POST January/February 2015

Chuck
Arena
Life’s Beautiful Design
The Cancer Screening Dilemma
Winter Surfing On Lake Ontario
Bernunzio Uptown Music
$5.00
January / February 2015

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CONTENTS
8
PROUST QUESTIONNAIRE
Insights from Dick Storms, co-owner
of Record Archive
12
FREE SPEECH
POST asks four notable Rochesterians
to discuss a single topic: REINCARNATION.
14
THE INTERVIEWS
The florist Charles Arena is a
doyen of organic luxury living.
Dr. Alice Holloway is
a local desegregation icon.
Gerry Buckley talks about breaking
barriers s the president of NTID.
28
DECONSTRUCTING THE SURFER DUDE
Freezing cold. Fresh water.
And freedom of the waves.
By Paul Gangarossa
34
false alarm
Dutiful screenings and highly advanced tools
are detecting cancer earlier than ever. But is
that a good thing? Some experts say no.
By Mary Stone
40
UP FRONT
Fighting Change in a little-known
City boxing club
Urban gardens teach teens how
to Grow Baby Grow.
Just Music in the quest of John Bernunzio.
48
makers
The Kaleidoscopic Vision
of Carol Acquilano.
Surfboards with Soul
are made from repurposed wood.
Be Still as a photographer
captures small moments.
58
FOOD
A Short Ribs recipe from chef Dan Martello
An area farm harvests chickens
by hand in A Time to Die.
Oh, how I love thee... NY state cheeses
selected by Chris Nolan.
Dicky’s Bar is the King of Dives.
Cornmeal is The Underdog of Keuka County.
68
FICTION
An excerpt from the novel
DePotter’s Grand Tour
By Joanna Scott
70
13 Things
Sourced from the Monroe County
Library digital collection
Cole Slutzky Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 1

MEDIA
YOU
CAN
FEEL
POST Issue 9 was printed by
Cohber Press in Henrietta, NY.
For enquiries visit cohber.com
or call (800) 724-3032
@cohber

CONTRIBUTORS
Founder/Publisher
Mike Calabrese
Editor-In-Chief
Amy Calabrese Metcalfe
Art Director
Steve Smock
Managing Editor
Ryan Dougherty
Senior Editor/Writer
Mary Stone
Web Editor
David Vogler
Associate Editor
Carlie Fishgold
Fiction Editor
Brian Wood
Staff Writers
Katie Barry
Jen Brunett
Julie Garland Clementi
Dani Astrid Earle
Robin L. Flanigan
Patrick Flanigan
Paul Gangarossa
Eric Grode
Jennifer Palumbo
Laura Shields
Matt Smythe
Dan Martello
Staff Photographers
Hannah Betts
James Bogue
Matt Calabrese
Teri Fiske
Tomas Flint
Michael Hanlon
John Myers
Jonathan Rutherford
Kyle Schwabb
Grant Taylor
Betsy Traub
Staff Artist & Illustrator
Chris Lyons
Community Partnerships
Barry Strauber
Strategic Organization Coach
Anne Esse
Contributing Editors
Robin Lohkamp
Melissa McGrain
Elaine Spaull
Contributing Writers
Lori Gable
Kyle Johnson
Matt Kelly
Chris Nolan
Joanna Scott
Sue Gardner Smith
Contributing Designers
Anne Esse
Bonnie Miguel
Rachel Spence
Contributing Photographers
Lisa Barker
Tom Dooley
Mike Martinez
Betsy Traub
Cole Slutzky
Contributing Illustrators
Joseph Mayernik
Copy Editors
Lynne Cody
Sheila Livadas
4
1
2
3
1 Joanna Scott is the Roswell Smith Burrows Professor
of English at the University or Rochester and the
author of 11 books, including “The Manikin,” which
was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; “Various Antidotes
and Arrogance,” which were both finalists for the PEN/
Faulkner Award; and the critically acclaimed “Make
Believe,” “Tourmaline,” and “Liberation.”
2 A former sports reporter and copy editor, Kyle
Johnson teaches social studies at a local charter
school. He and his wife live with a loving German
Shepherd and a neurotic cat in Rochester.
3 “Fresh vegetables from the garden, eggs laid that
morning, fish and game that my father would bring
home, literally ‘fed’ my culinary interests,” cheese
expert Chris Nolan says. Nolan’s interest in cheese,
specifically, was piqued while working at Whole
Foods, when he would walk by the cheese counter
and wonder about all the varieties. He is currently the
“cheesemonger” at Hart’s Local Grocers.
4 Cole Slutzky was born and raised in New Jersey,
where from a young age he had a love for the ocean
and surfing. He attended RIT for advertising photography
and in his last year began working on his film
“Preconceived Noceans,” a project centered around
Great Lake surfers. The project is in its fourth year of
production and he hopes to have it completed within
the next year or two. Cole currently works in New York
City in both photography and filmmaking.
5 Lisa Barker has been an avid photographer in
her hometown of Rochester since age 12. When not
behind the camera, she’s most often found getting her
hands dirty as an urban farmer, food educator, and
youth director with the Seedfolk Project.
COVER
5
Advertising Sales Manager
Katie Wilson
Advertising inquires:
advertising@postrochester.com
Community partnerships:
barry@postrochester.com
Editorial inquiries:
amy@postrochester.com
For subscription orders and inquiries, visit
postrochester.com
POST Magazine is published bi-monthly by Michael Calabrese, 248
East Avenue, Rochester, NY 14604. Subscriptions cost $30 per year.
Periodicals postage pending at Rochester, NY, and additional mailing
offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the address above.
Cover photo of Charles Arena taken by John Myers
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 3

"I’m going to help you
lose 20 to 45 or more
pounds in just 40 days.
Guaranteed."
-Dr. Nathan Riddle
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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Do you think the lake surfers in this issue care how long our winters
are? Does the father of the two young surfers in the story worry
his boys might catch a cold running around outside in wetsuits?
When these guys are paddling out, faces numb, an expanse of frozen lake
before them, do you think they are wondering if there are any new movies
out on Netflix?
I think these guys are rock stars! A true inspiration. They don’t waste
energy complaining about the cold. They don’t let the weather dictate their
happiness. They get out there and do it. They embrace what is. They choose
to be happy!
We can too. Especially when we remember how lucky we are to even
be alive. To be healthy! To FEEL the stinging cold. To have a warm, safe
place to sleep and food to eat.
We’ve got a lot to be thankful for. Let’s remember that. Every single day.
Rain or shine.
Amy Calabrese Metcalfe
Editor-in-Chief
Cole Slutzky
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 5

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Dick Storms
Co-owner, Record Archive
8 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015
Tom Dooley

DICK STORMS, CO-OWNER OF THE RECORD ARCHIVE, IS OFTEN
REMEMBERED FOR HIS DANCING RECORD MAN COMMERCIALS.
HERE, A MORE SERIOUS SIDE OF A MAN WHOSE RETAIL MUSIC
SHOP CELEBRATES ITS 40TH ANNIVERSARY THIS YEAR.
What is your current state of mind?
I’m in a planning state of mind right now.
Your favorite food and drink?
My favorite food is BBQ fish, and my favorite
drink is Rohrbach Highland Amber.
Your favorite color?
My favorite color is metallic gold.
Your favorite flower?
Black tulip.
Your idea of happiness?
My idea of happiness is boarding an Amtrak
train, going to my sleeping compartment, and
waking up in Chicago for breakfast.
Your idea of misery?
A TSA line at the airport!
Occupation you admire?
Oh, I admire musicians. Real musicians. Not
like me.
Are you a reader? If so, do you have a
favorite author?
Margaret Atwood and Elmore Leonard are my
favorite authors. So I’m pretty middlebrow in
my reading, but it’s what I like.
Your favorite qualities in a man and a
woman?
I like men who are innovative. I like women who
are smart. Really intelligent women are like high
bling factor.
Who are your favorite artists?
In terms of painting, my favorite artist is Clyfford
Still. He’s a West Coast painter; he was an
abstract expressionist, and the Albright-Knox
has probably the biggest collection of his work
in the country. There’s an entire wing devoted
to him. … Hell, hell of a painter!
What do you appreciate most in your
friends?
I like friends who are there for me, you know? I
like friends who let me be there for them.
What is your main fault?
Concentration. I grew up in a big family, and
if I’m concentrating on something I just put
up the walls, and I’m in my own world. So my
worst fault is that I’m monomaniacal.
What is your best trait?
My best trait is my curiosity.
What is your favorite film?
“Ghostbusters”
Who are your favorite heroes in film?
The Dude.
If your life had a soundtrack, what song
would play next?
“Fly Me to the Moon”
What music do you find exciting right
now?
Well, I’m into an area that a lot of people are
into right now, and that is the early days of
electronic recording, between 1928 and 1932.
… There was a flashpoint then, when ethnographic
music and hillbilly music and black
music and all of it sort of became all the same.
Contemporary American pop music was born
in that moment, when there was all this access
to all these different musics, and they started
melding together. And one of the areas was
jug band music: Memphis Jug Band and Gus
Cannon … That’s kind of my favorite music, but
specifically the originals from that period.
If you could only listen to one album,
what would it be?
It would be Big Joe Turner, “Rock and Roll,”
Atlantic 8005, 1957, I think.
If you could have dinner with two people—one
living, one dead—who would
they be?
Cicero and Zbigniew Brzezinski. A couple of
astute political observers.
What natural talent would you like to be
gifted with?
I’d like to have a green thumb. I don’t.
For what fault in others do you have the
most tolerance?
Loquaciousness.
The least tolerance?
Imagined omniscience.
If you had walked a different path in life,
where might you be?
When I was young, I actually hit a crossroads
(and I didn’t really know it). I was invited to join
a real estate agency in Mill Valley, Calif., when
I was 21. I don’t know if I’d have ever taken
it though. Painter. Painter is the other path I
could have taken. I paint now, but I don’t do
it as a profession. It’s a vacation, which, you
know, gives me a lot of latitude. I don’t have
to sell the shit [chuckles]. I have to figure out a
place to put it.
How do you wish to die?
Quickly.
What would people find surprising about
you?
That I’m interested in ancient Roman history.
Do you have any words or beliefs that
you live by?
The best thing about getting old is that you get
to be old for the rest of your life. You can read
that as ironically as you like.
—Interview by Alexander Degas
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 9

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POST asks four notable Rochesterians to discuss a single topic:
Reincarnation
who accept
reincarnation
“Those
believe that a
person’s soul after death is
reborn into another body.
According to the catechism of
the Catholic Church, ‘when the
single course of our earthly life
is completed, we shall not return
to our earthly lives ...There is no
reincarnation after death.’ We
have only one life in our journey
on earth but our merciful God
of love gives us every chance to
return to Him while we are alive.
We deeply believe that death
is not the end. Death is not a
defeat. Rather death is a birth
into the fullness of God’s eternal
life.”
Father James Schwartz,
pastor, St. Joseph’s Church
is generally
thought of as
“Rebirth
something that
occurs after the death of the
physical body. But in Buddhism
we also refer to “continuous”
rebirth—the dying and
rebirthing, moment by moment,
of this body-mind complex we
call “I” that is ever in flux. Thus,
all life may be considered “life
after death.” As Voltaire said, ‘It
is no more surprising to be born
twice than to be born once.’”
Bodhin Kjolhede,
abbot and director,
Rochester Zen Center
“We chose to
reincarnate
into this life—
to become earthly again for a
purpose. Soul memory from all
our lifetimes subconsciously
populates us, creating fears
or limiting beliefs in this life.
Soul memory can also excel
our natural talents or interests
brought from other lifetimes.
We have incarnated as male and
female, many times reincarnating
with loved ones or friends in
various roles. We also repeat
patterns across lifetimes. The
soul is our friend. We can learn
from our past lives.”
Cyndy Paxton,
clinical and regression hypnotist;
intuitive and awareness coach
world.
Another life.
“Another
Humanity longs
for it. The longing itself is
meaningful, but what does it
mean? The Buddha knew what
it meant—that life is suffering.
So did Karl Marx: ‘Religion
is the sigh of the oppressed
creature, the heart of a heartless
world, and the soul of soulless
conditions.’ What is to be done?
Long for a better world? No.
Change this one.”
Dr. Gordon Barnes,
associate professor,
director of the Center for
Philosophic Exchange,
the College at Brockport
Joseph Mayernik

41 NORTH MAIN STREET // PITTSFORD, NY // 585.419.3032 //
ERIE
COCKTA L CULTURE
your night starts here.

Charles Arena Dr. Alice Holloway Young Gerry Buckley
Charles
Arena
Contributing Editor
Melissa McGrain
sits down for a chat
with longtime friend
Charles Arena to
talk family, work,
and his evolution
from florist to local
doyen of organic
luxury living.
Jonathan Rutherford

