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Buffalo Wings ReviewBUFFALO WINGS, by Charles A. Hobbie. New York and Bloomington: iUniverse Press, 2009. 236 pages, $19.95. A review by Thomas H. Schmid, Santa Barbara, CA..Why is it that we are fascinated by the memoirs of others? Rationally, it is hard to imagine that one might enjoy hearing the details of another's life, having an inventory of their childhood friends and relatives, and joining the ins and outs of the institutions and haunts of a strange city.
Of course the reason that we are drawn to someone else's remembrances is that they evoke similar memories from us. Such is the case with Chuck Hobbie's BUFFALO WINGS, a reminiscence of his growing up years in Buffalo, New York. As it happens, this writer has known Mr. Hobbie for the past twelve years, and knew that he hailed from Buffalo. I have heard his memories of a summer with his older brother in Alaska, but had never heard Chuck relate the memories of his early years in such detail. As it happens, I am about eighteen months older than Chuck Hobbie, so many of his childhood memories are similar to my own.
For anyone who grew up in the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s, and for anyone who has an association with western New York State, BUFFALO WINGS provides an opportunity to revisit childhood games and kindergarten friends, radio drama, our early music lessons, trips to the barber shop, a first experience of grand opera, nude swimming in public schools, Burma Shave signs, families singing together on long car trips, the inauguration of President Eisenhower, the coronation of Elizabeth II, the advent of television, the year the Dodgers won the World Series, families and neighbors sitting on porches for summer evening conversations, drive in movie theaters, dancing lessons and school dances, significant teachers, summer jobs, a first experience of love, and much more. Each time we read of one such experience the reader is reminded of his or her own similar event or person: grandparents with a certain sense of humor, aunts and uncles who formed an extended family of nurture and support, siblings and cousins who are still part of the family network, and stories peculiar to each.
In particular we note the attention Hobbie gives to his parents. The elder Hobbies seem to have been thoughtful and industrious people who worked to provide superior educational and social opportunities for their three children. The author's tribute to them is as realistic as it is appreciative. Part of the emotional work of adulthood is in coming to terms with both the gifts and shortcomings of one's parents, and the realization that our children must do the same with us. Just as Charles Hobbie has remembered his parents, we are enabled to recall our own, both their gifts and graces, and the things they might have done better. Such a memoir will give Hobbie's own children some significant clues into his own background, and years from now they and their children may ponder the ways he recalls his family of origin, his childhood, and a neighborhood in Buffalo.
One would enjoy talking with the author to ask him about his aids to memory. A number of family and school photographs serve as illustrations for appropriate chapters. He must have used junior high and high school year books, and a thorough collection of personal memorabilia to evoke his memories. The city of Buffalo downtown public library has an excellent section for genealogical research which includes newspaper files, old city directories, scrapbooks, and access to copies of legal documents. The library staff is capable and helpful, always open to those who go in search of previous generations in Buffalo. Likewise, the staff of Forest Lawn Cemetery is open to inquiry and serves to assist in the search for family graves. It is easy to grasp the portion of Buffalo in which Hobbie came to maturity, to look at churches, schools, and houses where Chuck's family and families like our own lived and loved and worked. A visit to Forest Lawn Cemetery finds the elder Hobbies resting in a section not far from President Fillmore and his family, and one remembers that another President, Grover Cleveland, also called Buffalo home.
As BUFFALO WINGS concludes, the eighteen year old Chuck is departing on a midnight bus for Albany, and then a change for White River Junction, Vermont and a new chapter of his life at Dartmouth College. Amid his anticipation for the next chapter of his life, there is the sadness of leaving Buffalo behind. Surely everyone who has made such a change knew at the time, or shortly thereafter, that the rest of life lay ahead of us and that there would be no going back to the way things were, to the wonder of childhood years.
We can eagerly look forward to a subsequent memoir, the second built around Hobbie's years as a volunteer and staff member in the early years of the Peace Corps.Buffalo Wings Overview

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