live, your garden will actually require less maintenance.

Yucca plants in bloom

If you grow vegetables, you may find it interesting to learn that tomatoes, potatoes, eggplant, peppers, and corn were all native to the North American continent. However, these are not quite the same plants that the Native Americans grew. The plants most of us grow have been selected for taste, ease of growth, size, and ease of transport.

You may need to do some research into the native species of plants for your area. Give it a try.

You may also have heard the term “heirloom plants.” To be considered an heirloom, the plant variety must be at least fifty years old. These are old varieties that have been grown over several generations by gardeners and farmers who have saved the seeds. Heirloom vegetables are open-pollinated, which means they’re pollinated by insects or wind without human intervention.

Open-pollinated varieties conserve the genetic diversity of garden vegetables and prevent the loss of unique varieties in the face of dwindling agricultural biodiversity. Frequently they are preWorld War II varieties. Heirloom plants tend not to change in appearance year after year. They are rarely used in large scale farms. The reason for this: heirloom tomatoes, for example, may taste better than many of the large scale hybridized tomatoes but are often susceptible to disease or only grow well under certain conditions. Today, most heirloom plants are usually not native species. In fact, they may come from all

HOME & GARDEN

THWARTING A THIEF

T

he insidious eye disease known as glaucoma has widely been referred to as the “silent thief of sight” because it strikes without warning and is one of the world’s leading causes of preventable blindness. It takes a professional eye exam to catch this “thief.” Diagnosis of glaucoma is made on the basis of three primary factors: an increase in intraocular pressure, the pressure within the eyeball; characteristic changes in the visual field, specifically a loss of peripheral (side) vision; and signs of damage to the optic nerve. Once the diagnosis is made, it is possible to manage the disease with medication and/or surgery. Without a diagnosis, those with glaucoma may lose their vision before they even know

Look at the vegetables you see in the supermarket. They are usually hybrids.

You may note how alike they all look and how long they keep.

Usually it is not worthwhile to collect seeds from hybrids because, unlike heirlooms, the offspring are unpredictable. (You know this from dog breeds. If the offspring of a poodle and a Labrador are crossed the result is unpredictable!)

What about GMOs? These are genetically modified plants (seeds actually). The DNA has been changed by the insertion of DNA from other species for a specific reason, such as preventing insects from eating the plants or to make fields RoundUp ready. GMO seeds are not available for home gardeners. They are highly regulated, and the seeds are only sold to commercial growers.

Lastly there are cultivars. These are grown from cuttings or tissue culture.

You cannot buy the seeds because they don’t grow from seed. The offspring are identical to the parent plant because

there is a problem. Depending on the severity of the disease, treatment of glaucoma can involve the use of medications, conventional (bladed) surgery, laser surgery or a combination of these treatments. To learn more, please call the Legarreta Eye Center at 716-633-2203. Our practice is based on the philosophy of providing high quality vision care. We have served the community for over 35 years. We have convenient locations in Williamsville, Lockport and Cheektowaga.

P.S. It is important to get your eyes examined regularly because early diagnosis and treatment can minimize or prevent optic nerve damage and limit glaucoma-related vision loss.

they are clones. You have perhaps made use of this if you have created new plants from cuttings.

Whew! So what is a gardener to do?

I believe that a garden can be mixed: some native, some cultivars, some hybrids. Mine sure is! FY I would love to hear your opinions dear reader: caharlos@verizon.net OR herbgardener.net

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over the world. I love the concept that heirloom varieties create a historical connection to gardening and food production. I bet some of my readers know of families who have passed seeds down from generation to generation.

What an incredible heritage that is!

What about hybrid plants or seeds?

A hybrid plant is created when plant breeders cross-pollinate two different varieties of a plant. Their goal is to produce offspring (hybrids) that have the best traits (bigger size, better disease resistance, dependability, less required care, early maturity, better yield, or improved flavor) from each of the parents. Hybridization can also occur naturally when members of the same plant species cross-pollinate. Breeders and hobbyists are always on the lookout for naturally occurring hybrids as well.

One example of a hybrid is Shady Lady Impatiens. Another example includes Juliet, a Roma-style grape tomato with terrific flavor, high productivity, and excellent disease resistance.

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May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 23

HOME & GARDEN

It’s Grow Time!

BY REBECCA CUTHBERT

W

ith the sun’s stronger rays cutting through chilly spring mornings, we all know summer is right around the corner. For gardeners, that means only one thing: Start your seeds!

But this is Western New York, and we can’t yet trust the weather to stay warm enough for seeds planted outside to flourish. Make use of dry weekends by pulling nuisance weeds and turning over beds, and while away those last

nippy days by sowing seeds indoors in starter pots. Nurturing the sprouts and checking their daily progress will do just enough to scratch the itch until the seedlings are ready to be moved to the garden.

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Most importantly, what do you like?

Will it be flowers, vegetables, or a little bit of both? After you make your

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selections, add some lightweight seed starter mix to your shopping cart, along with small planters or seedling trays.

Or, think (and save) green by folding newspaper into biodegradable pots you can stick right into the ready soil. Just poke holes in the bottom with a sharp pencil on transplanting day to let the roots stretch!

Buffalo is in USDA Zone 6a, with suburbs farther inland falling in 5b-a (a little colder). Make sure you check your zone before you plant your seeds; this will give you guidelines for when the ground will be warm enough for your seedlings to settle in.