You grew up in an Italian family.
Yes, in West Irondequoit. On Kings Gate
Street with my sister, Jean Marie. My parents
built the house when I was 3 because it
was equal distance between Christ the King,
where I went from grades 1 to 8, and Bishop
Kearney, where I went from 9 to 12. Isn’t that
funny?
You are such a good Catholic. Isn’t it amazing
how parents do that? What was your family
like?
impactful going out there. You would go
through the hallway to get to the house from
the garage, and there’d be cheese hanging. I
mean, he made his own wine. It was like onestop
shopping. You’d always leave with stuff,
and she always would have more food than
you possibly could even imagine. And nothing
was a big deal. But, of course, it had to be.
Looking back, it had to be a lot of work. But
that’s just what they did, and they were cute
together. They were a little round, and they
4. Four is my cut-off point.
What kind of alarms are they?
Just on my iPhone. But my father used to
call me every morning. Whenever I needed to
get up.
“Chaz, son, time to get up.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
Isn’t that funny? Because I would tell
him, “Can you call me tomorrow morning?”
I didn’t trust my alarm. So he would set his
alarm to call me.
Scenes from Arena’s
shop on East Avenue
My mother was Italian but didn’t seem it.
So we’d go out to my grandparent’s house—
her parents—and get the whole, full dose of
Italian.
What do you remember most?
My grandfather gardened organic. Anything
from the kitchen table went into the
garden. They reused plastics, and he would
capture rainwater and store it in barrels because
he liked the rainwater for his plants. He
had a compost pile. My grandmother would
make eggs, and then the eggshells went in the
garden. He would graft his own trees, and
there was every kind of fruit tree imaginable.
It was magical. It was magical.
That’s where you started.
Oh my God, absolutely. That was so
were adorable. Her English wasn’t great, but
she was very loving.
Why did you stay in Rochester, Charles?
I was busy. I was just busy. Honestly, and
as it turns out, I’m kind of a homebody, you
know. But I also like getting away from here
and looking at it from a distance, too, getting
what I need and coming back and jumping
back in. I do get a little goofy when I don’t get
out of here. But that’s because when I’m here,
all I’m really doing is working, which is fine.
What time do you wake up to go to work?
I start waking up at 3:30 a.m. I have seven
or eight different alarms and depending on
how I’m feeling and what’s on my head about
the day, I’ll hit one or I’ll wait for the next
one. But the latest I wake up is usually before
That’s really sweet! Is there something that
you do every day that you find meditative?
It’s the start of the day with my cut-flower
team, my flower-processing team, because I
think that’s one thing in most flower shops
that’s overlooked, the actual floral hygiene.
Every flower in the store is handled every
single day. And every vase is sterilized. The
new product comes in, and it’s inspected. And
I’m front and center.
New product comes in every day?
Every day, all day. And way before the
store opens, I meet with my team. The other
thing that is a part of my morning ritual is
right after flower processing or just before
flower processing, I always do something I
don’t want to do. I get it right out of the way.
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 15

interview
I’m really hard on myself about procrastinating.
I don’t allow myself to procrastinate.
Because it’s too heavy.
I just don’t want that burden. But, really, I
like all of what I do. But the flowers are really
the heart and the soul. I mean, like really the
heart of the store, for sure.
Many of your employees have been with you
for a long time.
We have a couple of people that have been
with us for almost 30 years.
Like Ben.
Ben took the 10-year break. And Paul. I
tell Paul all the time that if he leaves, I’m leaving.
So that’s job security for you.
Jeffrey.
Jeffrey’s great. I mean, Edward’s been
there forever. Sometimes people leave and
actually come back and freelance for us. We
require a lot of different talents, and if I find
they do something really well, I’m brutal. I
want more of it, you know. It’s like I elevate.
I appreciate all of these things that either
I’m bad at and they’re good at or I recognize
something like penmanship. If you’ve got good
penmanship, you’re writing the cards. So not
everybody is good at everything. But as a
collaborative, there’s so much talent there.
How did you do in school?
In elementary school, if I did poorly at
something, because of my, hello, dyslexia,
ADHD, whatever it might be, my mother’s
answer—and I don’t remember it being my
father’s, so I’m putting a lot of blame on my
mother—was “Give him more work.” It was
very old school. In high school, I coasted. I
was totally invisible because I was working
full time.
Where did you work?
Josh Gardens in the greenhouses until one
day the floral designer didn’t show up, and
they said, “You’re going to do the flowers today.”
And I thought, “These orders have got to
get out. I’ve got to come earlier tomorrow.” So
every day I’d come earlier. He never replaced
the floral designer, and then I had to do it.
Was that your very first job at Josh?
No. I had a pretend store in my parent’s
16 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015

Matt Calabrese
basement. All the
labels were going the
right way, a little cash
register. No one ever
came, but I stocked the
shelves.
With what?
Boxes from old cereal. You know
what I mean? We would have to open things a
certain way so I could save the boxes. I swear
to God. I was so nerdy. And then I discovered
that if you plant a seed, it grows. So at the dinner
table, if we were having watermelon, you
better save those seeds because I’m growing a
watermelon. I had shit growing everywhere. I
was always outside, and they couldn’t find me
half the time. I was distracted by that kind of
stuff. It wasn’t a book for me.
No, it was nature.
Absolutely. When I was maybe 10 or 11,
I had like 150 African violet plants. I would
start them from leaves, and I had grow lights
in the basement. This is after my store phase.
So I would be down there for hours propa-
Jonathan Rutherford
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 17

What did your uncle
and your father do?
They built things
at the store. My father wasn’t
happy about me not becoming an
accountant or something. But after I made up
my mind, he was front and center. Whatever
you need. He had sleepless nights over it, you
know, but then he was always that way. If I
bought a house he thought I shouldn’t have,
he would tell me his worries. And if I decided
to do it anyway, he’d be right by my side.
Wow, that’s awesome.
And he never said, “I told you so,” or
anything.
Was your mom the same? Did she have the
same excitement?
My mom played more of a role of calming
my father down. You know, like, “Oh, you’ve
got to let go—he’ll be fine,” that kind of thing.
A little bit more of a cheerleader capacity. She
used to do all of my billing and paperwork at
home on the kitchen table.
Wow, that’s crazy to think about, isn’t it?
It is! I remember our first big wedding. I
didn’t have cooler space for it. So my father
turned the air conditioning down really low
and took all the furniture out of the dining
room, and he made a cooler for me in our dininterview
gating. Who propagates at 10? Go do your
homework! Go play a sport! My parents
couldn’t get me to do anything that the other
kids were doing. I was incredibly introverted.
Incredibly introverted. All I wanted to do was
be old enough to do what I wanted to do. And
that was pretty much my dream. I would go
to greenhouses with my parents. That was like
Disneyland to me.
So where did your love for nature go after
that?
When I was about 11, I started mowing
lawns because I wanted to make money. I had
a checkbook. And I had something like 15
lawns that I would cut. So I started this landscape
business. And I was really busy. As a kid,
if I was ever in trouble, it was related to work.
It was working too much or not coming home
on time or not focused on my schoolwork. It
was the most bizarre thing. … I was late for
my prom because I was making close to 100
corsages. I would take orders at school. I was
the kid that did the flowers. Nobody picked
on me or anything. It was just my thing.
Actually, I don’t think I would have noticed if
they picked on me. I didn’t give a shit. I really
didn’t give a shit. I was just doing my own
thing.
Did you go to college?
No. My parents were
horrified. I never took
the SATs because I had no
business. So to make everybody
happy, I went to MCC for retail business
management. The first semester interfered
with the holiday season at Josh Gardens. And
then the second semester interfered with Valentine’s
Day. One day I just realized it was too
much. I had to choose.
So you left school.
Yes. I opened my own business with
$1,200, and my uncle and my father and my
other uncle helping me with this little store
that was 250 square feet. [Note: Charles’s
father quit his job as the quality control manager
of a cutting room for a clothing manufacturer
to help at the store]. I was living at home
until I was 24 because I had no money. Every
penny I made I put back in to the business.
Where was the store located?
Irondequoit. It was in Irondequoit on
North Clinton.
What was it called?
Arena’s. It was 1980. I just knew that if I
was going to make it, I had to do something
the other florists weren’t doing. I would take
the order, process the flowers, design the arrangement,
and get in my car and deliver it.
18 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015

ing room at home.
That’s amazing. So much has changed.
So much. We moved to East Avenue—actually,
we took the space next to it. It was
a carbon copy, and we broke through. So
then I had 500 square feet at $500 a month.
That was a big deal. Then we got our first
employee. When the Rochester Plaza opened
downtown, they came to us for some reason,
and we got the account.
When was that? That was 1984 or 1985.
We really just outgrew our old space. I remember
working out in the parking lot at the
old store because you just did it. You didn’t
think about it. And then I saw that space on
East Avenue, and they had just redone it, the
whole entire store, and it was for lease. And
to me it was a lot of money. My father was
totally freaked out. He thought for sure I was
going to be penniless. I put all the money I had
saved into the space. And I remember going
in super early the morning we were supposed
to open. It was the week before Thanksgiving.
And I looked around, and I was scared shitless.
I thought, “What the fuck have I done?”
And then the doors opened, and we were
mobbed, and it never stopped. It was kind of
scary actually.
Did you have any idea how forward-thinking
you were, moving into that space, looking
back at it now?
I do feel pride in it. That’s our corner. Even
if people don’t come in to buy something, they
enjoy the window maybe, or they’re inspired
by something. We’ve lived through all the
changes in that area. I think that’s important
on some level. But we were different back
then. East Avenue was a nice address. I wanted
to be upscale. I thought upscale was the way
to go. But now I look at pictures, and I’m horrified,
because our logo was a bird of paradise,
you know?
You used to do bird of paradise?
Oh my God, I get uncomfortable looking
at it. It makes me—I’m a little embarrassed.
So why the change?
We ran like a machine for years until
one morning I woke up and said, “I can’t do
this anymore. If I see another fucking bird of
paradise. If I see…” People just had this image
of an Arena’s look that they wanted. But in my
soul, it was like naturalism and earthy and the
way flowers grow. So one morning I met with
everybody, and I said, “We’re not going to do
this anymore.” We had a whole identity crisis.
Jonathan Rutherford
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 19

interview
And we took down the neon, and we changed
the logo, and that was when we added the
sunflower. I wanted something that isn’t in
a flower shop. And, at that time, sunflowers
weren’t in a flower shop. I said, “Let’s just go
to botanical.”
How did people respond?
It was so awkward. People didn’t know.
People were ordering, and they wanted the
old Arena’s. We actually did both for a while.
The new was still beautiful, but it wasn’t birds
of paradise. It wasn’t sculptural. It was low
and mossy and that craggy branch and some
beautiful roses. It was the new pretty.
When was that?
It might have been mid-’90s. We went
completely natural—we went the other way.
So it was shortly after that I think that
you started bringing into the showroom
accessories.
Yes. We were only a florist. But people
started wanting to buy the tables and displays
we were using in the store. Then, before you
know it, everything had a price tag on it. So
the retail piece was sort of secondary. But I
think that made us fresh.
So that was a turning point?
The turning point was when I went true to
what I really loved—when I gave myself permission
to actually design instead of producing
what I thought people had grown to like
or what I thought was the right thing to do to
make us be noticed. Then I was much happier
with Arena’s.
What about the upstairs at Arena’s? The idea
of Organic Luxe and interior design?
We did interior design because it was just
this—I said no to it for so long, and then I
would take on a project here and there. And
then I started selling houses I was living in
because people liked the aesthetic. They liked
the aesthetic in the store. But I was always
afraid of losing my focus or doing too much
and fucking up. So I would take one project
at a time. Then when Jonathan (Ragusa) came
onboard, we really set ourselves up for interior
design and made a commitment to it. It was
only when I really thought it was a good fit.
Like a really good fit, like it was with Greg
(Lipphard, a dear friend and antiques dealer).
He said to me the week before he died, “I’m
giving you all my books. …You can do it.” I
remember how hard it was to pick up all those
books. There was so much of Greg in them.
It just kind of boosted me to say, you can do
this.
And now you do commercial and private
interiors?
Yes, both. We’ve been really fortunate that
people entrust us and let us into their personal
space.
What do you think people would find surprising
about you?
I’m shy. And I don’t have patience for
drama. I’m better one-on-one than in groups.
I’m not a party animal. There are no parties at
6 a.m. in the morning. Those parties you don’t
want to go to. They’re scary.
If you had to give design advice to someone
who’s designing their own living space, what
would it be?
Don’t rush it. Bring your favorite things,
20 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015

ut don’t be afraid to get rid of shit either.
Purge. Purge and bring a few things into it.
Because the few things that you love, you’ll
always love, and they’ll always work in a
space. They just will. It’s interesting. … I have
clients that can dress impeccably but are really
intimidated doing their house. And I just don’t
see what the difference is. It should be the
same.
What’s the best advice you ever received?
I’m going to cry. … It was from my father.
He said—he said a lot of things. Be humble, of
course, was his big thing. But it was that there
are two types of people in life, the givers and
the takers. Be a giver and surround yourself
with givers, which is so black and white,
because there are also takers with potential to
give.
That’s pretty sweet. He was wise.
He was wise. I grew up a lot after he died
because my biggest fear in life was losing my
father. And then it happened. Eight and a half
years ago. And then it’s like you have to grow
up. What are you going to do? You appreciate.
You learn. And you grow.
What about your own personal space?
I don’t need that much actually. It’s my
dogs, my comfy shoes. How much do you
really need? My few weird things. My father’s
scissors, a couple pictures, some good art. I
like that about myself. I could like a $15 find
as much as I could like one of the masters. It’s
weird.
It’s not weird. To me, there’s a soul in everything.
It’s funny, because I remember my first big
house. My first splurge. I remember my father
came over, and he, of course, had a sleepless
night. My mother was excited because it was
pretty, and she was happy for me. But my dad
just thought it was unnecessary. And now I
understand what he was trying to say. But at
that time, in the ’80s, it was this sense of more,
more, more.
Consumption.
Yes. I remember being exposed to more
and being able to have more, but really never
having any time to enjoy it. So I kind of
missed out on a lot. But I remember coming
home and having the Mercedes convertible
and the Mercedes station wagon in the garage
and being exhausted and being embarrassed of
the Mercedes convertible, because I appreciated
it aesthetically. I had always been in awe
of them, but once I got one, I think I put like
six miles on it or something. It just wasn’t me.
So I’d open the garage door, and think, “OK, I
got that out of my system.” You have to figure
those things out as you go.
Were you hard on yourself?
I was brutal. I was brutal because I hate
waste, because I’m my father’s son. But I
also like nice. But nice can be a lot of different
things. I’m just as happy driving my little
goofy Ford Transit around than driving my
(Mercedes) G wagon, you know? Sometimes a
little happier actually.
Yeah, because you’re invisible.
Exactly. I don’t like a lot of attention. It’s
back to being a kid and being invisible. I’m
really the same.
Jonathan Rutherford Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 21

