I left skiing behind, to go to work in the early afternoon, unfortunately.  A friend had offered to drop the boys off on her way home, and the boys wanted to ski more, so I took her up on the offer.  I packed my skis, headed back to the city, and gave up a great afternoon of skiing.  I was nearly 20 minutes away from Kissing Bridge, when my cell phone rang.  It was my 10 year old son, Oliver.  He was screaming and sobbing into the phone.  I could barely understand

“Oliver, what happened?” I asked, figuring that he had been fighting again with his nearly 13 year old brother, a common occurrence around my house these days.  It took me nearly two minutes to get him to calm down enough to get the following out of him…

“I.. am hanging… to a tree… side of a cliff… skied into a trail we made off World of Your Own…  DAD! come get me!”  and then he completely fell apart.  He was simply sobbing, and moaning.  He was completely terrified.  Oliver is rarely frightened.  He’s more of an adventurous kid than his more reserved brother.

“Oliver I need to hang up and call ski patrol”.  This does not go over well, and I need to convince him that I will call him right back.  “I am coming to get you too, I have my skis in the car. I will come get you if they don’t”  This is a meaningless promise, since I know they will find him long before I get there.  But it helps him over  the hump.

“OK.”  he mutters, and hangs up first. I suspect he did this to get the separation over with.  Like pulling a band aid.

I call the KB switchboard, am put through, and promptly get a response from the ski patroller on duty.  I also finish pumping my gas, and get in the car to drive back to the ski area.

“My son is stuck on the side of the ravine between World and Moment of Truth.  He’s 10 and he’s really scared.  He says he fell, and he’s maybe hurt, and he’s in trouble for skiing in the woods, and…”  She cuts me off…

“We are on the way.  Call him back and tell him we will be right there”.

“I don’t have a chance to, he’s already calling again.”

“good sir, take his call.  goodbye.”

“When are they coming?  This is really high up.”

“How high is it Oliver?”  I ask and immediately am regretful. 

“as high as the house”  …twenty feet.  OK.  change the subject dummy.

I think, and change the subject, a little…  “how did you get down there Max?”

Oliver Maxwell spins me a tale of he and his brother cutting new trails through the woods, with two friends, Ryan and Patrick.  He got mixed up, then he fell, got spun around, and fell again.  This last fall took him over the edge of the ravine, about 20 feet down from the top.  He was half way down. About 10 minutes have passed, and he is getting scared again.

“Are they coming Dad?”  he mumbles, and he starts to sob again.

“Yes Oliver, just listen for them.  The lift ride is seven minutes and they have to find you. They should be there any minute.”  almost 5 more minutes go by, as the ski patrol struggles to get to him via snowmobile.  He is in the steepest part of the hill.  The ski patrollers are hiking into the woods to find him.

calm returns to his voice immediately.  “They are here.  YES!  DOWN HERE!!  Its a girl dad, a lady.  HELP!  OK. She’s climbing down here.  YES. OK.  Dad, I gotta go.”

Really?

I simply say “OK call me back…”  and I hang up, a  little stunned.

Five whole minutes go by.  OK come on now, he’s just off the side of World, grab the kid, and have him call me already.

A strange number comes up on my cell phone, and I answerit immediately.

“Mr. Kirsch, this is the ski patrol, we have your son, and he’s safe. here he is…”

“hi dad.”

“hi Max.  you OK?

“yup”  and he hands the phone back to the patroller”

“Can you meet us at the ski patrol at Central?”

“I am already here (there?). “  I respond.  Remember,  I had been driving back to the area the whole time, and I knew where they would end up.

“Thank you!”

Now that Max was safe, I turn my thoughts to my older son, William.  He has not yet turned up, and I continue calling his cell.  No answer from him for well over an hour now.  I am now angry with William.  He had left his brother in the woods.  Always stick together if you are going into the woods was the rule.  Never leave anyone behind – my boys have been drilled with for many years with this dictum.  I figured I couldn’t stop them from skiing in the woods.  But they had to be safe.