To get started, fill each paper pot or seed compartment with pre-moistened soil mix. To know if your water-soil ratio is right, pick up a clump and squeeze it in your fist. If water drips out, it’s too wet. If you open your hand and the soil crumbles apart, it’s too dry. If it’s just right, the clump will stay together like a hunk of playdough.

Follow the directions on the back of your seed packets for depth. Seeds pushed too deeply into the soil won’t be close enough to sunlight to grow.

Seeds planted too shallowly may not be able to form strong root networks and will dry out quickly. Drop two or three seeds into each hole you poke, and gently push soil over them. Make sure not to pack the soil down; it should be loose so sprouts can easily push through 580 Ward Road North Tonawanda, 14120light. Write on it and up towardNYthe

HOME & GARDEN

Homemade newspaper pots Photo by Rebecca Cuthbert

Popsicle sticks with permanent marker and push them in the soil to label each pot or row. (Keep your empty seed packets so you can refer back to them when necessary.)

Place your seed pots near a sunny window but away from drafts. Check the soil daily to make sure it’s moist, but don’t let your seeds sit in flooded soil— they’ll rot. A spray bottle works well for giving your little seeds just enough water. Be patient. Soon you’ll see tender pale green shoots appear!

Once each sprout has a few leaves, it’s time for thinning. This will be hard, but consider it tough love. Discarding the weaker sprouts means the strongest seedling in each pot will get all of the nutrients and grow strong roots.

Overcrowded plants have to compete for resources, leaving all of them looking anemic and scraggly; if these do reach adulthood, flower petals may curl or drop, and veggie plants won’t produce abundantly.

Before your healthy seedlings start to look like children outgrowing last year’s school clothes, begin the “hardening off” process. This is a slow methodical exposure to outdoor conditions that should last about a week and a half.

First, put your seedlings into an opentopped box or boxes to protect them from wind. Put them outside in a sheltered shaded area for a few hours, then bring them back indoors. Do this every day, but leave them outside for a little longer each time. After about five days, let them spend part of the day in the sun, then return them to shade (still bring them inside every night). Leave them in the sun a bit longer each day until they’ve spent a whole day in the sun. At that point, let them stay outside overnight. After a couple nights, it’s safe to plant them in the ground or in large patio containers. Throughout this process, though, take precautions: If a storm is coming, keep your green babies inside, and make sure not to leave them where they could be blown over. (And all seasoned gardeners know to be wary of woodchucks!)

With patience, encouragement, and the right environment, flower and vegetable seeds will sprout indoors and grow into beautiful plants to pretty up your outdoor spaces and fill your garden with tasty, homegrown produce. Starting with seeds means you can grow the exact plants and varieties you want, rather than taking home just what the garden centers have to offer. Growing plants from seeds can save money, too—and extra seedlings can be given to friends!

After all, what says “I care” more than some tiny begonias or a few new sprigs of sweet basil? Start your seeds today and experience the gardener’s thrill of watching them grow. FY Rebecca Cuthbert is a writer, crafter, and frequent contributor to Forever Young and Buffalo Spree.

May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 25

FOOD

The Cocktail Garden

BY JODEE RIORDAN

P

lanting season is upon us. As you begin your garden musings, consider planning and planting a garden dedicated to the pursuit of a summer filled with tasty libations. The cocktail garden can be a simple as herbs on your deck or windowsill or a fantastic sunny swath of herbs, flowers, and fruit surrounding the perfect spot to enjoy a drink al fresco.

Herbs are the perfect partner in crime for your cocktail adventures: easy to grow and tough to kill. Herbs pack a flavor punch that elevates any drink.

Excellent herbs for the cocktail garden include basil, mint, cilantro, lavender, rosemary, and pineapple sage. Just as fresh herbs add depth of flavor to your cooking, so will they brighten and add complexity to your cocktails. Herbs are traditionally muddled or added as a garnish, but they can also add impact when infusing simple syrup or scenting sugars for the rim of your glass.

Mint is a familiar cocktail herb, starring in popular drinks like the Mojito and Mint Julep, the Kentucky Derby staple of muddled mint, bourbon, and soda. Mint is easy to grow—almost too easy. It takes well to container gardening, can be propagated from a simple cutting, and will provide

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a bounty within a short time. (Mint can be invasive and quickly take over your garden, so plant the mint directly in the container to keep the plant from spreading.) This classic Mojito will get you through the cocktail season in style:

Mojito Ingredients 6-8 fresh mint leaves One teaspoon superfine sugar Juice of ½ fresh lime 1 ½ ounces white rum 4 ounces club soda Place the mint leaves in an oldfashioned glass and sprinkle with sugar.

Muddle together with a splash of club soda. Fill your glass with ice and add the rum and lime. Top with club soda and garnish with a spring of mint.

Simple syrup is a cocktail staple, and an herbal infusion of it elevates your drinks with little effort. Simple syrup is as advertised: Simple to prepare.

Combine one part sugar with one part water in a saucepan, bring to a boil then simmer until the sugar is dissolved (about three minutes). As the mixture simmers, add your herbs. Allow the syrup to cool, then strain. Simple to use: Simple syrup incorporates into your cocktail flawlessly, where

www.foreveryoungwny.com | May 2016

granulated sugar does not, and adds sweetness without compromising texture. With a strong infusion, you can add herbal flavor without muddling the herbs, if you wish. Add the infused syrup and a spring for garnish, and don’t worry about a mash of muddled herbs at the bottom of your drink and in your straw. I like to add a little ginger to my mint simple syrup for a tasty zing to the classic Mojito. The syrup may be kept in a glass jar in the refrigerator for up to a month.