interview
Dr. Alice
Holloway
Young
Meet the woman who
invented the first school
desegregation program in
the country
AS A CHILD, ALICE HOLLOWAY YOUNG DID
NOT WANT TO GO TO SCHOOL. “I LOVED
LEARNING, BUT I HATED SCHOOL,” YOUNG
RECALLS VIVIDLY. “MY TEACHER WAS
MEAN AND SO WERE THE KIDS. THE WHITE
KIDS RIDING THE BUSES WOULD SPIT OUT
THE WINDOW AT US.”
Living in Virginia, Young walked to school
with the other black children. There were no
schools for African-Americans in Virginia,
and her parents went to great lengths to get
access to education for Alice Victoria and
her six siblings. Later, they picked up and
moved across the state line to Wise, N.C.,
where Sears, Roebuck & Co. leader and
philanthropist Julius Rosenwald was building
several schools for African-Americans in the
rural South.
Young’s father owned a farm in Wise, and
she says that is what instilled in her the dignity
of hard work. She milked cows and picked
cotton, but she didn’t mind because of an
important lesson she learned from her father.
“He said, ‘Remember you’re picking your
own cotton.’ My father was self-taught. He
was one of the most brilliant men I know.
After working all day on the farm, he would
sit and practice writing his name.”
It was life on a different kind of farm that
led Young to her decision to be the advocate
for education she would become for more
than 50 years here in Rochester. After earning
her bachelor of science degree from Bennett
College for women, which she was able to
afford through an academic scholarship and
scrubbing floors on campus, Young and her
good friend, Anne Derr Jones, answered the
call for volunteers and traveled to a migrant
camp in central New York in 1944 to establish
a nursery school program and expose the
camp conditions. The plight of the black
migrant workers touched Young profoundly.
22 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015
Betsy Traub

“They came in open-bed trucks like
cattle all the way from Sanford, Fla., to pick
beans. They picked a bushel of beans for 50
cents and signed for their purchases at the
commissary with an ‘x.’ So they sat with
me and learned to write their name,” Young
explains. “That’s when I learned to become a
teacher. I felt those families would want the
same thing for their children as I would want
for mine.”
Continuing her education, Young went on
to Cornell University to work on her master’s
degree. But it was love that led her to make a
permanent stop in Rochester, where she would
catch the train to Ithaca for college and back
to visit her friend Anne, who was attending
the University of Rochester. Young recalls
that she caught the train from the station
where Dinosaur Bar-B-Que now stands on
Broad Street.
“I came to Rochester in 1945 with Anne.
St. Simon Cyrene Episcopal Church gave a
reception for the two new girls in town. I eyed
a nice-looking gentleman at that reception,
James Taylor Young Sr.,” Young laughs.
Young had met her future husband. She
left Cornell and instead earned her master’s
and doctorate degrees from the University of
Rochester.
Married and highly educated, Young
became a substitute teacher at Rochester City
School No. 9. She learned the class had a
revolving door of substitute teachers because
the teacher had cancer, which the students did
not know. “I went in there and said, ‘My name
is Mrs. Young, and I am here to stay!” Young
says boldly. “And the next thing I did,” Young
describes in a quieter voice, “I explained that
their teacher was sick and suggested we write
letters to her.”
Young earned that position and started
what would be 40 years of service to the
Rochester City School District. When she
was hired in 1952, Young had become just
the fifth African-American teacher there. She
was later promoted to the position of reading
specialist at School No. 7, only the second
one in the entire district, to a class of all white
boys. Her success there led to her appointment
“Unless
children can
see what’s on
the other side
of the fence,
they’ll never
know what’s
there.”
as assistant vice principal at School No. 19,
where she stayed for four years, and, later,
principal at School No. 24, a school with an
all-white faculty and all-white student body.
And after two years as principal, she was
asked to take on an important project that
gained national attention for the Rochester
City School District. The district had $1 million
in funding from the Elementary and Secondary
Education Act to design a program to promote
school integration.
“I wrote that program,” Young says
proudly. “I selected some inner-city schools,
and I hand-selected the youngsters to go to
West Irondequoit. I did workshops with the
faculty. The board meetings were rough.
School integration didn’t go easily,” Young
says. “We integrated city schools prior to the
federal mandate. It wasn’t welcomed with
open arms. Put this in perspective. We’re back
in the ’60s now, and you have to understand
the tension around the whole country back
then. I remember a person I considered a
supporter of mine coming into my office
and saying, ‘Alice, what do you think you’re
doing?’ I said to him, ‘Unless children can see
what’s on the other side of the fence, they’ll
never know what’s there. I’m taking down the
fence.’”
Young says Robert Kennedy visited
Rochester to learn more about her innovative
plan. It was the country’s first school
desegregation program, which today is known
as the Urban-Suburban program, offering
city students the opportunity to attend
participating suburban schools. It marks its
50th anniversary this year.
In addition to serving the city school
district, Young became a co-founder of
Monroe Community College.
“I remember the day Dr. Sam came to
my house and said, ‘We’re thinking about
starting a community college.” That man was
Samuel Stabins, and he enlisted Young’s help
in establishing Monroe Community College.
Young was named a trustee in 1961. She
went on to serve as the chair of the board
of trustees from 1978 to 1998 and has been
honored as the longest-serving trustee at any
community college in New York State.
MCC continues Young’s legacy with the Alice
H. Young Teaching Internship for Ethnic
Minority Graduate students, which was
instituted in 1987. Its goal is to provide MCC
students with a more culturally diverse faculty
while also affording the interns a valuable
teaching experience.
“MCC is in my blood,” explains Young,
who has a personalized license plate—1MCC.
“MCC is the best example of trying to make a
change with the way we’re getting in schools
and working with counselors, bringing
students on campus.”
With the city school graduation rate
continuing to decline, Young feels there is
never enough being done to help children
achieve the best possible education.
“We need to work more with parents.
There are great parents, but there are
other parents that need support. They need
guidance,” Young explains. “We need to pour
more money and effort into preschool and
early-education programs. You have to start
early.
Young herself is still very much involved.
At 91, she is still an honorary chair of the
MCC board of trustees (and regularly
attends meetings) and lends her time to many
other civic organizations.
“You have to stay involved. I feel very
blessed.”
—Lori A. Gable
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 23

interview
Gerry
Buckley
NTID’s president leads the
school that showed him a
world of possibilities

ONE OF EIGHT CHILDREN GROWING
UP IN ST. LOUIS, MO., GERRY BUCKLEY
WAS BORN HARD-OF-HEARING. AS HE
GREW, HIS CONDITION PROGRESSED.
THE MORE HEARING HE LOST, THE
MORE DISCONNECTED HE FELT
FROM THE WORLD AROUND HIM. TO
COPE, HE PRETENDED TO HEAR THE
CONVERSATIONS OF HIS FRIENDS AND
FAMILY AS HE SAT IN SILENCE.
“You act like you understand. You
become a good faker,” he explains. “But I was
becoming increasingly frustrated by the time I
was done with high school.”
After graduating in 1974, Buckley came to
the National Technical Institute for the Deaf,
a college at Rochester Institute of Technology
serving deaf and hard-of-hearing students.
Unlike his experience in his mainstream high
school, he was surrounded by deaf students
just like him, as well as hearing students who
were interested and cared about deaf culture.
It was transformational.
“In high school, I would have to watch
for visual cues. I’d laugh when they laughed,
but I never really knew what was going on,”
he recalls. “I came here, and all of the students
were talking, communicating. You don’t have
to fake it. You can be who you are.”
But the climate outside of NTID wasn’t
as welcoming. As a social work major, he and
his fellow classmates had difficulty getting
placements, even in Rochester. People simply
weren’t ready for a deaf workforce. Buckley
was undeterred.
NTID was a national experiment,
established in 1965 through an act of
Congress. As a young student, Buckley was
reminded that the eyes of the nation were on
him and his peers.
“There was a feeling that we were
breaking barriers. That was our role. That was
our responsibility,” he says.
After graduating and working in state
hospitals and mental health institutes, Buckley
increasingly found that he was educating the
people he served, helping them to become
self-advocates. He channeled this passion
“There was a
feeling that we
were breaking
barriers. That
was our role.
That was our
responsibility.”
into more schooling, obtaining a master’s of
social work from the University of Missouri
and earning a doctorate in special education
from the University of Kansas. For the deaf,
education meant so much more than a
diploma.
“Until we have equivalent degrees, we
can’t speak for ourselves.”
He also got involved in the political
process, lobbying for establishment of deaf
social work positions, and seeking to help
an underserved deaf population dealing
with issues such as suicide, alcoholism, and
domestic abuse.
“There was no mental health system for
the deaf. The system wasn’t serving them. It
didn’t know how,” he remembers.
In 1990, Buckley made the decision to
return to NTID, this time as an educator. He
was again called by a sense of responsibility, to
give back to the school that had given him so
much opportunity. He also felt an even greater
responsibility: One of his three children is
deaf.
“He started bringing me to NTID
functions when I was seven years old,” recalls
Dr. Jennifer Miller, Buckley’s daughter. “He’d
point out a wide variety of deaf role models,
and it really cultivated my interest in coming
here and being a part of the college experience
once I was older.”
Like Buckley’s experience decades before,
Miller felt a sense of belonging in Rochester.
“I was very young, but distinctly
remember feeling shocked by how quickly
we were invited to events and holiday
get-togethers,” she says. “It was thrilling
to understand everything, and strangely
wonderful to be around people who didn’t see
me as different.”
The exposure to deaf culture at NTID and
in Rochester contributed to Miller pursuing
her own dreams, without worrying about
being limited by her deafness. She is now a
veterinarian living in Rochester.
After serving NTID for nearly 20 years,
Buckley was named NTID president and RIT
vice president and dean in 2011. He can think
of no better place for new deaf students to
learn and find a sense of belonging.
“I say Rochester is the only place that
you have to worry about finding people who
don’t sign,” Buckley says, joking that it can
be difficult having a private conversation in
American Sign Language in Rochester, because
so many Rochesterians sign.
“Most places here have learned how to
communicate and be accessible. Because it’s
so comfortable, many students don’t want
to leave, but they should,” he says. “We’re
preparing them to give back. We want them
to go back and work on advocacy for other
opportunities in other cities.”
Buckley stays focused on the future,
always looking for ways that he can positively
impact the deaf community, and not resting
on achievements such as a 94 percent job
placement rate and higher average salaries for
NTID graduates.
Right now, the bulk of his time is spent
working with the students at NTID, preparing
them for a career and life ahead.
“I have the best job in the world. This
place believed enough in me to help me
overcome my doubts. I look at the students,
and I know one day one of them will replace
me. One of them will look up and say, ‘That’s
possible.’”
—Jen Palumbo
Matt Calabrese
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 25

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Freezing cold. Fresh water.
And freedom of the waves.
By Paul Gangarossa
photos by Cole Slutzky
Think about a surfer. The
sun-kissed skin and board shorts. The frequent
use of the words ‘gnarly’ and ‘radical,’ ‘dude’
and ‘bummer.’
Now take that picture—that preconceived
notion of what a surfer looks like, how he acts
and talks—take that picture and burn it.
If you need any help with this exercise,
wait for the winds to pick up on most Saturday
mornings this winter, and head out to the
beach at Lake Ontario. You might have to do
some searching, but you’ll find them: surfers.
Lake surfers.

