As I watch the devastation from hurricanes, forest fires and volcanoes this year I realize that Buffalo is ideally situated. We don’t suffer mud slides, tornadoes, avalanches, massive flooding and earth quakes that the rest of the country seems to go through.

I mean, just how many times must you lose your car, your house, your furniture and all your personal possessions and go right back to the same exact spot to rebuild before you realize the weather gods are telling you to move?

I may get a bit of water in my basement during a heavy rain but I am fortunate that it never gets over a few inches deep. I put my washer and dryer on pallets, my furnace and water heater are on a concrete pad and they all stay high and dry.

The water I get doesn’t even compare to floods, having storm surges or a tsunami flood my home up to the second story windows. I’m glad I don’t live in a coastal area or on a flood plain.

I can’t imagine returning to the place your home used to be to find a tornado had sucked it up, leaving a pile of kindling behind and taking everything else with it.

I like watching this extreme weather on TV but I don’t want to see it out my window. Every time I watch something like this, I thank my lucky stars that I live in the Greater Buffalo Area (GBA). I feel sorry for the people that are forced to live in these disaster prone areas due to economic reasons, but I think, after being battered several times, even those people would find a way to move. And as usual, I will donate to various disaster relief charities, hoping that my measly donation will make someone’s life just a little better.

The winters aren’t all that bad in Buffalo except for “the Blizzard of ’77”. Say these 5 words to someone older than 40 who lived in Buffalo during this and I can guarantee they have a tale or two to tell you.

I was working at Buffalo Milkbone on Fougeron Street at the time and my trip on Thursday, the day before “The Storm of the Century” officially hit, it took me four hours to commute from home, a trip I could usually make in under an hour.  After work, I fought my way back home and hunkered down there.

Sure Buffalo winters can get cold, they can get windy and they can get snowy but most of that is gone by late March. The snow piles have melted, even in the parking lots, the salt is washed off your car and the flowers are blooming.

I didn’t mind bundling up and going out to clear up my walks and driveway in the winter, I actually enjoyed it. In fact I would snow blow my place and a few neighbor’s driveways. Then I would head up and down my block cleaning my neighbor’s sidewalks.  When they were out shoveling, they would do the same thing for me. It was just a neighborly thing to do.

I may get a bit of water in my basement during a heavy rain but I am fortunate that it never gets over a few inches deep. I put my washer and dryer on pallets and my furnace and water heater are on a concrete pad, they stay high and dry. The water I get doesn’t even compare to having a storm surge, a flood or a tsunami flood my home up to the second story windows. I’m glad I don’t live in a coastal area or on a flood plain.

Buffalo may be cold and snowy but like ex-mayor Jimmy Griffin said “Stay inside, grab a six-pack, and watch a good football game,” The 49ers and Dolphins played in the Super Bowl during the Blizzard of 77. Griffin was caught on a Channel 7 camera saying. “Have a six-pack handy so you can enjoy yourself. Don’t take this too seriously.”

One thing that I do like about living in the Greater Buffalo Area is that when I get out of work and drive back home, my house is exactly where I left it.

Tagged with: Hurricanes, Forest fires,Volcanoes, Snow, Buffalo

As a child I remember being one of the first families on our block to have a telephone. All the neighbors came over to marvel at this shiny piece of black plastic that connected us to the world. The phone had it’s very own piece of furniture in our dining room that consisted of a small table with a chair attached so you could sit while you were talking on the phone.

Back then you could dial “O” for the Operator and you would be immediately connected to a pleasant sounding girl for free. Now days if you dial “O” you have to navigate a recorded answering system to try to get in touch with the operator. You will eventually get hold of an operator but it’s going to cost you.

Our phone was connected to a party line. No, I don’t mean one of those 1-800 numbers advertised on late night television. A party line was a telephone circuit that was shared by several telephone subscribers.  Your phone would ring whenever anyone on your party line would receive a call but every user had an individual ring pattern to let you know if the caller had dialed your number.

There was no privacy on a party line. If you were on the phone with someone, anyone on your party line could pick up their telephone and listen in. Also, if anyone on your party line was using their phone, you could not make a call. There were laws that required all parties to hang up if someone announced that they had an emergency but that didn’t mean everyone complied and it didn’t prevent someone from telling you they had an emergency every time they wanted to make a call.

The other problem was if someone on your party line was busy chatting, nobody could reach your phone, they would instead hear a busy signal.  To prevent these problems subscribers would pay an extra monthly fee to upgrade to a private line.

A rotary dial telephone would have a number card installed in the center of the dial plate. This would enable whoever was using the phone to know what number they were calling from. Our original phone number consisted of a two letter exchange followed by four numbers. The printed label on our phone number read “AREA CODE 716 / AMherst 5964”. To call us, you would use the rotary dial to dial the A, the M, followed by the four numbers. Other exchanges I remember were PArkside and MOhawk. By deciphering these exchanges, you could tell where the number you were calling was located.

Eventually, Buffalo converted to a seven digit phone number (two letters and five numbers). This was met with a great deal of consternation in our house because you now had to learn all new phone numbers. I failed to see what the problem was because our number just changed to TF2-5964. Buffalo was allegedly one of the last major cities in the United States to changeover from six digit to seven digit telephone numbers.

At one point, Bell Telephone sent out a small “Blue book” that would fit in your wallet to keep your important numbers. Mine was filled with girl’s names with a coded rating system. Eventually, the phone companies dropped the letters in the phone numbers and just went all numbers.