Blackberries are also easy to grow, with a little space and some strict boundaries. Once established, take some time to cut back the bushes in the spring, and try a trellis for support.

Blackberries will bear fruit throughout the season, providing a bounty of fresh berries for your drinks. Muddle blackberries with basil, a healthy shot or two of vodka, simple syrup, lime, and a splash of club soda. Strawberries are a great option for container gardening.

Don’t forget your veggies! Peppers are an easy addition to the cocktail garden.

Consider jalapeños to add a subtle heat to margaritas: Muddle thin slices of jalapeno (seeded, cut lengthwise) with cilantro sprigs, then add ice, an ounce of fresh lime, ½ ounce agave syrup, 1 ½ ounces tequila, and an ounce of Cointreau. Shake well and serve in a jalapeño salt-rimmed glass.

Cucumbers add a lovely counterpoint to many a summery cocktail. Try adding a cucumber slice to a gin gimlet or mix cucumber

soda (available with the bar mixers at your grocery store) and gin for an uplifting take on the gin and tonic. The quintessential cucumber cocktail is the Pimm’s Cup. Pimm’s No. 1 is a liqueur dating back to 1823 London. The tonic (a gin-based drink containing a secret mixture of herbs and liqueurs) was used as an aid to digestion, served it in a small tankard known as a “No. 1 Cup,” hence its name.

Pimm’s Cup Ingredients 1/2-inch thick English cucumber spear or slice 2 ounces Pimm’s No. 1 4 ounces ginger beer or lemon-lime soda Splash and a Wedge of lemon, squeezed Spring of mint for garnish Fill a tall glass with ice. Add the Pimm’s to a tall glass, then top with the ginger beer or lemon-lime soda.

Garnish with the cucumber, lemon, and mint.

Include in your cocktail garden edible flowers like nasturtium or marigold or any blooms that bring you joy. Play in your garden with colors as you do with flavors. Set up some comfortable seating, fill the ice bucket, and enjoy your summer. Cheers!

Jodee Riordan is an enthusiastic gardener, cook, and mixologist living in Youngstown, NY.

FOOD

Light Bites to Enjoy the Season

BY HILARY DIODATO

W

hen May hits Western New York, bright, fresh spring produce materializes in our grocery stores as the cold finally retreats. This means that two of my favorite harbingers of spring, apricots and asparagus, are now abundant and affordable.

Soaking in the warmth and Asparagus with Cheesy plain and at room temperature emerging foliage outside helps to Italian Dip 6 big cloves roasted garlic* make the most of this fleeting season.

Serves: About 4 Pinch of ground black pepper Instead of meeting friends on the Although you may not see and salt town to catch up, invite them over to asparagus featured on many Add lemon zest or any snipped sit on your porch or patio and indulge vegetable trays, it’s a natural to fresh herbs for a kick in some delicious (and economical!) be served with dip; once you’ve drinks and snacks as you admire the snapped off the woody ends, it’s greenery on display. the perfect size and shape for Directions Snap the woody ends off of the dipping. Now that asparagus is Sangria-Style Apricot Sparkler in season, a bundle is inexpensive asparagus.

Prepare an ice bath by filling a again and perfect as a snack or side Serves: About 6 mixing bowl with cold water and a for a few guests. (When asparagus, This drink is more streamlined than traditional Sangria thanks to the tomatoes, and bell peppers are not tray of ice cubes.

Bring a large pan of salted water use of fresh apricots. Feel free to use in season, you’ll pay a fortune for to the boil and cook the asparagus good—not great—wine, since you’ll them at the grocery store!)

Since you’re dipping a vegetable, for 2–5 minutes (depending on size) be adding other flavors to it. until tender/al dente. Asparagus is this dip is a little heavier. And since it’s hard to keep something done when the spears are flexible Ingredients but not limp. hot while you’re trying to enjoy 1 ½ cups fresh apricots, sliced Once the asparagus is ready, drain time outdoors, this dip is purposely into wedges and immerse it into the ice bath to meant to be served cool.

1 bottle white wine (dry to sweet stop it from cooking and preserve depending on your preference) its bright green color. Drain and Ingredients 1 ½ cups sparkling water—any lay asparagus on a dishtowel to dry 1 bunch asparagus flavor 1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese fully.

To make the dip, add the roasted ½ cup whipped cream cheese, Directions Combine the apricot slices and white wine in a large pitcher. Give it a stir, cover and refrigerate for a few hours to allow the apricots to marinate in the wine.

When you’re ready to serve, stir the sparkling water into the apricotwine mixture and pour over ice into glasses.

garlic to a bowl and mash to a paste with the back of a spoon. Mix in the Parmesan, cream cheese, pepper, and zest or herbs if using.

Mix until combined. Add a pinch of salt, two if needed, but taste first since Parmesan is quite salty.

Serve the completely dry asparagus with the bowl of dip. *If you don’t want to roast a whole head of garlic, check the Mediterranean bar at the grocery store. Most sell individual roasted garlic cloves, and six of them will set you back less than a quarter!