“I don’t think that guy exists,” says
Darrell Licata about the “surfer dude” persona.
“It’s just a movie character that they used to
make fun of the sport. It’s just always the way
it’s been ever since surfing was first popularized.”
In his view, no sport’s athletes have suffered
more media and social stigma than
surfing, and Licata doesn’t mince words when
asked about it.
“Those Hollywood writers just fucked it.
They just fucked surfing! And it just sort of
stuck. It’s just impossible to get away from
that.”
Unlike its more attractive cousin, lake
surfing thrives on cold weather and blustering
winds to provide ideal conditions. If skin
looks burned, it’s from the frigid wind. Still,
the tie that binds both is the love of surfing.
Hundreds of miles from salt-water waves, local
surfers found a way, and one another. One
by one, they caught wind of the promise of
surfable waves on the lake, and, like the tides,
were pulled to the shores to see it for themselves.
Cole Slutzky, a New Jersey native who
attended RIT, was caught just that way.
“It was a fateful day,” says Slutzky, who
now resides in Brooklyn. “I had brought a
board to just paddle around on the lake to
keep in shape or whatever; that was my third
year in school. It was September or October,
and I drove out for a paddle at Ontario State
Park. I drove around the bend to Seabreeze,
and I met a bunch of guys surfing on the water
and started talking to them.”
Trevor Cranmer is another Rochesterbased
lake surfer who, to his surprise, found
James Walls, one of the
lake surfers, often takes
his son winter surfing.
the scene to be pretty relaxing.
“It’s great because, when we get surf up
here, there’s storms and chaos with the weather
and everything, and there’s no one else out,”
Cranmer says. “I get to share the lake with
three of my friends. When there are waves on
the East or West coast, you’re sharing those
waves with a hundred other people. I don’t
feel like fighting for waves. It just doesn’t feel
natural. It’s a more relaxing experience, and I
feel like this is more of what surfing should be,
what it was intended to be.”
Licata notes that there’s another, very
important reason that the lake surfers are so
open to adding a few people to the group.
“In the Great Lakes, generally, you’re begging
to find someone to go out surfing with.
If you see somebody else out there, they’re
instantly your friend. Ya know, you call them
over, and everybody likes to surf together.
And, generally, the conditions we surf in here
in the Great Lakes are a lot more dangerous
than the conditions you’re generally surfing in
the ocean. So it’s a little bit more of a buddy
system because you really need to look out for
each other here in a way.”
It didn’t take long for Slutzky, a photographer
and budding documentary filmmaker, to
form an idea. He’d grown up an ocean surfer
and lived that life firsthand. He, too, resented
A frosty Trevor Cranmer
contemplates his next dip
into Lake Ontario.

the stereotypes and immediately saw something
different about this surfing subculture.
With a drastically smaller number of surfers,
the dynamic is more supportive, more communal.
Slutzky decided to combine his talent with
his newfound passion to create a documentary
to help tear down the perceptions that paint
that portrait of the surfer dude.
“My goal is to show people the aspect
of surfing in this kind of rare culture, and
demonstrate how powerful it is,” Slutzky says.
“These guys are going out in 34-degree water,
negative windchills, and they’re so happy and
so stoked. They’re just out there to have fun.
… It’s really cool, especially when you’re freezing
your balls off.”
It’s been four years since Slutzky began
piecing together his film, “Preconceived
Noceans,” a clever play on words that tips a
cap to the lake surfers he’s come to know. He
makes trips back to Rochester now and then
to do more work and also to hit the waves
whenever possible. The plan is to finish with
a feature-length film (more than 40 minutes
long), enter it into film festivals, and hopefully
show it at area places like The Little. (There’s
a 4-minute trailer already on YouTube).
As Slutzky’s film portrays, these guys
aren’t pompous or cocky. Lake surfers don’t
claim to be “real surfers” as if the coastal guys
are somehow fake or inauthentic. If a blondehaired
California dude strolled up to the lake
wanting to give it a try, he’d be welcomed just
the same.
“There is no surfer guy; there’s just people
who like to surf, and they all do different
things,” Licata says. “In our group, there’s
everything: there’s a fireman, a cop, a doctor,
construction guys, bums, you name it. Every
different kind of personality, they’re all down
there.”
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 31

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FALSE ALARM
Dutiful screenings and
highly advanced tools
are detecting cancer
earlier than ever. But
is that a good thing?
Some experts say no.
By Mary Stone
Seated in the silence of a physician’s
office, a patient who hears the word
‘cancer’ will feel his stomach lurch
and his heart race as he finds himself
in one of the most dreaded, and
increasingly common moments of modern life.
To many minds, a cancer diagnosis equals
a death sentence, which generally is followed
by an urgency to pursue the most aggressive
treatment available, often with the aim to
eradicate the cancer—no matter how toxic
or harmful the treatments. But what if that
visceral reaction the word ‘cancer’ elicits—not
only from patients, but from their loved ones
and physicians as well—was more harmful
than the cancer itself would ever be?
Much of the fear stems from the assumption
that cancer grows, which is not always
the case. Combine this assumption with increasingly
sensitive screening equipment, and
we quickly find ourselves treating more cases
than necessary, experts explain.
Otis Webb Brawley M.D., chief medical
and scientific officer and executive vice president
of the American Cancer Society, has spoken
out about the need to redefine cancer and
the methods with which cancer is diagnosed
and treated.
“Keep in mind, we in the United States
have been taught since we were on our mother’s
knee that cancer was bad and that the
way to deal with it is to find it early and cut it
out,” Brawley says. “Now we’re changing the
rules. Some cancers are good, and they can be
watched. Some cancers don’t need aggressive
treatment. Some cancers we can watch and if
they seem to be growing, then we can increase
the aggressiveness of our treatment.”
Lung cancer is but one example. It is estimated
that lung cancer is overdiagnosed in 10
percent to 18 percent of screenings, Brawley
says. The rate of overdiagnosis for breast
cancer is estimated o be much higher — up to
50 percent of cases, but Brawley believes the
figures are probably closer to 20 percent to
34 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015

25 percent.
In thyroid and prostate cancers, however,
the figures are even higher, he says.
Essentially, cancer is defined as abnormal
cells that divide without control and are able
to invade other tissues or parts of the body
through blood and lymph systems. But the
rate at which these abnormal cells divide and
spread is difficult to determine and depends on
myriad factors well beyond the organs that are
affected. In other words, simply having cancer,
counter to common belief, does not necessarily
mean that it will kill you or even pose a health
problem.
It is estimated that every second, millions
of cells in our body divide, copying their
DNA. Biologist and cancer researcher Robert
Weinberg, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
notes in his work that with every cell
division there are imperfections. If we lived
long enough, Weinberg states, we all would
eventually get cancer.
In the last two to three years, a movement
has been building in oncology that not
all cancer needs to be treated; in fact, some
cancers are not cancer at all. At odds with this
are hypersensitive screening technologies that
can detect the smallest and in some cases the
most harmless lesions.
But research shows in some cases that
cutting-edge screening has not affected mortality
rates, and some tumors that were treated
were actually indolent, meaning they either
would have stopped growing or grown very
slowly. Some untreated tumors even regress on
their own. But the treatments used to eliminate
them can leave lasting health problems.
An article published last May by the
world’s leading medical journal, Lancet
Oncology, outlined the pervasive problem of
overtreating and overdiagnosing cancer. Indolent
disease, the article states, accounts for 15
percent to 75 percent of all cancers, depending
on the organ affected.
Chunkit Fung M.D., a medical oncologist
at Strong Memorial Hospital, says a deeper
understanding of the biology of a particular
cancer is required to better predict how it will
behave. A classification system, he says, needs
to be developed that is based on the genetic
mutations each cancer has. That way treatment
can be personalized instead of simply
grouped by the organ affected.
“I think the discussion is not about just
screening, but also about are we overtreating
some of the cancers, such as prostate
cancer, which is a very low, indolent disease
“We, in the United States,
have been taught since
we were on our mother’s
knee that cancer was bad
and that the way to deal
with it is to find it early
and cut it out.”
that might not even cause any problems in
some patients. But at the same time, we don’t
really have a good way to stratify (cancers) to
determine what are the really aggressive ones
that can really cause problems for patients, not
just in prostate cancer or breast cancer, but in
many different cancers,” Fung says.
Thyroid cancer is one example where improved
screening technologies did not improve
outcomes. From 1975 to 2009, the incidence
of thyroid cancer tripled, but the death rate remained
constant, Lancet’s article shows. When
the incidence rises and the death rate is flat,
that’s how you can tell overdiagnosis is going
on, Brawley explains.
The increase in incidence in thyroid cancer
is due almost entirely to the ability now to
detect small cancers less than 2 centimeters,
which previously went undetected, and now
often get treated even though they most likely
will never grow.
In prostate cancer, 20 percent to 70 percent
of patients are said to be overdiagnosed.
Brawley suspects the figures are probably 50
percent to 60 percent.
“In the case of prostate cancer, I’m really
frightened that a large number of men
have not been truly informed about what we
know and what we don’t know,” he says. A
man who gets treatment for prostate cancer
believes it is because of that treatment that he
is still alive, when the chances are more likely
that he is a victim of overtreatment, Brawley
explains. “They have the misconception that
prostate cancer screening is better than it actually
is,” he says.
For example, 90 percent of glandular
prostate cancers, many of which may have
been found to be inconsequential cancers, are
treated with radiation or surgery, Lancet’s
article states. For 15 percent to 20 percent of
these cases, sexual, urinary, and gastrointestinal
side effects result. Occasionally, the Lancet
article notes, radiation treatments to stop a
cancer that never would have caused harm
will lead to future, malignant cancer that will;
repeated biopsies can lead to sepsis in men,
increased costs, and emotional and psychological
disruption for patients and their families.
In the case of Rochester local Connie
Kenneally, the treatment offered for her stage
IV renal cancer could have left her severely
debilitated. Kenneally got her metastatic diagnosis
in late 2011, when there was little to no
support for a wait-and-see approach. But what
if her doctors were wrong, she wondered, and
the cancer did not progress?
Most people, Kenneally says, will do exactly
what their doctors tell them. It’s certainly
what her brother and some of her closest
friends urged her to do.
“One of my friends said, ‘For once, can’t
you just do what you’re told?’” Kenneally
recalls.
Instead, Kenneally set out to get some
evidence whether her tumors, which at the
time cumulatively measured slightly more than
6 centimeters, would likely grow. To find out
if her tumors might be indolent, or slow-growing,
as she suspected, she researched many
avenues, including genomic testing companies,
immediately after her diagnosis. Through testing
to determine her genetic alteration, a few
studies suggested she may not have the gene
mutation that would indicate an aggressively
growing tumor.
Kenneally enrolled in a clinical observation
trial at Cleveland Clinic and was able to
avoid toxic treatments. Instead of facing a life
sentence, Kenneally, through objective, coolheaded
research and testing may or may not
have saved her life, but at the very least she
saved herself from the damage acutely toxic
treatments would have caused.
“My issue is that no one considered indolent
tumors until Brian Rini at the Cleveland
Clinic put it on the table. It was clearly not
an option. That is my issue,” Kenneally says.
“Drugs are always the primary answer to cancer
when you see an oncologist, just as surgery
is the primary answer when you go to see a
surgeon.”
At any point following a cancer diagnosis,
doing what is right is hard to know when the
cancer itself might grow fast, slow, or not at
all. Undertreating, for physicians as well as
patients and their family, is often scarier than
overtreating.
Physicians, for example, might be sued for
undertreating patients if the cancer wors-
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 35

ens, but they are not held accountable for
overtreating. That might be one reason why
observation is not something that patients
are usually offered as a stand-alone treatment
paradigm (without drugs), Kenneally says.
The urology oncologist behind the indolent
tumor trial at Cleveland Clinic, Brian Rini
M.D., says only 5 percent to 10 percent of the
patients he sees qualified for observation without
treatment. Some of the approximately 50
patients enrolled in the trial needed treatment
within three to six months of observation. Of
the original 50, there are between 15 percent
to 20 percent, Kenneally says, who still do not
require treatment they otherwise would have
received. Kenneally is one of them.
“There’s not a lot of data out there, which
is why we did the study,” Rini says. Most of
the patients in the study were eager to delay
treatment or avoid it altogether, Rini adds. In
Fung’s experience, however, most patients immediately
want to pursue the most aggressive
lesions that are unlikely to cause harm if left
untreated. The study’s authors say that precursors
of cancer should not have the term ‘cancer’
attached to them; screening guidelines also
should be changed to lower the detection of
inconsequential cancers and low-risk IDLEs.
While Rini thinks there will be little to be
gained from a change in terminology, Fung
believes it is a wise, albeit monumental, shift.
“We really understand that indolent lesions
are most likely not going to cause any
problems in the near future or during the
patient’s lifetime. I think there’s a justifiable
reason (to change terminology) because I think
hearing the word ‘cancer’ really gets the patients,
I mean, instills a lot of fears in them—
Connie Kenneally,
local entrepreneur
and cancer survivor
“One of my friends
said, ‘For once, can’t
you just do what
you’re told?’”
treatment available.
“When we think about the word cancer, it
really scares not just the patients but actually
physicians, and that drives some of their fears
and overtreatment,” Fung says.
A cancer diagnosis has an emotional
impact on patients, their family, and friends.
Even aside from overtreatment, the mere word
‘cancer’ produces a degree of anxiety, fear, and
depression. There are other effects as well.
“No matter how minor the cancer, that
person all of a sudden, with the label of being
a cancer patient, is going to miss work more
often and have many more health issues just
because of the label,” Brawley says.
Now, however, there is a movement under
way to change diagnostic terminology so that
indolent lesions no longer are called cancer.
The goal of the change is to limit some of the
fear that pushes people to pursue unnecessary
treatment.
The Lancet study in May proposed the
term “indolent lesion of epithelial origin,” or
IDLE, to replace the word cancer for those
even for physicians,” Fung says. “They feel
like they have to treat the patients right now.
We have to cut (the cancer) out even though
there might not even be any survival benefit,
and may actually cause more harm and side
effects.”
Such a paradigm shift will involve a lot of
levels of the medical establishment, Fung says,
and will require a long nationwide rollout.
Still, he says, it is necessary. A growing number
of physicians, scientists and other advocates of
diagnostic reform agree.
In March 2012, the National Cancer Institute
convened a panel of experts to evaluate
the problem of cancer overdiagnosis, which
NCI describes as the process of detecting and
treating harmless tumors as if they were harmful,
sometimes leading to patients’ death or to
long-term injury. The panel is seeking methods
to help distinguish between the deadliest and
most harmless cancers for more tailored treatments.
To reach this point, advocates propose
that patients with cancer that is of low or uncertain
risk enroll in observational registries,
not unlike the observational study Kenneally
found.
Perhaps most important, the widespread
belief that repeated screenings deliver better
outcomes needs to be changed. Diagnostic
testing also needs to be limited, reform
advocates note. New models of how cancer
progresses must also be developed. But to do
this, a better understanding of the microenvironment
and genetics of tumors is needed to
better predict their development.
Our whole understanding of cancer, Brawley
says, has to be updated to include genetics
and genomics.
“(The new definition) will take into account
not just morphology, or what it looks
like under a microscope, but genetics, which is
one gene, and genomics, which is how a bunch
of genes interact with each other,” Brawley
explains.
There are 5-millimeter tumors, where the
genes inside program it in such a way so that
it will never grow or spread, and it will never
kill, Brawley says. There are other 5-millimeter
tumors with genetics that will make the tumor
progress, spread and kill. The one that doesn’t
spread is the overdiagnosed cancer we don’t
36 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015
John Myers

