The light is shifting. The Bills have started the season. Spoiler alert, summer is almost gone.
I have seen the season turn its back on us before, even when I was a kid.
Summers in Little Valley, Cattaraugus County, where I grew up, were glorious, mostly because we had had so much time on our hands.
I rode my bike around town until I bumped into a friend.
Then we sat and talked about how there was nothing to do in Little Valley, absolutely nothing at all. What a gift.
Doing nothing did mean playing baseball in the skating rink and climbing up the surrounding hills.
Doing nothing did mean watching cars come through town on their way to exotic places, Cattaraugus (7 miles north), Gowanda (18 miles), Buffalo (50 miles).
Doing nothing did mean waiting
for the Cattaraugus County Fair to arrive in late August, right there in Little Valley.
For me and my friends, the fair was the beginning of the end of summer. But what an end.
Some parts of the fair were wholesome. Kids in 4-H showed off the cattle they had raised. Junior exhibitors showed off their vegetables, corn, sileage corn, cucumbers, etc.
(Research reveals that my friend John Charlesworth, then 10 and now deceased, got blue ribbons for his chard and his onions. Later, he would serve as the fair’s president.)
The exhibit areas were quiet, clean. Other parts of the fair were loud and a little seedy, magic to our eyes.
There was the demolition derby. Cars smashed into each other, thud after glorious thud.
There were games on the midway. Rubes threw balls at bowling pins in hope of winning a teddy bear.
We strolled the midway, saw girls from Franklinville, or Ellicottville or Salamanca, fancy places. They refused to speak to us, mistaking us for rubes.
We didn’t spend money at the fair. We just walked and watched.
When I got home, my mother would ask what I did. I would say, “nothing.” That was about right.
The fair only stayed a week, maybe even less. Then the Ferris wheel, the merry-go-round, everything, vanished. Just like that.
We sat in the park and counted the few days until we had something to do. School.
It looks like kids in Little Valley are given a little more transition time now, as the fair comes earlier in August.
But kids (and their parents) everywhere now are coming to grips with reality. School is here. The days of doing nothing have passed. Summer is packing up and heading south. You read it here first.
Remarkable Rochesterian
Rochester’s Mount Hope Cemetery is a civic treasurer, not just because distinguished citizens, including Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass are buried there. The cemetery itself, with its rolling walkways, its shade, its peace, is an attraction, too.
The cemetery had no more enthusiastic supporter than Richard Reisem, whose writings captured the place’s history, beauty and tranquility.
Mr. Reisem died July 6, 2026, at age 96. For all he did to tell Mount Hope’s stories, and other stories, as well, let’s add his name to the list of Remarkable Rochesterians that can be found at https://data.democratandchronicle.com/remarkable-rochesterians/.
Richard O. Reisem (1930-2026): An Eastman Kodak Co. employee for many years, he had a second career documenting the Rochester area’s history and architecture. A founder of the Friends of Mount Hope Cemetery, he edited “Epitaph,” the group’s monthly publication and wrote several books, including “Mount Hope: American’s 1st Municipal Victorian Cemetery,” with photographs by Frank Gillespie and “Erie Canal Legacy,” with photographs by Andy Olenick. A native of Iowa and graduate of Iowa State University, he was a longtime member of the Rochester Preservation Board.
From his home in Geneseo, Livingston County, retired senior editor Jim Memmott writes Remarkable Rochester about who we were, who we are. He can be reached at jmemmott@gannett.com or write Box 274, Geneseo, NY 14454.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Goodbye summer, it’s almost time to do something again