Hilary Diodato is passionate about cooking and saving money and writes a bi-monthly column for Forever Young.

Note: if you want a stronger cocktail, add less sparkling water before serving, or have guests add their own to each of their glasses.

May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 27

GETAWAYS

Familiarity and Fun in Flour City

BY ED ADAMCZYK

F

rom the upper windows of a downtown hotel, Rochester looks like a small version of Chicago; the Genesee, runs through it, with bridges crossing the water every few blocks. The city is ninety or so minutes from Buffalo and, although Rochester is ringed and penetrated by highways, each seemingly connecting the urban core with a massive suburban shopping mall, the Thruway passes twenty miles away. Choose an exit then drive another twenty minutes to get downtown where an excellent weekend getaway awaits.

It’s tempting to say Rochester is Buffalo in miniature. It’s not.

It’s older, more mature, and everyso-slightly more sophisticated.

And anyway, these days Buffalo is Buffalo in miniature. Rochester has a bustling downtown with a Triple-A baseball stadium, its major art gallery is connected to one of its hippest neighborhoods, quality restaurants abound, and the city suffers economic

highs and lows in tandem with its major industries. So far, so similar, but Rochester has a vibe of optimism and a certain style, perhaps motivated by its linchpin private colleges and an assortment of corporate headquarters, that Buffalo long ago acquired but has only recently begun to flaunt.

Much of Rochester’s culture and nightlife can be found in downtown’s East End, on East Avenue, the site of

the Eastman School of Music. The school’s several concert halls are in constant use, and if your idea of a good time involves music, this is the part of town for you. The neighborhood of streets that include Park Avenue,

Monroe Street, and University Avenue (home of the Memorial Art Gallery) house the restaurants, boutiques, and trendy shops that make it the city’s hippest area. This is where most of the theater and Rochester’s sizeable LGBT community dwells.

Like Montreal, Rochester’s tourism economy is tied to festivals—annual events grown slowly until they turn up on world’s-greatest lists. The Lilac Festival, in early May in Highland Park, is everything the name implies— acres of lilacs to wander through— and attached is a wine festival, a beer festival, a home and garden show, and a continuing lineup of concerts on an outdoor stage. Like the lilac appreciation, the city’s jazz festival has become world-famous; the East End is taken over by portable stages and on any night during the June festival, a headliner like Chick Corea or Chris Botti is on an Eastman School stage, while a dozen other bands take over the outdoor stages and two dozen local bars offer jazz. Something for every taste and wallet.

There are film festivals centered on the George Eastman House, the home of the Eastman Kodak founder, as well as a world-class museum of photography and movies.

The Rochester Red Wings play baseball in Frontier Field, an all-brick stadium built in 1996 to complement the all-brick ballpark of the Baltimore Orioles, their major league affiliate at

Frontier Field Photo by MMRDad 28

www.foreveryoungwny.com | May 2016

GETAWAYS the time. Although the Red Wings are now aligned with the Minnesota Twins, Bisons fan can compare the downtown Buffalo experience to that of Rochester’s, which may not have an onramp leading to the Peace Bridge but offers a train track running alongside the first-base line, with an Amtrak train typically blasting along during a night game.

Downtown Rochester has its own waterfall, considerably smaller than Niagara Falls at ninety-six feet, but the area known as High Falls, where the city’s early waterwheel-powered industrial economy started, is now the site of exciting beer-powered nightlife.

Got grandchildren? The Strong National Museum of Play is dedicated to toys, fun, and childhood, features a Toy Hall of Fame and Video Game Hall of Fame, and is perhaps the world’s only institutionalized place that demands the visitor have a good time. It’s the kind of museum where G. I. Joe, jacks (remember those?),

the Slinky, and the Rubber Duck are given the historical gravitas they deserve. If this sounds a little scholarly and a little nuts, then you’re on the right track.

Rochester is something of a cousin to Buffalo. It grew up differently and constantly had a higher per capita income, but the same bloodlines are there. Buffalo made iron and steel and things made of iron and steel, Rochester made cameras and film, optics and Xerox machines. Each city evolved, and it’s the variations on a common theme which make Rochester something of a case study in doing something familiar differently.

A weekend getaway to Rochester is easy, quick, and affordable—the city’s better hotels are less expensive than comparable Buffalo hotels—and it feels like home and someplace else, all at once. FY Ed Adamczyk is a historian and contributing writer for the Niagara Gazette and Forever Young.

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May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 29

MY WNY STORY

Vanitas Vanitatum

By Amy Zeckhauser

Amy Zeckhauser

Aging is such an unbelievable story As when dressing I take an inventory.

I look in the mirror and amazed to see Surprising changes on what used to be me!

Life Lessons from a Poet

In my mouth I notice an empty space Oh yes! The partial has to be put in place.

Unheard or mixed messages is one of my fears So I struggle with hearing aids in both of my ears.

BY MARIA SCRIVANI

Next, I get to the mirror and things look so strange, Till I put on my glasses then those things are in range.

Next on my list, I note my nose And try to accept how with aging it grows.

However it demands much special care As it controls my lifesaving air.

Then in turn comes the cream to which I switch To assuage my skin’s aging which causes an itch.

Lastly, I comb my hair so it’s all in place Hoping it detracts from my withered face.

I used to take one pill a day Now I am faced with quite an array.