need to cure, he says, while the cancer that
kills needs to be found and treated early.
“Quite honestly, we have a 19th-century
definition of cancer right now, despite all of
these technologies we’ve developed over the
last 150 years. What we really need is a 21stcentury
definition of cancer. A 21st-century
definition is not: ‘This looks like cancer,’ but
‘This is what the genes inside of the cancer
actually intend for this tissue to do.’”
To make it easier to identify cancers, more
data on the behavior and genetics of tumors
must be collected and shared between institutions.
At least one company is looking to offer
that capability. A new health care technology
Chunkit Fung M.D.,
medical oncologist at
Strong Memorial Hospital
larger data observations on patients.
“I don’t want to say that cancer data is
often composed of islands of information
within each oncology practice, but that’s how I
see it,” she says.
“Some of this observational data gets
published within studies and some doesn’t,”
Kenneally says. But many patients don’t have
the luxury of waiting until the patterns are
available to lead to more informed treatment
decisions.”
Today, Kenneally is using what she has
learned as a patient along with her skills in
raising early-stage capital to get more lifescience
and medical startups the necessary
partnerships to benefit patients like her. New
Brawley says.
While some doctors are fearful of litigation
for undertreating patients, others find that
the limitations of screening are too complicated
to explain to patients, he explains. There’s
also a more basic inability to change.
Brawley says: “We’ve seen some panic and
lack of appreciation of science regarding Ebola
and health care workers recently; I see that
regularly in terms of cancer—a lack of appreciation
of scientific fact, a certain amount of
fear, and the end result being some behaviors
that are sometimes very harmful.”
Fung agrees.
“When you change the national guideline,
any policy shift is going to take time, but I
think within the health system, we also have
the responsibility to make sure that we cause
no harm,” Fung says. “I mean, that’s first: We
“And if we think
that overtreating
cancer would cause
a problem in the
patient, we are
actually causing
some harm.”
company called Flatiron Health is building the
first Web-based data platform to provide access
to anonymous patient oncology information
from institutions across the United States.
The company, funded in large part by Google
Ventures, is collecting research, clinical information,
cancer care guidelines and treatment
patterns, among other data, that one day, it
is hoped, will provide clinicians with a better,
more targeted menu of treatment options.
“Flatiron, in my opinion, is going to
revolutionize oncology,” Kenneally says. As a
business executive specializing in funding lifescience
startups, Kenneally is well-positioned
to recognize Flatiron’s potential. She has
introduced the Cleveland Clinic to the Flatiron
idea in order for doctors and patients to make
faster, more informed decisions based on
technology, massive data collection, analysis,
and an updated method of interpreting
screening and testing results are all required,
Kenneally explains, for oncologists to be able
to abandon what often seems like a one-sizefits-all
approach.
But changing the way cancer is considered
is going to take a long time, Brawley says:
“There is a group of people who don’t want it
to happen,” he says. “I see people with DCIS
(a type of breast cancer) who are offended that
a committee might want to decide that they
didn’t have cancer. Then there’s the group who
are so frightened by the word ‘cancer’ that
they feel everything must be done to treat it.
“There has to be a change in our mindset
and in our understanding of cancer, and some
doctors are just as bad as patients on this,”
do no harm. And if we think that overtreating
cancer would cause a problem in the patient,
we are actually causing some harm.”
Kenneally has seen this first hand. She
recently watched a friend suffer, in no small
part, from the same program Kenneally
declined to follow. Her friend, whose cancer
did progress, recently died. Kenneally now
wonders how much the treatment contributed
to her suffering and whether the months by
which the treatment extended her life were
worth the pain.
“A year ago we were walking along the
canal path in Pittsford having ice cream.
(Now) she’s dead. So, you look at that. Now,
her cancer had a faster growth rate, so she
wouldn’t be going down an observational
path, but you know she had her kidney out.
She had a tumor removed, and they gave her
all that caustic treatment, and you know, it
just makes me wonder...”
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 37

A Local Expert’s Take
On Cancer Screening
As founder of one of the first freestanding breast cancer diagnostic centers in the country,
Elizabeth Wende Breast Care, Wende Young M.D. has seen the evolution of screening
technology and knows the advances it has yet to make.
Over nearly 40 years, Young’s experience with patients is equally vast, yet their reactions
to a cancer diagnosis have changed very little. Many patients, she says, want to go for broke
in their treatment regardless of the cost to their health.
WY: I think from my past dealings with physicians
and patients that sometimes the physician
wants to do more than they really should.
And sometimes the patient wants them to do
more than they really should. It’s not always the
physicians that want to overtreat.
POST: It’s a real dilemma, isn’t it?
WY: Yeah, and it’s invasive. Our problem is that
we don’t yet have the ability to look at these
cancers and determine for each patient exactly
what should be done. We don’t have the tools
yet. We’re getting there. They’re doing DNA
analyses on these tumors, and they’re going
to come out with a lot of information that will
make a big difference in terms of whether we
treat or not. But right now we don’t have that
information. So your mother (for example), if
she’s got something that was picked up in a
mammogram, you can’t believe what people
say because you don’t know. We don’t know
enough yet about the different cancers’ DNA
to be able to predict whether she has the type
that’s going straight to the brain, or whether it will
just sit there and still be there when she’s dead.
POST: Can these people pursue some sort
of genetic testing on their own to get a better
idea?
WY: There are some facilities in the country
that can take cancer and can analyze it to
do a DNA analysis on it to find out, to get a
complete readout on the DNA. And they’re
beginning to do some preliminary work now
with these cancers in terms of incubating them
in cells and getting antibodies that can be
injected into the patient. And there are some
weird cases of multiple myeloma that have a
certain genotype that they’ve been able to reproduce
and find antibodies to and cure these
people, but these are a very small part of the
population.
POST: I am curious, what do you advise
people?
WY: I think it’s very, very hard. People do ask
me what to do lots of times. I think that the
type of treatments that people are offered for
their cancer treatments are interpreted differently
by patients depending on how much
they want to live. There are times when people
want inappropriately to try everything they can
possibly try against something that is a Stage
IV cancer that is throughout their body, and
their chances of making it are very slim. I would
advise those people to do palliative care, to
get the best out of the remaining time that they
have. But the patients won’t always listen to
what we say.
I think the thing that doctors really need
to know—need to be counseled on—is how
to talk to patients who have cancer and try to
determine the best treatment for them, but they
have to expect the fact that some patients are
going to want to go for broke no matter what
they say.
POST: It’s causing them more harm than the
cancer would.
WY: Yes. Because they are so determined to
do everything that they possibly can. It doesn’t
make sense, but the way the medical system
is set up now they’re very—I know there’s
virtually no doctor who will tell the patient, “No,
we really can’t do this for her. I refuse to do
this because it’s not appropriate.” That’s not
being done now. I mean we have to educate
the people to not go for broke, and we have
to educate the doctors to accept the fact that
even though it’s not appropriate, some of the
patients are going to insist on it. And you’re
sort of helpless if they want to do this, if they
want to go for it, because it’s—if you say,
“No, I won’t do it,” they’ll just go to somebody
who will.
38 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015
Lisa Barker

POST: Right. But doctors have this obligation to do no harm. I’m sure it’s
got to be very difficult for them to abide …
WY: They have an obligation—they do have an obligation, but there are
some (doctors) who treat with radiation or chemotherapy who are swept
away by the patient’s desire to try to do something. And then, of course,
you have these anecdotal situations where people actually get better.
I think the main problem we have right now is that we just don’t know
enough about how to predict how the individual cancers are going to
behave. And we’re at a disadvantage because we can’t get the patient
statistical numbers or we can’t give the patient enough information to let
them know exactly what their prognosis is with or without treatment.
POST: It sounds like the screening technology has come so far that it’s
detecting things that might never have been detected before and might
never have caused a problem. Now, so much is being detected, but we’re
not detecting quite enough that we can discern which is really going to
cause a problem or not. It seems like we’re nearing a tipping point where
we’re going to be able to discern how an individual cancer will behave.
Are we years, decades or …?
WY: No, I think it’s more like years. I think within five years, there’s going to
be a lot of breakthrough in terms of figuring out how to figure out the DNA.
I mean the DNA field is just bursting wide open at this point. We may have
a lot more information in five years that will help us sit down with patients
and say, “We have a pretty good idea what’s going to happen with and
without treatment. These are the treatments, here are your chances of
making it through treatment without any problems.” I mean we keep getting
better and better at it, but right now a lot of it is we’re just going by
the seat of our pants in terms of how the tumor is going to behave with
treatment, whether or not we should even do it.
POST: So (after a biopsy shows cancer) once you refer them to the surgeon,
what are the chances (the patients are) going to be operated on?
WY: We don’t send them to the surgeons unless they need surgery. I’ve
never sent a patient to a surgeon and have them not be operated on,
because we’ve already made the …
POST: Once you discover cancer, I mean, at what point do you send
patients to them? Once you find out it’s malignant, even though you don’t
know its propensity to grow or how it will behave, you still …
WY: Well, if we make the diagnosis, I was just telling you why we don’t
feel a patient should not be treated, because we don’t know enough
about the DNA of that particular tumor to know whether this is going to
be the person who, you know, has it go directly to the brain or lung or
liver or whatever.
POST: You don’t know at which end of the spectrum they’re going to be.
WY: That’s right. We don’t know because we don’t have that DNA knowledge,
nor does anybody in the government. And it’s so irritating to hear
them say, “Well, not all of these need to be treated.” Well, the only way
you find that out is by following the patient to the end of her life. You know,
don’t treat anybody and follow them all to the end of their life and find out
who died, who didn’t. There’s no way—you can’t say to the patient, “You
might be one of the lucky ones,” because you don’t know if they are.
POST: But in five years maybe.
WY: I’m hoping that within five years, people can get DNA testing of their
tumor that will tell them—give them a pretty good idea—about what they
should do.
—Mary Stone
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up front
FIGHTING
CHANCE
A little-known boxing club in
the City works bodies and minds