I am distracted quickly though, as Max comes rolling in on a utility cart looking very soggy in a T-shirt and wrapped in a blanket or two.  He is extremely pale and shaking violently.  The ski patrollers hustle him inside and bring him warm blankets.  Seven more ski patrollers appear immediately, and tend to his physical,  and his emotional needs.

“vitals?”

“want some cocoa buddy?  water?  another blanket”  …these were serious medical trainees, and moms all at the same time.  Ski patrollers that worked the day shift were often moms skiing while their kids were in school.

“his pulse is really fast.”  “He’s still very frightened, and a bit taken back by all the attention”.  I suspect that the ski patrol at the small ski area gets a lot of injuries, but not too many genuine alpine type rescues.

The ski patrollers who actually pull Max off the side of the ravine come in, red faced and clearly stoked.  They are two middle aged moms, probably skiing their patrol shift while their own kids were out skiing.  Most ski patrollers ski so their families can ski for free, a great perk for them.

“…and she roped in, and climbed down, and tied him in, and I pulled him up the wall…”  One patroller conveyed to the collection of people in the room.   “She was like Spiderman, or Batman or something.  It was awesome.”

I listen to her recount the story, and I am impressed.  The patroller had climbed down the ravine to tie my son in, and climbed back out herself.  In ski boots.  She was still brushing snow from her coat and pant legs as she confirmed the story.  Her cheeks were still flushed, and she was a bit shy.

Then she surprised me. “we both cried once we got back on the chairlift afterwards.  Oh my gosh, he was so scared”  She was totally, a mom.  That’s why she did it.  She wiped another tear as she relived the moment.  Her smile quickly returned as she glanced over at my son, now laughing and warming up under three recently heated blankets.

“he was so scared.”

His friends had now filtered in and made sure he was OK.  The ski patrol was doing paperwork now.

“name – Oliver Maxwell Kirsch – who were you skiing with?”  Another of the gathered ski patrol was interviewing Max, and I was chatting with the rescuers, getting more details…

“He was just standing on top of a tree.  Balanced on his skis over the creekbed.  It was frozen solid.”  Max confirms this, now smiling, as his interview continues.

“my brother, Ryan, and Patrick…”  I start thinking and realize that I have not yet heard back from Will, who I suspect has been dodging calls, since he ditched his brother.  I am quite certain that he is just hiding.

The ski patroller completing the form turns to me.

“have you heard from him?  they were skiing in the same area.”

Ryan’s dad, had been in, and I knew that he had not heard from his son, either.  He walked in almost immedately afterwards and I send he to gather our other friends, and send them all out to look for Will, Ryan and Pat.  It’s been over an hour since Max called me, and nobody has heard from or seen the other three boys for almost an hour and a half now.

A bunch of the ski patrollers who were now getting bored offer to go check the area the boys were skiing to be safe, dress, gear up, and leave.  It was a good excuse to ski.  And it was warm inside. They were all laughing.

another half hour goes by, and now the lifties are watching for the boys, announcements have been made on the PA, and the ski patrol has sent out another 5 or 6 patrollers to look in the area and check the ravine again. I pretend not to be concerned, and chat with friends via text.

All of our friends are checking, well, everywhere, for the boys.  no sign of them.  come on, this is Kissing Bridge folks, not Aspen, they have to turn up.  Soon.

It’s been an hour since we started looking for the lost boys, and people in the patrol room are now looking genuinely concerned.  It’s been over two hours since anyone has seen them, lots of people are looking for them, and the last place they were seen was in the woods.  I have called Will’s cell twenty times, and it rings, but no answer. They are firmly missing.

And then simply after another half hour spent staring at my cell phone, a friends Mom calls.  “we have them.  they are safe.  all three.  come to North.” I thank her and hang up quickly.

I immediately tell the ski patrol they are at North and safe, and run out the door, taking Max and our friend Bailey with me.  We bounce down the access road on the way over and jog up the stairs to North.

William is standing staring at his boots leaning on his skis as I reach the top of the steps and exit the covered stairway.  He has now been briefed on the details of the involvement by the ski patrol, of their rope rescue.  He knows he was not with his brother, and he knows full well, that I am going to be angry with him for leaving his brother.

