The Resting Rock

The first day of June this year marks my 30^th anniversary at my employer. Memories and thoughts fly around in my mind like sparks that fly when a log is thrown onto a campfire.

I could write about the commonly known things that have changed over the years since my first day on June 1, 1993, like having only internal e-mail; the whirr and staccato screech of the fax machines, which dumped curls of warm thermal paper onto the floor and under the fax desk; the move from casual Fridays to “dress down weeks” in the summer; and the rush to the printer to grab a confidential document before the days of secure “follow-you-print.”  Or, worse: getting to a meeting only to realize I had left copies of handouts sitting on the printer in the building across the parking lot. 

That all happened inside the walls of our buildings, which sit inside a suburban office park in Williamsville, New York. 

Except for about 15 dreary months of working from home, I’ve spent the last 30 years going back and forth to the same office park. I often reflect on my lengthy tenure driving to and from work, what’s changed over the years, what has stayed the same, and what used to be.  Things like:

From a stop sign to a stop light. Coming into this office park for me has always been a right-hand turn, so heading home at the end of the day is a left-hand turn onto a straight busy street that runs north and south (Evans Street). In my early days, a stop sign was good enough at the corner of Essjay and Evans. By ’94 or ’95, as more buildings took up the empty lots, the left turn was a long wait. The Amherst Highway Department put one of those traffic counters at the intersection at one point.  I recall our CEO at the time had e-mailed the entire company encouraging us to go around the block a couple times back to the stop sign in order to increase the traffic count. I have no idea if anyone did that, but soon after that a stoplight replaced the stop sign. 

Trees grow really slowly. For 30 years I’ve taken Essjay Road that leads to our offices and the trees lining this corporate drive haven’t grown that much.  They’re still pretty small. 

Mystery in the woods. The main road into our corporate park goes along the bottom of an escarpment which has a neighborhood of million-dollar homes at the top. The road up the escarpment was a dead end for several years, so I’d walk up it. In the woods was the foundation of a house or barn that one could see from the road.  The foundation was removed for another office building, but I’ve always wondered what the foundation was for and how long it had stood there.  Was it a pioneer home? A barn? A business? I’ll never know. 

When Canada geese attack… In the early 2000s, there was a spate of Canada geese attacks on employees walking through the parking lot. Incidences of skinned shins and nipped napes got so bad one spring that Facilities had to call in wildlife experts. The upside was the sweet smell of grapes around the entrances.  Grape juice spray makes the grass taste bitter to the geese, so they leave. 

 By the way, the correct term is Canada geese – not Canadian geese. If the geese were Canadian, I don’t think they’d be so inclined to aggression so easily, but rather would be as friendly as Canadian humans generally are.

Speaking of geese and other fowl, it’s always struck me that the office park owner put up a Duck Crossing sign on Essjay. There’s not one pedestrian crossing sign.  

Landlocked ship company. Dozens of companies occupy the buildings in this corporate park. Many deal with financial services and wealth management, or are medical offices.  There is one business that sits quietly but holds a significant place in the history of Buffalo’s maritime commerce.  Landlocked, the company is American Steamship. Founded in 1907 by John Boland and Adam Cornelius, American Steamship is owned today by Rand Logistics.  The company’s name hasn’t changed, but its fleet of ships has – and the technology that powers them and their cargo.  Its 11 ships are no longer powered by coal and steam, but by massive diesel engines. No longer do they rely on tugboats to guide them to the docks, but they use bow- and sternthrusters. The unloading of their bulk cargo is handled by conveyors and machines; long gone are the jobs of grainsweepers. 

Maples and Poplars to Medicine and Patios. There’s a street called International Drive that wends its way from Essjay to Sheridan.  On the eastern side were woods, and one willow tree stood out, along a dirt path into the woods.  The woods are gone. In their place is a huge medical building and small cul-de-sac of patio homes. 

Lake for sale. Behind our main building is a small retention pond. I can’t imagine the E-coli and giardia counts in it. One year it was for sale. The owner, whoever it was, floated an old rowboat on top of it was a large plywood sign “For Sale.” I thought the rowboat was for sale until I heard the lake was for sale. After a few weeks the for Sale sign acted like a sail, toppling over the boat, and the sign – and likely the owner’s desire, washed up on the pebbly shore. Despite the biohazardous soup, I’ve seen swans, herons, egrets and buffleheads, etc., along with the regular suburban birds. 

ChildTime Day Care. After a few years of employees’ requests, our company leased part of 250 Essjay Road to a daycare center. I can’t recall the years it operated. The center had an outside play area with a rubberized patio mat and play structures surrounded by a fence that went along the parking lot. Walking between buildings for meetings I’d hear the sounds of carefree toddlers having fun, running around expending energy. One memorable moment for me occurred as I was walking back to my building, stressed about the meeting I had just come from when an industrial garbage truck drove along the parking lot. The driver tooted the horn, and the kids all cheered and shrieked in excitement. It made my day less stressful.

Damon’s Ribs. This was a popular lunch spot and had great pub food. Large wall TVs. I am not a basketball fan, but I’d join coworkers to catch a lunchtime game during March Madness. As of this writing in May of 2023, the space had become a suburban branch of a famous Buffalo Italian restaurant, which closed for good soon after the pandemic. It’s now being renovated.