(Drugstores must be quite fond of me As I keep up their economy!)

I never pictured how my life would be I thought others would change but NEVER ME! But I am grateful my brain apparently works Because science has helped life’s vital quirks And now that these complaints are off of my chest I must tell myself that, “I’m at my best!”

And follow that with a hearty cheer “Somehow or other, I’m glad I’m still here.”

There’s always something happening at

Amy Zeckhauser in her Buffalo home Photo by Judy Zeckhauser

A

ging wouldn’t have such a bad rap if more people could manage it like Amy Zeckhauser. It’s a matter of attitude, according to this vibrant nonagenarian who’s lived nearly seven of her nine decades in her Lafayette Avenue home. “Being able to look forward to something, whatever it may be, is key,” she says.

At ninety-six, Zeckhauser is no stranger to the accouterments of advanced age. She uses a walker and a pair of hearing aids and is tethered to a supply of oxygen. Other constant companions are perhaps less ubiquitous in her peer group—a sense of humor and an unquenchable zest for life.

Even though this former world traveler is sedentary these days, she works at staying busy and enjoys cooking and baking, though at a

much slower pace. She continues longtime community involvements, remains an avid Buffalo Bills fan, and keeps up on current events.

“I only watch TV that is intellectually stimulating, and I don’t watch it all day long,” she says.

Though getting out requires arranging for a driver—she ruefully admits that her children “took away my wheels” a few years ago—or

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MY WNY STORY relying on one of her two daughters who live nearby (a son is in Chicago), she does make the effort to go shopping, visiting, and dine out.

Zeckhauser is determined to stay in her own home, and thus far has managed to do so, despite a couple of hospitalizations in recent years.

Returning home after stints in rehab required family support plus the assistance of a longtime cleaning lady who comes in twice a week—as well as sheer strength of will. The gracious old home in which she resides, shared with a couple of tenants in back apartments, is a repository of memories; a gallery of art collected over the years, liberally sprinkled with family photos and memorabilia. Some of the sculpture and paintings are Zeckhauser’s own work. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in art history (she’s thinking of going to her seventy-fifth reunion this year), she has been a fine artist by avocation all her life and has also written poetry for what she calls “personal expression.”

On display in the main front hallway is the torch carried by her late husband J. Milton “Zeke” Zeckhauser, who was honored as an Olympic torchbearer in the relay here in 2001, just before his ninety-second birthday, as part of the festivities leading up to the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. “It was the highlight of his life,” Zeckhauser recalls.

“He had just had a hip replacement, so he carried a cane in one hand, and the torch in the other.”

The Zeckhausers had been married almost sixty years when Zeke died.

They’d met in 1946 on a blind date in her hometown of Philadelphia where he was visiting his brother. A native of Columbus, Ohio, Zeke had been an executive with Kobacker’s department store in Buffalo, a career interrupted by World War II service. He was thirtysix when he met Amy, ten years his junior. The romance was a whirlwind, like many during those heady post-war years. Within three months, they were married, and by 1947, back in Buffalo where Zeke resumed work in retail.

They bought the house on Lafayette and raised a family. He became a stockbroker when Kobacker’s was sold.

She managed the house, presided over the PTA at School 56, started a Girl Scout Troop at Temple Beth Zion, served on boards, and headed divisions for the United Jewish Fund and the United Way, as well as Meals on Wheels.

In fact, both she and her late husband were community activists, still a significant feature of her life. Zeke started Grassroots Gardens here, in which daughter Judy is still active, with support and advice from her mother.

“That was really Zeke’s project, and I encouraged it,” she recalls. “I worried when he said he was going to retire. I remember thinking, Oh, you’ll be home now for lunch? This all started in 1990.

He was worried that the whole project would end when he was gone, but it’s gone on full-steam, under wonderful leadership.”

Until quite recently she was a volunteer in the Reading Readiness program at Bennett Park Montessori

School, working with three- to five-year-olds—just “the greatest experience,” she says. These days she solicits legacy donors for the Food Bank, a passion fueled by a belief in pragmatic assistance: “I feel very strongly about feeding empty bellies before you can do other things.”

Though she misses the love of her life—the man who once surprised her during an anniversary trip by enlisting Ray Bolger, famous as the very limber Scarecrow in the classic film version of The Wizard of Oz, to serenade her with “Once In Love With Amy” in a New York City nightclub—she cherishes and honors his memory every day by living well.

“I’ve been very lucky,” she says. “It’s very easy to stop and think, that one’s gone, or this one’s gone—you can really work yourself into a state of sorrow that is debilitating. I choose to look forward.” FY Maria Scrivani is a frequent contributor to Forever Young and Buffalo Spree

May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 31

MY WNY STORY

Alison Stone:

Writing Romantic Suspense

BY CHRISTINE A. SMYCZYNSKI

W

estern New York author Alison Stone has written nine romantic suspense novels over the past three years. You’d assume that such a successful and prolific writer must have been an English major in college. She wasn’t—not even close. Stone, who grew up in Buffalo and attended high school at Sacred Heart Academy, got her bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech in Atlanta. We asked how someone with a technical background like hers ended up as a romance writer. child was born, I decided to stay at home permanently.”

