March Madness

For those of you into sports, you realize that March Madness is the NCAA big basketball tournament. This year, Buffalo hosts some of the first rounds of the game, so downtown Buffalo is a hopping place this weekend.

For others, like me, who don't follow sports too much, March Madness was our weather this week. While the photo below was taken late last year, it does show what my week looked like:

Add to it, this morning when I woke up, the world looked like the first photograph. We had no snow earlier this week, snow on Thursday which remained through Friday then no snow Saturday morning. Yes, welcome to Western New York in March - it's mad out there.

I think most of us in the Mid-Atlantic are ready for winter to end. It's been entirely too long, but we're in the midst of another cold-snap. The only encouraging thing about all of this: it's March which means April and May approach. Eventually, we'll keep the snow away ... eventually.

One can only hope.

Inaugural Museum

Buffalo and Lancaster are both home to former presidents, but only Buffalo is the home to an inaugural site: The Teddy Roosevelt Inaugural Site.

Taken in early March

The museum is open daily, but the only way to actually see the house is to take one of the tours with the first one at 9:30 am on weekdays, and 12:30 pm on weekends. I happened to be there on a slow Saturday in early March. You can click visit the museum's site (here) to see about pricing.

The house itself was built in the 1840s as officer headquarters for the Buffalo Barracks, but in 1883, it was purchased as a wedding present by Dexter Rumsey for his daughter, Mary Grace. She married Ansley Wilcox, a local lawyer, and the family lived there until 1933.

The house sits on Delaware Avenue, one of the main north south streets in Buffalo, and home to many of the old beautiful mansions. Sitting just south of North Street, the home is in what was once considered the society center of Buffalo. Many of the old mansions have now been destroyed or turned into office buildings or hotels, but you can still get a glimpse of Buffalo at the turn of the 20th Century.

The tour itself takes about an hour and walks you through both the house and the events surrounding the inauguration. One of the pieces I most enjoyed was a ten to twenty minute overview of the American culture Roosevelt faced: the balance between the workers and the owners, race relations, gender inequalities, and the nation on the global stage. Much of it I knew from history, but much of it I didn't know.

When the overview is finished, the tour takes you to the room where the inauguration took place. I found this room the most interesting because it actually has actors playing the scene for us. There are no actors, just a voice recording, but it sounds as though you are in the room with them. For a writer, it was absolutely fascinating to see the combination of actual location with invisible acting.

Once finished downstairs, the tour goes upstairs for a visit to Teddy's Oval Office which is more interactive. The last portion of the second floor is a rotating gallery so what I saw will probably not be the same someone else might see.

All in all, I found the tour to be interesting and educational. I don't know if it would work for children much under school age, but it would work for those in school and older. If you are a history buff, or even just someone who likes the Victorian Age (though technically, Teddy was president during the Edwardian Era), the Teddy Roosevelt Inaugural Site is a place to visit.

First Book Offer

On my website, Bridgette ni Brian (here), I have an offer for the first books in my two series: Azure Maris and Shamrocks of Stone. You can purchase signed copies of both books for $30 this weekend without shipping costs. Beginning Monday, a $5 shipping charge will be added. The first twenty orders also receive a handwoven gift, but you have to visit the website to see it.

Azure Maris is a contemporary story of a mermaid princess-priestess grounded in the Chesapeake Bay for political reasons. She is sentenced to exile above the waves unless she can figure out a way to return home.

Shamrocks of Stone is a historical mystery set in 1405, Ireland. Orfhlait (pronounced OR la) was dedicated to God from her birth, but her training to be a nun sets uneasily on her shoulders. When her friend Aidan is found murdered, Orfhlait decides to find the murderer.

Saturday Reads

I'm on a Victorian/1920s theme between this blog and the Bridgette ní Brian site. If you're interested in learning about the unusual Victorian woman, click here to link to today's book review, Wild Women.

Here in Buffalo it is currently cold. We're expecting to be in the mid-thirties today which will feel like a heat wave. Since the temperatures have run close to twenty degrees below normal, all of Western New York has had to bundle up and stay inside. I have the perfect book for you to read - well, perfect if you like murder, mayhem, mob and money.

Gangsters and Organized Crime in Buffalo: History, Hits and Headquarters by Michael F. Rizzo tells the stories of Buffalo criminal underworld. It is a collection of stories that focus on organized crime and the small time gangs that robbed Buffalo.

I picked the book up from the library to research for one of my current series which takes place in 1920s Buffalo. The first murder the main characters investigate is connected to the mob in Buffalo.

I found the book and easy and enjoyable read. There are plenty of photographs to give you a sense of what the city looked like at the time. For me, the only element I didn't like was the fact that most of the books focused on the time period between 1930 and 1960. Still, I found even those stories entertaining, and helpful as I develop storylines for characters.