When you moved, no matter how far, even just next door, you had to get a new phone number. You couldn’t take your old number with you. When we moved to Getzville, a suburb of Buffalo our new number was 688-9473. Today you can take your phone number with you if you move within the area code, the number belongs to you.

You rented the phone and the phone wires in your house on top of your monthly service bill but in the early 70’s, you could buy your phone and the wiring and eliminate the monthly rental charge. You could also buy a phone of your choosing at the store and wire it up to your “Interface” yourself.

I wired several phones in my house and had a phone hookup in every room except for the bath room. I even had one in the basement and two in my man cave in the attic. The difference between renting the phone and wiring and owning them was if you owned them and had a problem and it turned out to be a problem in your house, the phone company would gladly bill you for the repairs.

The area code used to let you know where a number you called was located geographically. But these days, due to cell phones, even area codes don’t mean a thing. We have friends in North Carolina that moved from Lockport that still have a 716 area code on their cell phones. I have a granddaughter in Denver Colorado that has a 716 area code on her cell phone also. Calling both of these people is a “local” call despite the long distances that separate us.

Yes, phones have come a long way since those phone booths on the corner. The days of being able to get a phone in any color you wanted as long as it was black. The days of rotary dials and party lines are gone. Communication has never been easier but we seem to have lost just sitting down and talking with each other face to face.

Norb is a septuagenarian (look it up) from Lockport. He has seen a lot of water go over the dam.

Tagged with: Party line, Rotary dial

I am a senior citizen and I am well aware of the health care minefield ahead for some baby boomers. I have a few suggestions on how to navigate thru this to share. Start your healthcare planning well before you plan on retiring so you don’t have a lapse in medical coverage.

I have found that when it comes to a Medicare plan, there are so many options that it might be hard to select the best plan for yourself.  You may be the type of person who goes to the doctor once a year or you might have a history of health issues. You might talk with your doctor and see which type of plan they recommend. They are possibly the best judge of your insurance needs.

I called the big three insurance plans in the Buffalo area for guidance. One of them said I could come down to their offices and discuss my options with them. That wasn’t going to happen. If you want my business you should come to me not make me waste two hours of my time driving to give you my money. The second company sent me a tome that made “War and Peace” seem small and told me to figure it out myself. The third carrier sent out a representative to explain all my options and help me select the best plan based on my medical history. Guess which company got my business.

Original Medicare with a Medicare Supplement or a Medicare Advantage plan may fit your needs. The state of New York offers a drug plan for seniors called The Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverage (EPIC) program. This is administered by the NYS Department of Health. This is generally less expensive than any commercial offering.

I was concerned about what will happen if I made the wrong choice by enrolling in a Medicare Advantage plan and needed to return to Original Medicare with a Medicare Supplement. There are protections in place for this type of situation. A Medicare rule from the Medicare & You Handbook says: “If you join a Medicare Advantage Plan for the first time, and you aren’t happy with the plan, you’ll have special rights to buy a Medigap policy if you return to Original Medicare within 12 months of joining.”

There are many ways that a Medicare recipient can change their Medicare plans during Medicare’s Annual/Open Enrollment. You can purchase a Part D Medicare Prescription Drug Plan or change from one plan to another. You can change from the Medicare Advantage Plan that you have to a different Medicare Advantage Plan. You could even return to Original Medicare.

It might surprise some people to know that Medicare is not free, that if you want to get a Medicare supplement policy (Medigap), there is also a premium that you need to pay over and above the Medicare part B premium and other premiums that you are paying. Medigap is priced differently based on different situations. This might also add to your confusion. Premiums that you will pay should be clear as you decide which Medicare options you will get. To help you with understanding the costs you can head on to freemedsuppquotes.com/learn-the-basics/cost-Medicare-supplement.

I get social security, however I have to pay for Medicare right off the top of my monthly distribution. Then I have a supplemental insurance that I pay for monthly. The state of New York has a senior citizen drug program called Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverage or EPIC that I also pay for, to help with my prescriptions.  You would think that after paying for all this I would have absolutely no bills for medical treatment but nooooooo.

I have worked hard my entire life, have paid my taxes faithfully, including social security since I started working at 18. I also saved as much money as possible investing in IRAs, 401Ks and pensions anticipating a comfortable retirement. I took my social security at age 66 so I could get my full social security “Benefit” (there’s an oxymoron, I paid into this fund how is this now called a “benefit” it’s not like they are giving me something, they are just giving my money back to me).

Having insufficient income is a problem that faces many seniors. A 2016 survey by the Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies finds that baby boomers—those born between 1946 and 1964—have median retirement savings of $147,000. This falls short of the amount they will need.

Seniors worry about paying for healthcare and having enough left over for food, taxes, etc. People like myself are faced with the problem of paying for necessary medical appointments, co-pays, drugs and basic living expenses. Do we leave the air conditioning off to save money? Do we leave the furnace turned down to save on our gas bill? Do we buy our drugs instead of food? These are questions that no one should have to be concerned with.

We provide free health care to people on public assistance but not to senior citizens. Applying for Medicare also has to be made easier. If you can enroll in less than 2 trips you are lucky. A high quality, cradle to grave health care system for everyone would take away one of America’s biggest headaches. The American system is broken and needs to be fixed.

Norb is a senior citizen living in Lockport. He can be reached at nrug@juno.com.

Tagged with: senior citizen, health care, Medicare, Epic