“When my second child was She started to develop an just shy of one, I decided to take a interest in writing when her oldest two-year leave of absence from my was a baby. “I would say to myself, job as a manufacturing engineer at how can I think I can do this? I Harrison Radiator (now Delphi) didn’t have any creative writing to be a stay-at-home mom,” says background in college. But, I had Stone, who has four children an interest in writing, so I pursued now ranging in age from eleven it.” to twenty. “By the time my third

Alison Stone

Stone, who took several writing courses through Williamsville Community Education, first looked into writing children’s books but really didn’t have much success at it. She then started writing freelance articles for the Buffalo News and Western New York Family Magazine. Still, the desire to write a novel wouldn’t leave her.

“I began doing research to see what type of fiction was popular and found that romance novels covered the biggest market,

so I started reading Harlequin books and realized that I enjoyed romantic suspense.

While it took about ten years for her to break into writing for Harlequin, once she did, she was successful. She writes books that are referred to as love-inspired suspense. Harlequin appeals to a large number of people and has a variety of different types of books, from their “clean” Love Inspired series to more explicit story lines.

“There is a spiritual/Christian thread to the books in the Love

Stone has written nine romance novels.

Photo courtesy of Alison Stone 32

www.foreveryoungwny.com | May 2016

MY WNY STORY Inspired suspense line; these novels are for people who want to read a romance without all the steamy stuff,” says Stone.

“These are books you could share with your daughter or even your grandmother, there’s no swearing or on-screen sex.”

Her first book Plain Pursuit, which came out in June 2013, is set in the fictional community of Apple Creek, based on the real-life Amish community located along Route 62 in Conewango Valley, NY, about an hour south of Buffalo. Of the nine books she has written for Harlequin, six are about the Amish.

“I was at a Romance Writers of America Conference in New York City and one editor mentioned they wanted more Amish fiction,” says Stone. I was intrigued by that, so I researched the Amish and wrote Plain Pursuit.” She adds, “Not all my books are about the Amish, but as long as they keep selling, I’ll keep writing them.”

Some characters are non-Amish who live or work with the Amish; for example, a doctor who works in a clinic serving the Amish community. Her non-Amish novels are also G-rated romantic suspense set in small towns.

Most people who read her books are women age forty and older. “I get lots of fan mail from much older ladies telling me how much they enjoy my books,” Stone says.

Her latest book, which she is writing for Amazon Publishing, is a romantic suspense mystery set in and around a dance studio. “My teenage daughter is excited about this upcoming book because she dances,” says Stone. “That’s where I got my inspiration for this book.”

Stone owes a lot of her success to her family. Her husband, Scott, and their four children are very supportive of her writing. When a new book comes out, they all go out to dinner to celebrate.

She usually writes when the kids

are in school to avoid distractions; she also notes that she has cut back on volunteering too much at school so she can devote more time to writing. When she’s close to deadline, she also writes in the evening and on Saturdays.

It usually takes her about three months to write a book.

“Romance writing is a big industry but it often doesn’t get the respect it deserves,” says Stone.

To learn more about Alison Stone and her books, visit her website alisonstone.com. FY

Christine A. Smyczynski is a freelance writer and blogger and author of Western New York Explorer’s Guide.

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The Buffalo History Museum grooves into its 11th Annual Party on the Portico summer happy hour series on M&T Third Fridays – June, July and August. The popular outdoor summer soiree features historic delights and great live music – all on the most magnificent back porch steps and surrounding grounds in town.

This year’s line-up brings to stage a mix of young talent swinging the local scene and the finest venerated musicians around town. First up (June 17) is the Fredtown Stompers, a fun six piece band who bring Dixieland tunes into full swing. Nothing says summer like some good Naw ‘leans jazz in Western New York. Next (July 15) features the sultrier side of summer with The Shadows featuring DeeAnn DiMeo. Forever Younguns’ will groove and dance to the smokin’ hot soul and R&B music by venerated musicians: Bob Falk (guitar, vocals); Ron Davis (keyboards vocals); Reggie Evans (drums, vocals); and, Chris Haug (bass). Finally (Aug 19), and so worth the wait, The Willies take the stage with Buffalo’s revered players: Willie Schoellkopf (guitar, vocals); Bob Falk

(guitar, vocals); Jim Ehinger (keyboards, vocals); Steve Sadoff (Fender bass); and, Mike Phelps (drums). Clapton, The Band, and Steely Dan lovers become joyful when this band cuts loose.

At each Party on the Portico, guests meet up with friends and enjoy live music, party snacks, cash bar, free 15 minute mini tours of the Museum, and spectacular views of Delaware Park.

Always a great time…Come hang on our porch with us! 9 Time: 5:30 - 8:30 pm Tix: $5 member/$10 general (Tickets go on sale May 15) Additional parking in McKinley High School lot The general public may contact 716-873-9644 / info@buffalohistory. org or visit www.buffalohistory.org.

The series runs rain or shine and is exclusively for guests ages 21 and over.

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May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 33

BEING WELL

Eat Your Asparagus

BY CATHI STACK

O

ne of my favorite foods has some pretty incredible health benefits you may not be aware of. Asparagus is a hardy and very resilient plant that grows wild in many countries, including the United States. This amazing vegetable seems to be linked to significant improvements in health. Now I’m not saying asparagus “cures” anything, but I have seen it benefits in cancer patients and those with kidney stones, as well as its effect of helping the body achieve an alkalizing state, which promotes overall health.

