Memories of Buffalo... The recent stories about the Buffalo Fireman who regained his memory , and the proposed sainthood of Father Baker brought back memories of second grade back at PS 68 on Westminster Avenue in Buffalo. The ultimate threat from a teacher - even in public school- was " if you're not good we'll send you to Father Bakers." Father Bakers was widely known in Buffalo children's culture as a correctional orphanage for bad boys. The threat had teeth, because we all knew that parents who had too much to handle could make arrangements to ship an errant son off to Father Bakers. Big boys in the neighborhood working on their cars in the back yard would regale us with tales of deprivation and whippings at Father Bakers. Once a year the Buffalo Courier Express featured a story about the yearly Christmas party at the orphanage, with pictures of thin little tykes getting toys, and the older boys getting socks. It was said the boys slept in dormitories, and wore hand me downs. We'd make fun of kids in the playground by saying they got their clothes from Father Bakers. Now that time has padded some distance on the Father Baker story - and a symbol of terror from my childhood is being exalted. What else is weird is seeing the "Our Lady of Victory Basilica " getting press. Our Lady of Victory Basilica is a huge Italianate over- the- top structure on the border between Buffalo and Lackawanna. Originally built in white marble, pollution from the steel plants and factories turned it bright yellow. The whole area was engulfed in a horrible stink from sulfide gas. The nearby Buffalo river was so polluted that it caught on fire. The surrounding Lackawanna and South Buffalo neighborhoods consisted of workers hovels - A cheap two story wood frame house built in the twenties would have a tunnel of two or three tiny shack like houses built on the back of each other, extending into the back yard and filling the entire lot. The area was so low class that nice people ignored the Basilica as a sort of a Folly. My father would take the route past it on the way to the beach when the lake road was blocked with traffic, and occasionally we would visit the South Park Conservatory and Gardens located across the street. When the steel plants and factories went out of business, the smell abated and people rediscovered the Basilica on Buffalo's south side as a pilgrimage destination. The trip is actually enjoyable, and you can get world class "Beef on Weck" while you're there.