As St. Martin Boxing Club’s practice
nears its end, the rhythmic thud
of boxing gloves popping against
sparring mitts fades. So does the scraping
of sneakers against the pavement behind School
No. 7, where the club trains Monday through
Thursday evenings until it secures a permanent
home.
Standing on the sidewalk, St. Martin’s
coordinator, Don Simkin, collects gloves and
headgear from the boxers, who range in age from
6 to 25. Simkin stuffs the equipment into a Swisscheese-like
plastic garbage bag, but it sneaks out
the other side. “I guess it’s time for a new bag,”
Simkin, 73, says jokingly.
A tight budget isn’t anything new for Simkin,
who helped establish the club in 1969 to serve
as a positive influence on Rochester’s youth,
particularly those from challenging social and
economic backgrounds.
“It’s a struggle,” Simkin says. He estimates
he and his wife contribute about half of St.
Martin’s $20,000 annual operational cost. “I try to
do everything cheap. We get what we get.”
The day’s practice may be over, but the job
of Simkin, a retired probation officer, and his
coaching staff isn’t done until all of his boxers get
home safely. That often means they return home
the way they got to practice: the van Simkin
drives.
“That’s one of our major expenses,” he says,
explaining transportation to and from practice
costs about $15 to $20 a day.
All of the coaches sacrifice time and money
to help the boxers, says Jose Collazo, a coach
for St. Martin since 1995, who became its
primary boxing coach a year ago. The rest of the
funds for the club come from small donations
and from revenue generated by ticket sales for its
boxing shows. Simkin says, most of the time the
shows barely break even.
St. Martin could turn to grants for help, but
Simkin has neither applied for nor received a
government grant. “It’s tough for people to spend
$20,000 to run a program for high-risk kids,” he
says. “... Most grants don’t have any interest in
recreation. People underestimate the value of a
medium, such as recreational activities, to teach
basic values.”
Simkin, a Quaker, says his faith has led him
to a life of service. “My goal is to serve God
and mankind. The worst kind of idolatry is selfworship,”
he says. St. Martin tries to work with
parents, agencies, and schools to be a positive
influence in the community.
“It’s really difficult with single parents trying to
raise a kid,” Simkin says. “We’re not special. We
just want to pitch in and help.”
Although St. Martin, which is open to boys
and girls, has produced some of the area’s
best boxers—18 different national Silver Gloves
champions since 1983 and professionals Robert
“Pushup” Frazier and Charles “The Natural”
Mike Martinez
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 41

up front
Don Simpkin, Director of
the St. Martin Boxing Club
Murray—the goal of the program isn’t looking
for the next champion. It is creating successful
people.
What is “success,” though? Collazo, who
started boxing as a 12-year-old in Puerto
Rico, says, “Success is when they amount
to something. I want them to become better
people. Even if they quit boxing.” Can the
measurement of success be found in the list of
adult graduates who have become counselors,
social workers, police officers, pastors,
tradesmen, and teachers, which Simkin says he
needs to update? Is it making it to adulthood
alive, which most have, but some have not? Can
success be measured in a percentage? Simkin
doesn’t think so.
“It’s hard to measure exactly,” he says. “It’s
a little bit of an issue with me. You can make
any figure you want. When you get into social
sciences, there’s no way to do this number stuff.
The best way you can tell is to interview these
people—a year, five years, 10 years—after they
leave. All you can do is see the effect you have.”
Charlie Fitch, 44, of Macedon, saw the effect
first-hand. “To me, (Simkin)’s the closest of
anybody I’ve met to being a saint. He’s got a
huge heart. I’m not saying he’s perfect, but he’s
trying to do the right thing. He’s affected so
many lives. Thousands of lives. He provides a
good place for them. He gives them a place they
can be more productive members of society.”
Growing up boxing in Syracuse, Fitch
developed a healthy respect for St. Martin’s
boxers. He says, every time he faced one, he
lost. When Fitch moved to Rochester after high
school, he decided if you can’t beat ’em, join
’em. He says his time at the club helped mold
him into the man he is today. “Winning the fight
in boxing is the same as winning the fight of life.
You don’t give up. If something doesn’t work
out, you try a different avenue.”
Fitch admires how Simkin keeps St. Martin’s
plugging along. “It’s not getting the money
coming in, but it’s a super successful program,”
he says. “He doesn’t have time to write grants
because he’s too busy helping these kids to
be successful. Successful in the sense of kids
being active. Kids becoming better human
beings.”
St. Martin’s Tracey McGruder, a 23-year-old
student at Monroe Community College, is no kid,
but he sees his life changing because of boxing.
McGruder, who was introduced to boxing
to train for football, says his dedication to the
sport keeps him out of trouble. “I don’t have
time to think about trouble,” he says. “There are
no negative influences pulling me in. I’m focused
on this.” Although some younger members have
been with the club longer, some for as long as
seven years, McGruder says the team turns to
him for leadership. “Even though I was new,
I learned quick. The kids looked up to me. I
always try to set a positive example.”
With older members acting as mentors
and additional guidance from coaches (Simkin,
Collazo, Orlando Santiago, Genardo Ortiz, Larry
King, Eric Martinez, and other volunteers), the
current crop of St. Martin’s 15 to 20 boxers
have a chance at a bright future. Inside the ring
and out.
—Kyle Johnson
Sometimes You
Feel Like a Nut
“I like to eat breakfast alone, and almost never
before noon; anybody with a terminally jangled
lifestyle needs at least one psychic anchor
every twenty-four hours, and mine is breakfast.
In Hong Kong, Dallas or at home — and
regardless of whether or not I have been to bed
— breakfast is a personal ritual that can only
be properly observed alone, and in a spirit of
genuine excess. The food factor should always
be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits,
a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound
of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash
with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs
Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for
random seasoning, and something like a slice
of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of
the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there
should also be two or three newspapers, all mail
and messages, a telephone, a notebook for
planning the next twenty-four hours and at least
one source of good music… All of which should
be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot
sun, and preferably stone naked.”
—Hunter S. Thompson, from “The Great Shark
Hunt,” originally published in 1979
42 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015
Mike Martinez

Semaj Cruz, an 8th
grader at School of
the Arts, with Seedfolk
founders Lisa Barker
and Josiah Krause
Grow, baby, grow
Urban gardens teach teens how to grow food
The teens involved in Seedfolk City Farm’s
urban agriculture program can talk easily about
how they grow garlic, use it to make hummus,
and teach others how to do the same. From
low-income neighborhoods with access mainly
to corner stores that specialize in unhealthy,
processed foods, these teens are gaining the
knowledge and skills to create a more equitable
and accessible community food system.
“I’ve found that if youth, especially at-risk
youth, are given opportunities to do work that
is meaningful and can actually impact their
community, they really rise to the occasion,”
says Lisa Barker, Seedfolk City Farm cofounder.
“I’ve seen this be transformative for
young people in ways that I think surprise even
themselves.”
Seedfolk City Farm maintains growing
spaces at the M.K. Gandhi Institute for
Nonviolence on South Plymouth Avenue and
the Greenhouse Cafe on East Main Street, and
hopes to expand to more sites in the future.
Its Operation Green Winter campaign aims to
raise funds to continue operating its greenhouse
year-round and provide consistent after-school
employment for four teens who have been
with the program—a partnership between
ProsperRochester’s Seedfolk Store and In The
City/Off The Grid—since its inception in 2013.
In all, 26 teens have been given the chance
to learn how locally and sustainably grown
produce can help combat food insecurity.
Some of the teens have even started
gardens at home with their families.
“I really believe that if we want to see
change in how the food system operates, youth
are the people who have to be involved,” Barker
says. “They tend to have the most genuine
perspectives, and they have the most at stake.”
www.facebook.com/seedfolkstore
—Robin L. Flanigan
Matt Calabrese
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 43

up front

“I got a banjo in 1972 because I saw
it in a window and wanted to play
the banjo,” recalls John Bernunzio, owner
of Bernunzio Uptown Music in Rochester’s
East End. “I was 24 years old. It was a piece
of junk and didn’t sound good, nothing like the
instruments I heard on records, so I went on a
quest to find that early sound.”
That quest has led to a career as an
instrument historian, sought after by musicians
around the world who trust his knowledge and
advice on new, refurbished and vintage banjos,
guitars, mandolins and other pieces. He has
sold more than 40,000 instruments in the 40
years he has been in business, and his inventory
holds close to 1,000 instruments, in addition to
accessories, records, and other music-related
items. (An original Bill Haley & The Comets
“Rock-A-Round the Clock” LP signed by every
member of the band has a price tag
of $450.)
He has handled the sale of guitars up
to $300,000 and banjos up to $75,000. The
rarest guitar he ever saw was the Martin D-45,
a steel-string acoustic guitar, the first of which
was made for singing cowboy Gene Autry
at his request in 1933. (Bernunzio fell in love
with music by listening to Autry on the radio
“like every kid in the ’50s.”) “We’ve been lucky
enough to sell two of them over the years,” he
says. “They command at least $250,000.”
But value is in the eye of the beholder. “In
terms of value, something has to be rare but it
also has to be desirable,” Bernunzio explains.
“A lot of things are rare, but if nobody wants
them, they just languish.”
Living one mile from the store, situated
spitting distance from the Eastman School of
Music, the self-taught Bernunzio “tinkers” with
the mandolin and banjo. He eventually found the
sound he was searching for in his mid-20s, but
at the time money was too tight to own it. These
days, he has exact replicas of those banjos he
was pursuing produced for him by the Eastman
Music Co. (no relation to our local Eastman
school).
Bernunzio, who runs his shop with wife
Julie Schnepf, specializes in banjos made
between 1900 and 1935, sending them to
customers as far away as Australia, South Africa
and China. “The craftsmanship that existed
100 years ago was certainly the finest time of
American instruments,” he says. “The selection
of wood and ornamentation was beyond
anything that had existed before in this country.”
Manufacturing changed as a result of World War
II, however, catering to more mass markets. Yet
wood from that era does season to a certain
degree as time passes, offering a bit of a better
sound, he adds.
People buy vintage instruments, which
account for nearly half of the store’s inventory,
for various reasons—some sentimental, some
for the thrill of the hunt.
On one visit while in town, guitarist,
composer and arranger Bill Frisell spotted—and
purchased—a 1964 Fender Musicmaster guitar
because it was the first guitar he’d ever played.
Collectors come at it from another angle,
perhaps wanting an instrument in as many
different styles and from as many different years
as possible from one particular manufacturer.
Bernunzio helps people build collections,
and was responsible for providing a good
portion of the banjos represented in Akira
Tsumura’s 904-page “One Thousand and
One Banjos: The Tsumura Collection,” which
has been referred to as “banjo porn.” When
Tsumura ran into financial trouble in the late
’90s, Bernunzio bought back much of the
collection he helped create.
The store sponsors weekly jam sessions,
works with music teachers to run clinics
on weekends, and hosts five or six free
performances every month. It was a venue for
the First Niagara Rochester Fringe Festival, and
has free concerts with local musicians every
night during the Xerox Rochester International
Jazz Festival. Sometimes musicians in town
on a tour might want a more intimate setting
outside their scheduled performance venue,
so they pop in for a set. American jazz guitarist
Howard Alden did that recently.
Those shows give serious listeners what
they want.
“They’re there just to hear music,”
Bernunzio says. “Not to find a girlfriend, or to
get drunk, or to have an espresso. Just to hear
music unadulterated.”
—Robin L. Flanigan
Matt Calabrese
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 45

Come visit our new showroom
and see for yourself all that’s in store at
NOT THE SAME
OLD ROCHESTER
SELECTION
2929 MONROE AVE. | 585-442-0123 | APPOINTMENTS SUGGESTED
Visit us online at
WisteriaFlowersandGifts.com
360 Culver Road | Rochester, NY | {585} 271-0610
Photo by Tammy Swales Photography

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www.fa.ml.com/gslc_group
*Trust and fiduciary services are provided by Merrill Lynch Trust Company, a division of Bank of America, N.A., Member FDIC.
The Bull Symbol, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management and The Power of the Right Advisor are trademarks or registered trademarks of Bank of America Corporation.
CRPC® is a registered service mark of The College for Financial Planning.
Any tax statements contained herein were not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of avoiding U.S. federal, state or local tax penalties. Neither Merrill Lynch nor its Financial Advisors provide
tax, accounting or legal advice. Clients should review any planned financial transactions or arrangements that may have tax, accounting or legal implications with their personal professional advisors.
Merrill Lynch Wealth Management makes available products and services offered by Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated (“MLPF&S”), a registered broker-dealer and member SIPC, and other subsidiaries of
Bank of America Corporation (“BAC”). Bank of America, N.A. and MLPF&S are wholly owned subsidiaries of BAC.
Investment products: Are Not FDIC Insured Are Not Bank Guaranteed May Lose Value
MLPF&S and Bank of America, N.A. make available investment products sponsored, managed, distributed or provided by companies that are affiliates of BAC or in which BAC has a substantial economic interest including
BofA TM Global Capital Management.
© 2013 Bank of America Corporation. All rights reserved.
AD-10-13-1036 ARE38E67-11-12 445115PM-11/2013

Tomas Flint

makers
Carol Acquilano Trevor Cranmer Jenn Libby
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 49

makers
Carol Acquilano: Painter, Printmaker, Bookbinder
kaleidoscopic
vision
Tomas Flint

Carol Acquilano has been working out of her Anderson Street
studio since 1989, long before the street—and area—was popular.
Acquilano’s magnetic energy bounces off the walls, as warehouse
windows shed natural light on new, old, and even unfinished pieces
around the room.
“I derive constant inspiration from nature,” she says with a smile.
“I love working outdoors because nature is so intensely beautiful, plus
I love the light, the fresh air and sounds and wide-open feel. … Night
sketching outdoors is the ultimate! All about the direct experience and
being in the moment. No matter about the finished thing. I think it is
pure creativeness, when one can barely make out what one is doing, just
reacting to the feel and sense of light and dark.”
Following a dream that was born in art class at Brighton High
School, Acquilano studied painting and stained glass at the School of the
Museum of Fine Arts in Boston before returning home to Rochester.
Today her art cycles through a mixture of acrylic and oil paint,
watercolor, imaginative printmaking using reduction wood cuts as her
medium, bookbinding, and creating artistic sketch books.
“I am unable to come up with a specific category that I neatly fit
into,” she says. “But I am part of a river of creative individuals who have
a need to work at making art. I am part of a ‘we’ whose job is to follow
our passion.”
As to her process, she points out that, “There is no start but rather a
‘jump in.”
—Jen Brunett

makers
Trevor Cranmer fell in love with Rochester back in
1997 when the New Jersey native started school at RIT. Enamored by
the change of pace from the uber-condensed metropolitan scene, he
eventually decided to make this his new home.
“It’s a very easy place to live, very easygoing,” Cranmer says. “The
things that I grew up being used to in New Jersey don’t exist here, and I
love it. No waiting for food, no lines to go to restaurants, no 45-minute
drives to go five miles. I just fell in love with Rochester.”
Cranmer couldn’t leave everything from his hometown behind.
One of his first love’s—surfing—came with him. He’s a lake surfer now,
taking joy in the Lake Ontario waves that come with some less-thandesirable
weather. The next step was to combine his passions of surfing
and engineering as he began building his own surfboards in 2010.
Working as a trade show exhibit engineer, Cranmer saw perfectly good
wood go to waste, and saw an opportunity to do something with it.
“All of the wood that’s under that bench is all cut-offs from things
that we make in the trade show industry, panels and things like that. So,
there’s all this scrap that ends up getting thrown away. My surfboard
making, I figured out how to use that to make surfboards. … Some of
it [surfboard building] comes from my schooling,” he says, “but pretty
much everything that I do here is just stuff that I’ve figured out a process
for and kinda made up on my own.”
Secondary to his ability to build is his desire to help the environment.
He hates waste. More than that, he hates what the surfing industry has
become.
“Most of the industry doesn’t give a shit about the environment.
The surfing industry is financed by a whole bunch of people that don’t
surf. Surfboards don’t make money. Wetsuits don’t make money. It’s the
boardshorts, and the T-shirts, and the glasses, and all this stuff that at
the end of the day is just more pollution.
“Things that boards are normally made of are extremely toxic for
the environment. ... It’s sad to see that so many surfers use the ocean as
the environment that allows them to do what they want to do, yet so
much of what they use is destroying the environment.”
From scrap wood to plant-based epoxy, Cranmer’s focus on the
environment is clear. He even uses the scraps from his boards to make
side projects, like his cigar box guitar.
“It’s pretty easy to get lost and, all of a sudden be like, ‘Holy crap,
where’d the time go?’ That’s one of those things, ya know. It’s almost like
you’re sculpting. You’re an artist and you’re sculpting the board instead
of a mechanic trying to make some perfect shape. I used to take all the
measurements and everything, now I just go by feel and they turn out
really close to perfection.”
Living with his wife, Rebekka, their 5-year-old daughter, Delaney,
and his 10-year-old beard (seriously, he hasn’t shaved in a decade),
Cranmer is more than happy to do his part in helping the environment.
His scrap-wood surfboards are just part of a movement that he hopes
will bring the soul back to the surf.
—Paul Gangarossa
52 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015
John Myers