“where were you.”  I demand of him.

“at South, making trails in the woods.”  He had been skiing, and he had no idea anyone was even looking for him.

“my cell broke.  I need a new one.”   He demanded of me.  Huh?

“you left your brother.”  I ignored him.

“we told him that if we got separated, meet to South” .  Max quickly attests to this.  They had lived within the spirit of the law, by informing each other of a rendezvous.  But they knew that they were BOTH guilty of splitting up now.

“No.”  I simply state “you left him.”  Big brother should have known better.  And the little one had to be rescued.  He was somehow less guilty.

I stamp off into the lodge to collect their ski bags.  Will follows me, pleading his case.

“he knew where we were.  we didn’t ditch him.”

“Will, he almost ended up at the bottom of the ravine, because we was skiing alone in the woods.  you left him.  If you goofballs are going to ski in the woods you have to stay together.  You know that.  You didn’t do it, and because of that your brother had to be rescued by ski patrol.”

William is a rule follower off the ski slopes.  Teachers love him, because he is compliant, a compulsive good kid.  The weight of the mistake hits him, suddenly.

“Oh.”  he mumbles and sits down.

“get your gear and lets go.”  I bark

The drive home was silent.  Everyone was a bit drained.  We offloaded the skis and gear, and split up.  Max headed up to change, Will headed up and started the shower, and I headed to my office to sit alone for a moment.  I didnt even notice when Will come down.

“…hug?”  He was shaking, in his soaking wet underclothes.

I grabbed him and held him tight.  He was ice cold.

“you scared me, Will.  Not a lot.  But you did scare me.”

“I know.  sorry.”

He had learned.  He gave me one last squeeze and headed off to empty the hot water tank.

The boys bounced back quickly, once fed and warmed in front of a movie.  Snacks were properly administered and certainly seemed to help.

Hopefully we all learned a little bit from it.

Bruce Springsteen – from the song Growing Up.

I moved to New York City with $5 in my pocket.  Yes, five dollars.

It turned out to be one of the greatest adventures I have ever had.

I was so impatient that I left college before even waiting for graduation or the ceremony.  I  flew back to take my finals in my last two classes, remarkably passing them after spending the summer bartending and Disc Jockey’ing at several bars and crappy nightclubs in Buffalo and the beach community of Sunset Bay, NY.

After much work, and with a raw determination to get out of Buffalo for the bigger adventures to be had, I landed a job at a New York Advertising Agency. I was going to be making $15K a year as a media buyer for BMW, in Manhattan.  Forget that an apartment would take most of that Salary every month.  It was the Big Apple, the show, the greatest city in the world.  Forget that I hated the Yankees, I was moving to New York.

I was dead broke, but I helped to control a $200 MILLION budget for global advertising. That’s millions of dollars to each vendor.  And BMW was courted by over 200 magazines each year with lavish parties, lunches, and corporate junkets.  We were expected to go as part of our jobs, and the ante was big for the magazines.  So they worked to outspend each other to garner the attention of we jaded buyers.  It was a great game for us.  And fun to play.

To every magazine in the United States, I WAS A ROCK STAR.  For example, Time Magazine was our biggest vendor by far.  We did over $15 MILLION in advertising spend with them each year.  I think that my sales rep made $2 million a year from my account alone.  He also went on to be the PUBLISHER of Time Magazine not too long afterwards for the massive amounts of money he could bring to the business.

We did $12 million with Sports Illustrated (think tickets to EVERYTHING), $10 each with Newsweek and Forbes.  This was a lot of money.  And people made sure we were happy.  What was a $200,000 party, when the customer list brought in $100 million a year?

So here I was, a cocky Catholic school kid from Orchard Park, who had moved to NYC with $5 in his pocket. And I couldn’t pay my rent.