The first use of asparagus for medicinal purposes was recorded in ancient Ayurvedic texts. It was most commonly used as a female tonic that helped with reproductive issues. It was also used as a heart tonic, soothing irregular heartbeats.

The Greeks used asparagus as a diuretic, laxative, and to help

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eliminate “gravel” (kidney stones).

When asparagus gained popularity in the sixteenth century, it was so adored by King Louis XIV that he ordered special greenhouses built for year round supply. Known thereafter as the “Food of the Kings,” asparagus remains available (even to us commoners) year round.

A member of the lily family, this amazing vegetable grows faster than you would think possible— up to ten inches in a twenty-fourhour period. The spears grow from the crown root that is about a foot below the soil surface. Each crown will grow spears for approximately six to seven weeks in spring and early summer. Asparagus has been found to contain twentytwo vitamins and minerals such as vitamins A, C, B­complex, iodine, iron, calcium, sulphur, and potassium just to name a few.

Asparagus is high in folate, which helps keep homocysteine levels down. High homocysteine levels are associated with inflammation in atherosclerosis and heart disease.

Folate is also essential for pregnant women to prevent conditions such as spina bifida. Along with the antioxidants and nutrients listed above, asparagus contains more of the antioxidant glutathione than any other fruit or vegetable.

Glutathione fulfills numerous cellular functions, including detoxifying the body of carcinogens,

www.foreveryoungwny.com | May 2016

protecting cell membranes and DNA from toxic compounds, participating in immune function, and recycling vitamin C and E, which are important for eye health, into active forms. Lightly steaming preserves most of the glutathione and the tips are where you’ll find the highest concentration.

Asparagus also maintains digestive health by supplying a dose of fiber and a special carbohydrate called inulin. This carb is indigestible to us, but readily consumed by the friendly bacteria in our gut. It promotes the growth of these beneficial bacteria, who in turn keep harmful bacteria away. A compound in asparagus called asparagusic acid makes asparagus a natural diuretic.

For this reason, asparagus can be helpful for problems related to swelling and water retention, such as arthritis, PMS, and some cardiovascular diseases. The same compound causes a distinct odor in the urine of some who consume the vegetable. Yes, it’s a documented phenomenon, and no—the smell doesn’t indicate anything.

My favorite way to prepare asparagus spears is to steam for five minutes or less, drizzle with olive oil and fresh squeezed lemon. A pinch of Celtic sea salt adds the

final touch. They are delicious hot or cold. I even use them, tender crisp, on vegetable platters.

They are the first to disappear.

For those of you who do not like asparagus, there are some very good supplement versions out there. For those of you who love asparagus, we can now easily get them all year long. Eat them everyday, or at least frequently if you want to experience the amazing benefits. FY Catherine Stack (RN, ND) is the author of the “Natural Health” column for the Niagara Gazette.

She is also a practicing Doctor of Naturopathy, Certified Nurse Midwife, and the Founder and CEO of Journey II Health Center for Rejuvenation, as well as a wife and a mother of two. Her book, Free Yourself from a CONSTIPATED Life, is available on Amazon. Visit her website at journeyiihealth.com or email cath626@gmail.com.

BEING WELL

Spring into Beauty “B

eauty is what health and happiness look like on the outside.” This may be an old quote, but is just as true today as when it was written. (Good Housekeeping 1916) So, for my spring into beauty tips, here are some simple choices that can help you look your best!

SAMUEL SHATKIN JR., MD 1. Start every day with sun protection. The best and scientifically proven way to keep your skin looking its best throughout your life is to use good sun protection and religiously apply it daily. Even when the sky is cloudy, UV rays can penetrate to affect your skin. Changes that occur include dehydration, loss of elasticity, and breakdown of collagen. When you are younger, the changes are less noticeable, but trust me when I tell you that you will pay the price later in life with the aging changes, not to mention the increased risks of skin cancer.

2. Use the right skin care. There are many creams and lotions on the market and, when you look at the shelf, you wonder what is best. I suggest starting with a skin care analysis from a health professional. Aestheticians and cosmetologists, particularly when they work as a team with plastic surgeons or dermatologists, know best how to customize treatments to your skin type and needs. In addition, over-the-counter products may be sufficient to keep your skin moist and protected, but they lack the ability to truly “turn the clock back.” For most individuals with a normal skin type, I recommend three main ingredients.

One, serums that contain antioxidants like vitamin C will help to brighten your skin. Two, to help increase cell turnover and stimulate collagen renewal, a product for nighttime should include retinoid (vitamin A).

Three, use an alpha hydroxyl acid product, either in solution form or cream, to help remove the top dead layer of skin cells.

3. Want radiant skin? You know the expression we are what we eat.

Well, guess what? Take it literally.

Go for items that are nutrient dense, like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and healthy lean protein like fish. If you struggle taking in plenty of vegetables, consider taking vitamin supplements. Vitamin D deficiency is rather common, particularly following a long winter, and supplements can help to boost your levels. If you prefer meat to fish, take Omega 3 fish oil to keep your skin glowing. It works by reducing inflammation and can even help with skin problems like acne and psoriasis. Not only will eating well improve the way you look on the outside, these same choices help on the inside as well, and are beneficial for aging changes like menopause and heart health.