Repurposed wood makes its way to the water
Surfboards
With Soul

makers
Be
Still
A photographer
captures small
moments in time
John Myers

It’s 10:05 a.m. and we’re in Jenn Libby’s comfortably busy
Hungerford Building studio, sitting at a simple table in the rainy-gray
light of a Rochester fall day.
“It’s a beautiful morning,” she says, looking out the window.
A genuine statement of appreciation for what we’re given. And also,
as I would realize further into our conversation, the crux of her artistic
perspective.
Libby is a photographer who primarily uses the wet-plate collodion
process to capture her images—a process she was introduced to at
the George Eastman House’s Visual Studies Workshop, and has since
taught at the VSW and Snow College in Ephraim, Utah (she has also
taught photography at the U of R, Nazareth and Mansfield University
in Pennsylvania). Popular during the Civil War, the process was invented
by Frederick Scott Archer in 1848, and essentially replaced the more
expensive, complex calotype and daguerrotype photographic processes
of the day. Even so, people still had to sit like statues for the image to
be sharp.
“It’s a different way of seeing,” says Libby of the collodian-captured
images. “The process is only sensitive to UV, or the blue end of the
spectrum, so it reads differently than how people were used to seeing
even black-and-white film. People look slightly different. It’s another way
of seeing that you can’t see with your naked eye because it’s stripped of
color. A translation.”
A series of portraits of men in different period dress hangs on the
wall near where we’re sitting. She points out that the man in each is
actually the same man, holding the portrait of his previous persona.
“I wasn’t super interested in taking portraits until I started learning
about the collodian process,” she says. “People either love it or they
don’t. To some it’s very dark. But this is something different [than digital
photography].”
The idea of seeing things differently is embodied in Libby’s art
as well. Whether it’s her collection of jars housing lantern slides,
photograms of found objects, or handmade books, Libby’s focus is on
the matter, or artifacts, of memory and our perception of them.
“I’d see pictures of me as a kid, at my birthday party, and I wouldn’t
remember it. … I mean, I can name some of the kids. I can remember
them, but there’s this artifact that says this happened, and that this
is real, but the photograph remembers and I don’t. So there was this
frustration. I feel like I have a bad memory, so I would keep objects as
sort of tokens or talismans of memories of things that happened.”
Surrounding herself with these memories, Libby is easily reminded
to stay present.
“What draws me to art is trying to get people to be aware and to
look. I don’t try to make any big sweeping statements. I am visually
stimulated, so when I see things that I get excited about, I want to
capture it and freeze it and show it to people.”
Much like sitting in front of her camera. In the end, you’ve got
to hold still for a bit to capture all the detail. To see things a little
differently—even our weather.
jennlibby.com
—Matt Smythe

One love.
One place to celebrate it.
There is only one place to go to celebrate your new life together.
At the Strathallan, every detail of your wedding, from our
enchanting ballroom to the savory cuisine, will be absolutely
unforgettable. That is our vow to you.
Be among the first to celebrate with breathtaking views
from our new, extraordinary rooftop venue!
strathallan.com
(585) 461-5010

Assisted and
Independent
Senior Living
There’s a Legacy in Your Neighborhood!
BRIGHTON
Legacy at
Clover Blossom
585.218.9000
CHILI
Legacy at
Parklands
585.889.6590
GREECE
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Park Crescent
585.865.0680
PENFIELD
• Grande’Vie
Assisted Living
585.381.0680
• Legacy at
Village Wood
585.381.4210
• Legacy at
Willow Pond
585.388.7663
Call for a tour!
www.LegacyRochester.com
HENRIETTA
Legacy at
Erie Station
585.334.5006
IRONDEQUOIT
Legacy at
Cranberry Landing
585.244.3630
VICTOR
Legacy at Fairways
585.924.7043
Where every item is as unique as you are.
There’s no better place to find a heartfelt gift than Shop One2, a fine
art and craft gallery on the RIT campus. Each work of art has a
professional feel and a personal touch, and each visit to the shop is
sure to bring a new and exciting adventure.
Open to the public. Free parking available.
For maps and more information: rit.edu/shopone2
facebook.com/shopone2 | 585-475-2335
David “Rocky” Guadagnino
& Mary Beauchamp
would like to congratulate
Sister Christine Wagner &
St. Joseph’s Neighborhood Center
on winning the prestigious
Max and Marian Farash Charitable Foundation
2014 Farash Prize for Social Entrepreneurship.
sjncenter.org

short ribs
chickens
cheese
Dicky’s bar
cornmeal
58 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015
Matt Calabrese

With Dan Martello
short ribs
Finger-licking comfort food
• 5 pound bone-in beef short ribs,
cut crosswise into 2-inch pieces
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 3 medium onions, chopped
• 3 medium carrots, peeled, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, chopped
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 1 750-ml bottle dry red wine (preferably Cabernet Sauvignon)
• 10 sprigs flat-leaf parsley
• 8 sprigs thyme
• 2 sprigs rosemary
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 head of garlic, halved crosswise
• 4 cups beef stock
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
short ribs
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350°F. Season short ribs with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a
large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Working in 2 batches, brown short
ribs on all sides, about 8 minutes per batch. Transfer short ribs to a plate. Pour
off all but 3 tablespoons drippings from pot.
Add onions, carrots, and celery to pot and cook over medium-high heat,
stirring often, until onions are browned, about 5 minutes. Add tomato paste;
cook, stirring constantly, until well-combined and deep red, 2-3 minutes. Stir
in wine, then add short ribs with any accumulated juices. Bring to a boil; lower
heat to medium and simmer until wine is reduced by half, about 25 minutes.
Add all herbs to pot along with garlic. Stir in stock. Bring to a boil, cover, and
transfer to oven.
Cook until short ribs are tender, 2-2 1/2 hours (Short ribs should be very
tender, falling off the bone.). Transfer short ribs to a platter. Strain sauce from
pot into a measuring cup. Spoon fat from surface of sauce and discard; season
sauce to taste with salt and pepper. Serve with roasted root vegetables with
sauce spooned over.
Veggies
• 1 1/2 pounds Brussels sprouts cut in half
• 1 1/2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, unpeeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 bunch baby carrots (about 1 1/2 pounds),
trimmed but not peeled, scrubbed, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 medium-size red onion, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 2 cups)
• 1 large turnip, peeled, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (about 1 cup)
• 1 head of garlic, cloves separated, peeled
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
Preparation
Preheat oven to 425°F. Oil 2 large rimmed baking sheets. Combine all
ingredients in very large bowl; toss to coat. Divide vegetables between prepared
baking sheets; spread evenly. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Roast
vegetables until tender and golden brown, stirring occasionally, about 1 hour
15 minutes. (Can be prepared 2 hours ahead. Let stand at room temperature.
Rewarm in 350°F oven for 15 minutes.)

food
An area farm
harvests
chickens
by hand
This is not a story most people want to
hear.
The story of how our meat goes from
being alive to being food. How our chicken
goes from being bird to being barbecue.
“It makes people uncomfortable,” says
Denis Lepel, owner of Lakestone Family Farm,
as he ties on his plastic apron. He’s a tall
guy, lanky and bearded. He always needs the
longest apron.
Forty chickens in a morning, 50 on a busy
day. Processed by a team of four people. Two
birds at a time. Birds that Lepel has raised
himself. He can tell you about each and every
one that comes across the butcher’s table. No
farmer ever names his birds, but Lepel knows
his chickens that well.
“It’s job security,” I reply, tying on my
own apron. Lepel nods in agreement as Zac
Holtz, Julia Huber and I finish prepping the
tent for the morning’s work. Bleaching and
rinsing the table. Filling coolers with ice and
water. Making sure the knives are sharp.
“Slaughter” and “butcher” are words
that most people don’t use regularly in
conversation. Not polite conversation, anyway.
They conjure up certain images, convey
certain connotations. Things we’ve layered on
them as a culture and as individuals. Images
and connotations that, in most cases, having
nothing to do with what the words really
mean: producing food.
“I originally got into this because I wanted
clean meat, clean food for my family,” Lepel
says.
So did Holtz. He and his wife have goats
and chickens at home. “No garden this year,”
he says. “We’re just focused on the meat.”
For me, a garden has been the focus this
year; a bountiful harvest of tomatoes has
been the reward. But I have chickens too.
Just for eggs, no meat birds yet. Maybe this
coming year. Measured steps towards food
independence.
“I just needed a job,” Huber says. “And I
don’t want to work in an office.” No surprise
from the woman who leads trips to Tanzania.
Not a surprise for any of us, really. None
of us were meant to be office-bound. We all
need this kind of lifestyle.
The morning starts with the first two birds
being killed. Holtz handles the killing on one
side of the tent, separated from the table area
by a clean, blue tarp. The tarp is a regulatory
requirement for the farm; it’s there to ensure
the cleanliness of the whole process.
“But I think the separation makes a huge
difference mentally,” Lepel says.
60 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015
Matt Calabrese

Because the tarp marks the shift that
happens.
“On that side of the tarp, the chickens are
viewed as livestock,” he continues. “On this
side, they’re viewed as food. It’s the difference
of just a few seconds.”
And standing on one side of the tarp, you
don’t have to see what’s happening on the
other.
Some mornings I work on the same side
as Holtz, plucking and cleaning the carcasses
he hands me. We use a simple machine. It’s a
half-barrel with rubber fingers all across the
inside surface, like a giant scrub brush turned
outside-in. The floor of the plucker is covered
with the same fingers and spins, powered by
a small electric motor. Twenty seconds in the
barrel and a bird is clean of feathers. Much
faster than plucking by hand.
“I think the fastest time for plucking a
bird by hand is four seconds,” Holtz says from
around the tarp. He’s got two birds scalding
in a giant pot of water, preparing them for
the plucker. “Of course, I can’t vouch for the
source. Just something I googled.”
This morning I’m on the table side,
helping to eviscerate the chickens: removing
everything from the inside that’s not meat, fat,
and bone. There’s an art to doing this with one
hand and in a single motion. Making sure not
to rupture the gallbladder, which is filled with
nasty alien-green bile. There’s a skill to putting
your fingers in the right place and applying the
right pressure when you remove the liver and
the heart from the rest of the mass. Making
sure not to rupture the gallbladder; whatever
the bile touches is thrown out and we don’t
want any bird to be wasted.