OK, full disclosure – I lived with my Aunt and Uncle for 6 months – they were complete saints  for tolerating me and my associated ego due to the lifestyle.  The only way I could afford to live there, since I had squandered my summer’s earnings on, well, my summer, was to live with them in their amazing house in Bronville, a bucolic village located a short train ride from NYC, in Westchester county.  Prime real estate.  Think Scarsdale, mansions, Ferrari’s at the mall.  Nice.

Thank you Mike and Judy, I owe you a lifetime debt, as well I as I do to my cousins Maura and Myles, who were as teenagers, I dare say, never more entertained by even any of their other many very colorful family members.  The Duffy’s have all earned their place in heaven thanks to me, by unflaggingly showing their endless patience and grace in the face of my natural state of chaos.  I love you all, the most gracious people I know still.

I had thought I was getting a job, and would be making money.  I had made good money in the past and fully expected to making good money again.  Little did I know  that I would not be making enough to pay for rent, let alone buy food, or clothing.

And I had to wear a suit every day, a nice one too, Brooks Brothers, Ralph Lauren, etc.  Everyone I worked with did, and it was expected.  I liked the look.  Nobody knew we were poor.  Every day was a bit like a costume party.  All dressed up, and being fed food, booze, and more.  Power lunches were common, and deals were done over steaks at The Palm, Smith and Wolensky, Le Circque.

I lived like Mick Jagger.  On my first day of work I was flown in a helicopter for a ride on Malcolm Forbes 250 foot long yacht, The Highlander. It was an August night and I remember sitting on the deck alone later, watching the skyline of New York going on forever.  Holy shit.  This was my first day on my first job out of college.

I was 23 years old, and I spent the next 2 years working for BMW at Ammirati and Puris, one of the most respected agencies in the city.

Some things I did while I was working there:

• ate lunch and dinner at every great restaurant in the city for free.
• slept in Central Park by accident (OK I was 24 years old, think beer and more beer…) after a softball game.  Obviously I lived.
• was flown all over the world on corporate jets and saw great places
• was offered tickets to the super bowl, the masters, US open (tennis and golf), the final four, every concert in town… and went to a ton of them.
• got paid to spend a week at race car driving school and drive really, really fast in race cars that I still have dreams about.
• partied, sang, danced, partied some more, and got drunk with my college friends in every great restaurant and club in the city
• was chatted up by Kathy Ireland and Elle McPherson, the last two SI swimsuit cover models of the day for an hour at a party, because I tried to skip their presentation with my friend Dan.    We were shooed in late to the presentation when they closed the bar on us, and I got the last seat in the room, betwen the two ladies in the front row.  (Elle is one of the nicest women I have ever met, and Kathy one of the dumbest for the record).  We are talking SUPERMODELS HERE people.  Supermodels.  Real ones.
• had full access to a car service car – limo – 24 hours a day
• worked in an office with beer and wine (clients’) stocked in all the refrigerators.

Many of the people I worked with had graduated from Ivy League schools.  This was a hard job to get.  I had sent over 500 resumes, got 15 responses, had 10 interviews to get this job.  When I finally received 3 job offers at the end of my quest I had to pick.

The other offers I got were from Coca Cola and Proctor and Gamble’s ad agencies.  I chose BMW ultimately, because I liked the cars.  I later found a way to borrow them for my use.  I could check them out of the agency motor pool on weekends by calling in favors to my client.  They were just sitting there all weekend after all, as were the gorgeous BMW motorcycles.  I drove $80K cars home to visit my high school sweetheart girlfriend at her college back upstate.

I figured everyone else’s job was like this, because it was for most of the people that I worked with, including my best friend from college, who was doing the same job for another client at another agency.

I came home and had breakfast with my dad one weekend.  He, a retired cop, reminded me how lucky I was, and how different living in NYC was from what I had been doing in Buffalo.  I took his words to heart.  I wrote down a lot of my adventures in a journal.  Maybe I will write a book.  Think of it as a “do they serve beer in Hell?” with all the lawyers replaced by advertising men, and sales reps with endless checkbooks.

After three years I took a better job at a larger ad agency that promised a much larger salary.  I would be working  for a much larger client, Burger King.  I would finally be able to get a real paycheck, as a senior manager and have my own team of flunkies to boss around.

