This week at work was productive. We have good folks who want to work diligently. They are in tough positions, too, with the divestiture and all the uncertainty that situation fosters. Oh well, it's just business.



Elaine and I toured the USS Little Rock, a ship in the Buffalo Harbor that has become a permanent fixture in the Naval Park here. When I was in the Marine Corps, as a young CH-46 Helicopter pilot, in 1973 our squadron (HMM 264 The Black Knights, Call Sign "Leroy" (pronounced "Lee Roy")) was on a Mediterranean Tour. I was on the USS Guadalcanal and remember flying some CINCLANT Leaders to the USS Little Rock for a meeting. That was 36 years ago, now. Then I was a young 24 years old Marine Corps 1st Lieutenant, aircraft commander, cocky and self assured. It was strange to walk the flight deck and tour the ship with my wife after so many years. It was emotional for me. There were young kids with their parents escorting them through the check in process to a US Naval Sea Cadet Corps camp to be held onboard the ship for the next week. I remembered when this ship was really alive. The diesel smells are gone, the activity much more subdued, the ladders steeper and the passageways much narrower than I remember them.

This is a view of City Hall from the restored Commercial Slip of the Erie Canal on the waterfront near the Naval Park.