4. De-stress. All those worry and stress signs will show on the surface of the skin. Frowns, lines, and wrinkles are accentuated when you don’t take the time to reduce anxieties. Do things you enjoy, like reading, meditation, hobbies, or other activities—particularly outdoors, like walking or playing golf. The fresh air and fitness will help keep you mentally and physically fit and improve your outlook.

5. Enjoy life! I recently saw the Carol King musical Beautiful. To paraphrase the lyrics to the popular song, “You’ve got to get up every

morning with a smile on your face/And show the world all the love in your heart/ T h e n people gonna treat you better/You’re gonna find, yes, you will/That you’re beautiful as you feel.”

I find that people are most beautiful when they smile. Have the right attitude toward life and surround yourself with people you like. If you find beauty in the world, beauty will find you!

Follow these simple tips to spring into beauty. Until next month, be well Buffalo. FY Dr. Shatkin is a board certified plastic surgeon at Aesthetic Associates Centre and columnist for Forever Young.

A Wrinkle in Time

BY SAMUEL SHATKIN JR., MD Facial skin tends to loosen and sag with time. Fine lines appear near the eyes, on and around the lips and even across the cheeks. Creases deepen around the mouth and between the eyebrows. Any number of environmental assailants may accelerate lines and wrinkling. Cigarette smoke, stress, cumulative lifetime sun exposure, poor nutrition, pollution and alcohol can spell disaster for your skin.

The Aesthetic Associates Centre for Plastic Surgery and Dentistry offers the newest techniques in correction of wrinkles that occur over time. Dr. Samuel Shatkin Jr. and his staff offer the state of the

art treatments in laser therapy, Intense Pulsed Light therapy, Botox, and fillers to erase fine lines and wrinkles and turn the clock back. The advantage of these nonsurgical techniques is no or minimal downtime or recovery. When combined with surgical treatments, patients can regain their youthful appearance.

To learn more about the variety of procedures and treatments offered at the Aesthetic Associates Centre for Plastic Surgery and Dentistry, call 839-1700 today for an appointment or request brochures. They can also be found on the web at www.gr8look.com.

May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 35

BREAKTHROUGH NON-SURGICAL TREATMENT FOR

PERIPHERAL NEUROPATHY Do you have Burning Pain, Numbness or Tingling in your Feet?

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The Pain Relief Institute specializes in the most advanced, innovative non-surgical treatment available for Peripheral Neuropathy. This treatment protocol is a combination of noninvasive pain management procedures with a breakthrough technology that increases circulation and allows the nerves to heal without surgery or addictive and dangerous medications.

Call 716-870-7095 today for a free consultation and treatment with Dr. Anthony J. Bianchi DC to see if you are candidate for the latest innovative peripheral neuropathy treatment. Home Treatment Programs are now available.

MAY SOLUTION

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Grandfather Clocks & All Others.

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716-634-4303.

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PC Or Laptops Repaired By An A+ Certified Technician. Pickup And Buying Old Costume Jewelry, Pocket Delivery Available. Affordable Rates. and Wrist Watches From The 40’s, 50’s & 60’s. We Make House Call 688-1354 For Appointment.

I Am A SW Gentleman Looking For A Lovely, Mature, SWF To Enjoy Summer Delights With. Let’s Enjoy Music Filled, Candlelight Dinners At The Waterfront, Or A Movie, Or Ice Cream At The Erie Basin Marina, Or A Sunset By A Fire On The Beach. Let’s Enjoy Summer Together. Please Write To Dept. 1276, Or Call 716-2630227 Place your ad for ONLY $11.50 for 25 words, each additonal word 30¢. Add your picture for ONLY $5.25 AD DEADLINE IS NO LATER THAN MAY 17TH FOR THE JUNE ISSUE. To Place your ad Call NOW! 783-9119 x2235

Forever Young readers: we want to hear from you! Do you know someone who deserves to be recognized? Tell us more. Do you have a story you’d like to share? Don’t hesitate to send it our way.

We want to devote space in Forever Young to what matters most: you. Send your submissions to editor Wendy Guild Swearingen at wswearingen@buffalospree.com or 1738 Elmwood Ave., Suite 103, Buffalo, NY 14207.

NOTEWORTHY 12

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27 May 4 Spring Walk Take a walk in the beautiful Japanese Garden, bring a picnic, and enjoy the blossoms.

Through May 8 at The Japanese Garden (1 Museum Court, buffalocherryblossomfestival.org ) May 12 Clint Hill and Lisa McCubbin

May 6 Affirmation of Hope–All Things Irish Celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising as Buffalo Master Chorale collaborates with local Irish musicians and pubs.

7 & 9 p.m., Trinity United Methodist Church, 2100 Whitehaven Road, Grand Island May 24 Carmarie’s Seniors

The authors of Five Presidents: My Extraordinary Journey with Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Ford discuss their work.

Proving you’re never too old to dance, witness these performers dancing to their favorite songs of the past.

5:30 p.m. Larkin Square (745 Seneca St.; larkinsquare.com or 362-2665)

2:30 p.m. at Lancaster Opera House (21 Central Ave., Lancaster; lancopera.org or 683-1776)

May 27 Buffalo Public Schools Art Teachers Exhibition Check out the work of Buffalo’s most talented teachers.

Through July 1 at Buffalo Arts Studio (Tri-Main Center, 2495 Main St., Ste. 500; buffaloartsstudio.org or 833-4550) May 2016 | www.foreveryoungwny.com 37