The agency lost the account less than 6 months later, as “BK” looked to trim costs during the George Bush senior led recession in 1990 and 1991.  I was laid off along with 200 other people, as the agency looked to trim costs the very next day.

I soon returned to Buffalo, after bartending for a few months and unsuccessfully trying to find another similar media buyer’s job.

I was no longer a rock star.  But living in NYC was the greatest adventure, in the greatest city in the world, during the most amazing time of my life.

I was in love, I was living adventure after adventure after adventure.  I traveled all over, I got paid to ski, surf, golf, and get drunk at lunch with sales reps.  I went to Europe, met amazing people, and did amazing things.  A lot of them.

Now I live in Amherst, NY.  I work in a 10 x 9 basement office with little direct heat, and work mostly with my dog (except I recently lost custody of him).  I take every adventure seriously now, since they tend to be much smaller.

I see my kids all the time.  I paint when I am not busy enough at work.  I love music, and am always listening to something new, and seeing live music.  I am relatively poor right now due to my recent divorce, and the associated bills, etc.  I actually took a bartending job again to make some extra money again.  Talk about full circle.

I learned something in NYC, even though it was a short adventure, it was an amazing one.  The ride can end quickly, and fortunes change.

My time in New York taught me to enjoy the ride.  To learn to live in the moment. To appreciate great adventures.

I was told to read Thoreau by my dad back then, and mirclulously I did.  This quote, while out of context from Walden to NYC, comes to mind.  The theme fits, and the message is clear.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life…”

Life is a great adventure.  Be a rock star.  You can.  I did.

And it only took $5.

Since this was 1976, and drunk driving penalties were still lax, he got weekends in jail for a year. For killing two people. I never met the guy, but he was bad.  I just knew.

I used to build a lot of stuff and often visited this small lumber yard near my house. I would buy scraps for a buck and build birdhouses and other small projects with them.

Eventually, the guys who worked there got to know me and would just give me scraps of wood after a while. The wood was garbage to them, and they would give me boxes of scraps to go.

One day I ran into this guy that had worked there for years. I hadn’t seen him for a while, and when I asked why, he said he had only been working during the week, while I was in school. He then left me to wait on another customer.

Another staff member I knew came over and told me that the boy was involved in a terrible car accident last summer, and had killed two girls. He had been at a party, had just a few beers and hit a car that had run a stop sign.

The kid was someone I had known for years, a normal guy, who had always been nice to me.  I was torn. We all hated him, for what he had done. But I knew he was just like the rest of us, and that it was just a mistake, a horrible mistake.

I walked up to him, and told him who I was. I said “I am Kathleen and Colleen’s nephew.”  He paled, and looked sick. He then walked quickly into the back room.

I left and never went back.

The lumberyard closed a few years later, not long after a bigger lumberyard was built near the expressway.

I never saw that guy again. I wonder if he’s OK.  If he still has nightmares about that night.

He was just a kid.

We all were.

Artist Seeks Inspiration.  Apply Within.

I have been trying to get motivated to paint.  Any of my creative friends have any ideas to get me off the bench?

Note the amazing Little Steven Guitar solo, as he simply wails, and Clarence doing a soulful job on his sax solo soon after.  The E Street Band is tight, polished, and plays the daylights out of the finale to one of the greatest rock and roll albums of all time, Born to Run.

What remains of three city blocks. Most of the remaining houses are abandoned.

Buffalo, NY was a boom town 100 years ago.  The 1901 Pan American Exhibition was held in Buffalo to show off the world’s greatest new advancements including the now affordable mass produced light bulb, and a new generating plant down the road in Niagara Falls.  The Erie Canal had opened the Midwest and the western states to commerce, and the move westward was on.  New neighborhoods sprouted up all around Buffalo, especially on the East Side now brimming with immigrants from Poland, Italy, Germany, and Ireland.  Scores of churches were built, huge churches with great names like Saint Stanislaus, Saint Adalbert’s, and the amazingly beautiful Saint Ann’s on Broadway.

The city grew, and thrived through World War II.  Companies on the East Side, like Curtiss Wright, which made the famous P-40 Warhawk produced over 13,000 of the durable fighters during the war.    The steel industry thrived in Buffalo, as the need for the metal drove the war effort, and new businesses sprouted up all over the area to support it.  Machine shops, equipment dealers, suppliers all popped up on the East Side.  Industry loved the hard working immigrants on the East Side, and many factories were built there just for this reason.

Steel came left town for good, along with most of the rest of the United States during the 70’s and 80’s.  Well paying union jobs left forever too, as companies like Bethlehem Steel and Republic Steel closed their doors and laid off TENS of thousands of men.  As people left town for better opportunities, Buffalo became poorer and poorer, and people fled to the new suburbs in West Seneca, Cheektowaga, Tonawanda, and Amherst.  What was left were the poor, and the  elderly, who were too old to relocate.

There are dozens of abandoned churches in the neighborhood, many as large as Transfiguration RC on Sycamore Street.  Most are ethnically based from the original immigrants that built them, and are very large and ornate.

Crack and other drugs ravaged the remaining neighborhoods throughout the 80’s and 90’s, as poverty became the norm.  What was once a proud immigrant area, was now a battered wreck of broken down houses, burned out deathtraps, and closed storefronts.  In 2007, the city began demolishing houses in large numbers.  An article in the NY Times notes that Mayor Byron W. Brown started a five-year $100 million  plan to rip down 5,000 houses, about half of all the vacant houses in the city.  Buffalo ranks second only to St. Louis in the percentage of vacant properties per capita nationwide.

The only sign of life on this playground is the new nets on the basketball hoops.  There are only a few houses left in this neighborhood, and many have children.  A few haphazard playhouses and slides sit in yards, but not many.

The devastation continues and Mayor Brown recently expanded the demolition program.  Ask any Buffalo fireman what they think of being stationed on the East Side, reporting to arson after arson in dangerous vacant houses, and you will soon understand that these houses cannot stand.  But there is no rescue for them, no bailout for these neighborhoods.  Some new houses dot the area, but they are few and far between. Redevelopment projects that have started with several city blocks, and have created new neighborhoods and communities have fared well.

This is the last house on this block.  I counted 15 lots, or 15 missing houses, to the end of the block.

I cannot help but think of the people that lived in those houses, almost like ghosts they haunt me.  I can imagine the old neighborhoods filled with people, the streets bustling, the busy stores with ethnic names, flowers in the gardens.  That was what the streets looked like here just 30 years ago.  It seems like a lifetime now, with decay, fear, and sadness being the primary decorations on the East Side now.

As I was leaving the city, I saw these deer in what was only a few years ago hundreds of houses.

People can fly now, or at least glide for long periods of time.  Watch how close these base jumpers are coming to the cliffs, and then watch the clip at actual speed again later in the video. 

100 Miles per hour. Wow.

wingsuit base jumping from Ali on Vimeo.

We seek to change global legislation to facilitate the emerging information society, characterized by diversity and openness. This is done by requiring an increased respect for citizens, their privacy, and the reform of rights ownership laws.

The Party has a legitimate platform, but the logo and the party’s name sold me though.  Who says you’re too old to be a pirate?

Aaarrrrrghhhh!

Here’s Max collecting the goods at the Bridgebusters Race at our home area, Kissing Bridge this past weekend.  He came in second in his age group and 3rd overall out of 70 kids.  Check out his incognito look. His favorite part was winning a candy bar, and some slick new Leki gloves.

Work’s been slower than usual, like everyone else.  I have been trying to do some marketing, and failing, any advice or ideas are always welcome.  I am more of a project manager than a salesman, and it shows.  I struggle to make 50 sales calls to get that one appointment.  Once I get the appointment the work gets done, but just getting them.  Urgh.

I am trying to write more.  Actually wrote a bunch of drafts, but never made time to edit them.  So I guess I am trying to publish more.  I will be updating the site and posting some stuff over the next few days and weeks hopefully.

To those that have kept communicating, thanks.  Keep the faith.