food
Huber stands at the threshold of the
shift. She’s the first person to get the chickens,
freshly killed and cleaned; she’s the first to
touch them as they become food. She removes
heads and necks, feet and extra skin. Then
she pushes the chickens farther down the
line, to Lepel and me for evisceration. When
we’re done, there’s a final rinse and the legs
are tucked. The birds are put in a cooler,
submerged in ice and water. Ready to bring to
market.
Ready for people to eat. Whether or not
they want to know the story.
“Death feels like failure in our culture,”
says Trish Lepel, Denis’ wife, from just outside
the tent. “I don’t know why that is.”
Growing vegetables involves death too.
But that doesn’t feel like failure. Another
farmer I work with likes to quip that she’s
responsible for the death of hundreds of
innocent seedlings by selecting the ideal
vegetables to grow in a season. She surgically
pulls the undesirable seedlings out of the
starter trays—roots dangling naked and
vulnerable—and tosses them without remorse
into the compost bucket. Or onto her salad for
lunch.
“I had a hard time doing this the first
few times,” Lepel says. He had read some
books, attended a conference. He thought he
was ready. Then he worked on his first farm.
“It was a very emotional experience for me,
killing chickens.”
That’s how the beginning of this season
was at Lakestone. Lepel had processed
chickens before, but Huber and Holtz were
new. It took time for everyone to figure out
where they fit in. To figure out how this
process fit into their hearts and minds.
“It was very intense the first couple of
weeks,” Lepel says. “It’s a heavy feeling when
you start doing it.”
Forty birds means food for 40 families.
High-quality food from animals that have
been treated well in both life and death.
Processed in a way that provides an alternative
to the agro-industrial farm model. Someone
needs to do it, right?
“At least this way the chickens are part of
a closed system,” Huber says. Chicken parts
not sold for food are composted. The compost
is used on the expansive beds of vegetables
that Lepel grows for market. Vegetable
scraps and rejects from the field are fed to
the chickens. The closed system, the cycle of
things. Raise and grow. Slaughter and butcher.
Select and harvest. Food and eating.
“I always say a little something for the
birds before getting started,” Lepel says.
Like a prayer?
“Something like that.” He shrugs. “If that
makes a difference.”
It does. It’s exactly the story we want to
hear about our food.
—Matt Kelly
62 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015
Matt Calabrese

Hart’s Local Grocer’s
cheese expert Chris
Nolan shares his
favorite New York
State cheeses.
Ouleout, Vulto Creamery, Walton, N.Y.
Cheese maker Jos Vulto is currently a superstar of the New York City
cheese scene, with Ouleout on the menu at Gramercy Tavern. Hailing
from Brooklyn makes Vulto a hometown favorite amongst the best
cheese shops in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Ouleout is a small wheel of
washed rind cheese with a reddish exterior. Washed rind cheeses tend to
be more pungent, and balance is the reason this cheese has received such
accolades. The pate is creamy and luscious and has a rich earthiness but
does not overpower. The rind has a slight grit to it, which is indicative
of washed rind cheeses, and is just enough to add texture. Vulto also
produces a small, taller wheel that is bathed in Meadow of Love
Absinthe, also produced in Walton, which is a tribute to his late wife,
Miranda. Now that the word is out, I hope to see Vulto’s cheeses on the
menu of the better restaurants around town!
Lapsang Souchong Tilsit, Harpersfield
Cheese Co., Jefferson, N.Y.
The Brovetto family has been tending to their Holstein/Jersey herd
for more than 40 years. They are making some wonderful Old Worldstyle
farmstead cheeses in Delaware County. Their specialty is tilsits,
which are similar to an aged Havarti, a bit drier and sharper. Like
Havarti, tilsits are very receptive to many different flavors. My favorite
is the Lapsang Souchong, which has the addition of the smoked black tea
from which it takes its name. Of all the cheeses I have tried in my lifetime,
this one surprised me in a very pleasant way! Other notable varieties
available at Hart’s are Hops, an Ommegang washed, and Lavender.
Matt Calabrese
Tumbleweed, 5 Spoke Creamery, Goshen, N.Y.
Located just 57 miles north of New York City, 5 Spoke has been
an early advocate of raw milk from grass-fed cows to create superior
tasting, small-batch artisanal cheeses. Tumbleweed has been described
as an “elegant deep gold cheese, extremely well balanced, finishing with
a touch of sweetness” (Florence Fabricant, New York Times) or “if
farmhouse cheddar and French Cantal took a roll in the weeds, you’d
get this little square.” (Murray’s Cheese Shop, New York City).
Blue Yonder, Lively Run Goat Dairy,
Interlaken, N.Y.
Lively Run has been in the game for quite some time now and has
really developed a maturity in their cheese making that places them
in a special class among New York State producers. Blue Yonder is a
departure from their strictly farmstead goat’s milk cheeses. This rustic
blue uses raw Holstein cow’s milk from a neighboring farm and has
wonderful crystalline veining.
Stella Vallis Tomme, Chaseholm Farms,
Pine Plains, N.Y.
Rory and Sarah Chase are a brother-and-sister team keeping their
family’s farming tradition alive in the verdant Hudson Valley. Aged for
4-6 weeks, this classic Alpine style is reminiscent of the Italian Trugole.
A raw milk tomme, Stella has a yogurty tartness, and the paste is firm
yet pliant.
Issue 9 January / February 2015 | POST 63

food
Dicky’s bar,
still going strong
Touted as Rochester’s oldest watering
hole, Dicky’s has occupied the space on
791 Meigs St. for the last five years, but it
has been in existence since 1949. Although
the building’s history is a little unknown, it’s
believed that no other local bar [as in physical
space] can claim to be as old as Dicky’s. “I
have heard it’s the oldest bar, not sure if that
is true,” says Scott Napier, co-owner. “It’s been
a bar since 1880 and still has the original bar
back.”
Napier says Dicky’s is known for its
diverse clientele. “Come here five times and
the people could be totally different each
time.” The bar does have regulars, but often
you wouldn’t think they would hang out or
know each other at first glance. Dicky’s has
the atmosphere of a neighborhood bar. It’s not
a huge place, but they make use of the space
available with pool tables, foosball, darts,
food and a casual vibe. “Divey sort of, but not
dirty,” Napier says.
More so than being known as the oldest
bar in Rochester, Dicky’s has a reputation for
craft beer (13 rotating taps), a massive liquor
selection (especially whiskey) and food served
until 2 a.m. every day. Dicky’s might be the
only place in Rochester where you can order a
New York strip steak at 1:40 a.m.
—Chris Osburn
Mike Martinez

Cornmeal gets its
due in Keuka County
Corn is not typically compared to fine wine,
except perhaps by a winemaker who also grows
corn and produces cornmeal. “Different corn
varieties have very different qualities, like grapes,”
says Jonathan Hunt, director of winemaking at
Hunt Country Vineyards near Keuka Lake. “Just
like wine, cornmeal can be paired with foods—a
delicate cornmeal with fish, a more robust one
with meat.”
Jonathan and his wife, Caroline Boutard-
Hunt, also operate a certified organic farm, Italy
Hill Produce, alongside the family winery on the
sixth-generation farm. Caroline and Jonathan
grow two heritage varieties of corn, old varieties
offering superior flavor, which they grind into
cornmeal. One variety, called Amish Butter, is
actually a type of popcorn, but makes a delicate,
buttery cornmeal when ground. The other variety,
Roy’s Calais, was developed from corn bred by
Native Americans and has a hearty corn flavor.
“There is more to cornmeal than just the drab
yellowish stuff on the shelf at the supermarket.
It is far more than a side dish,” Jonathan says.
“We are a very small operation,” Caroline
says. “We harvest, husk, and shell our corn by
hand so that it is visually sorted at every stage
and selected for quality.”
The corn is dried, then ground in a granite
stone burr mill, which creates a fine grind and
does not overheat the corn, as a commercial
mill would. Commercial producers remove
the corn’s germ, but Caroline and Jonathan
grind the whole kernel, thus preserving flavor,
vitamins, and other nutrients.
“We grind each batch to order within one
day of delivery, so the meal is as fresh as you
can get it,” Caroline says.
The corn is certified organic, pesticideand
GMO-free. You can purchase Italy
Hill Produce stone ground cornmeal at the
Canandaigua Farmers’ Market or by e-mailing
italyhillproduce@gmail.com.
—Sue Gardner Smith
Hanlon-Fiske
Issue 9 January / February 2015 Hanlon- | POST Fiske 65

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fiction
De Potter’s Grand Tour
He leaves early on the morning of June 10, descending the carpeted
stairs to the lobby of the Pera Palace Hotel. He rings the bell at the
front desk. He is about to ring again when a clerk appears from the
dark interior of a back office, looking freshly scrubbed, smelling of
soap. The bill is settled swiftly, and the clerk is most obliging, despite
his limited French, when Armand hands him two last letters addressed
to Madame de Potter, care of the Hotel Royal in Toblach. The letters
are to be held and posted, he specifies, on the twelfth. Does the clerk
understand the instructions? “Oui, monsieur,” the clerk says, setting
aside the letters and motioning to a porter. He hopes Monsieur de
Potter’s most recent stay has been pleasant. The coach, he adds, is
already in the drive.
Outside, Armand notices that the gas lamp above the entrance
to the public garden is still lit, though the sky is already beginning to
glow with dawn. He removes his spectacles and rubs the lenses with his
handkerchief. After the porter has returned with his trunk and hoisted
it onto the baggage rack, Armand tips him a handful of piastres and
climbs into his seat. The driver slaps the reins to rouse his horses, and
the carriage lurches forward.
Down they go from the summit of Pera, the wheels clattering
over the uneven paving stones, the chassis rising and plunging, the
horses moving so fast that a small dog doesn’t have time to get out
of their path. The yelp the dog lets out has a chillingly human ring,
and Armand thinks it must have been crushed, yet when he turns, he
is relieved to see it scramble out from between the rear wheels and
run off, disappearing around a corner. The horses trot briskly on,
undeterred.
He resists calling out to the driver to order him to slow down.
Pulling his hat on tighter, he sits back and observes the scenery,
contemplating the familiar landmarks as if from a great distance—the
banks and restaurants he knows so well, and the convent where, two
days earlier, the members of his party were delighted to come upon the
dervishes right when they were beginning to whirl.
As they pass one of the white mansions housing an embassy, he
is reminded of his father, who had been stationed abroad for nearly
a decade—first in Paris, then Dakar, and lastly Constantinople. He
supposedly worked as a manager for a Belgian trading company, but
Armand, who was stuck back in East Flanders with his brother and
stepmother, believed that his father was a spy, appointed by King
Leopold to pry into the secret affairs of foreign governments. He used
to tell himself that he, too, would be a spy someday and travel around
the world.
You could say that he did become a spy of sorts, on a selfappointed
mission to gather antiquities instead of secrets, with his
travel bureau providing an excuse to visit places that were out of
reach for other collectors. De Potter Tours is in the business of leading
wealthy tourists around the world, and the De Potter Collection is
on display at the University Museum in Philadelphia. It has been an
honorable arrangement, he believes. It worked for more than a quarter
of a century and would have gone on working if he hadn’t grown so
careless.
At least he managed to keep the Americans on his tour sufficiently
entertained. They never guessed that he had anything else on his mind
but their well-being as he shepherded them around the city. Even when
he put them on the train and sent them off to Broussa without him,
they were persuaded that he was sparing them a worse inconvenience.
As far as they could tell, Professor de Potter was his usual amiable
self, as reliable a guide as they’d been promised in the testimonials he
included in his advertisements.
From Mrs. P.A. Saunders of Cincinnati: “It was a trip I shall ever
remember with pleasure. Could I go abroad every year, my choice
would be to go under the care of Prof. de Potter and with his party.”
From the late Henry W. Bellows, D.D., of Albany: “I have great
pleasure in saying that I am acquainted with Prof. A. de Potter. I do not
doubt his trustworthiness and competency to conduct foreign tours in
the interest of education, and I can heartily recommend him.”
From HHW of Rome, New York: “There are various ways of
traveling, many, as we do, independently and at the mercy of sharks, or
on parties with a courier, or with a tourist agent. The only party that
we have envied was that of Prof. Armand de Potter of New York, an
unassuming gentleman, speaking nine different languages. To him we
shall commend any friends in the future who wish to make a tour of
the Old World.”
The friends of HHW would have to find another guide, since
Professor de Potter won’t be conducting any more parties. Never
again will he have to worry about making arrangements for packs of
inexperienced tourists, keeping track of their tickets and explaining the
sights. On this trip, he is traveling alone.
Down, down, down rolls the coach, past buildings fronted by
broken terraces and wilted gardens, to the boulevard skirting the inlet
of the Golden Horn. The low angle of the sun catches the top of a
minaret on the opposite hill and turns the white to rose. On the surface
of the water beside the road, the reflections of the plane trees look as
though they are frozen in ice.
They reach the lot beside the customhouse, where Armand pays the
driver and hires a handler for his trunk. The official greets him with a
yawn, waving him through without asking him to open his satchel. On
the quay, he takes out the gold-plated pocket watch his wife gave him
on his thirty-ninth birthday and checks the time. It will be an hour or
more until the ship is ready to receive passengers. There is nothing to
do but wait.
Excerpted from “De Potter’s Grand Tour,” by Joanna Scott
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Sept. 2014).
68 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015

An interview with author Joanna Scott
POST: This novel weaves together many elements: travel, cultural and
family history, mystery, and a detective-like search for truth. Was there
a genesis for this creative work?
JS: You’ve identified the central set of concerns in the book. In 1905,
my great-grandfather disappeared at sea off the coast of Greece. Since
then, the mystery of his disappearance has been a source of wonder
and rumor in my family. I didn’t think I’d ever figure out what really
happened to Armand de Potter. Then, about five years ago, I opened
an old steamer trunk that my mother had in her basement and
discovered a collection of materials that included travel brochures and
handwritten journals, old photograph albums and magic lantern slides
showing street scenes and monuments from around the world, legal
documents, and a set of diaries that my great-grandmother had kept
throughout her life. Suddenly I had at least a partial answer to the
mystery of Armand de Potter. Important questions remained, though.
To answer these, I created a fictional counterpart to historical truth. I
found myself thinking like a detective as I set out to bring all the pieces
of this puzzle together.
POST: The details the narrator provides are so precise and concrete.
What was the research process like to accomplish this?
JS: I treat myself to different modes of research to complement the
creative work of writing. In this case, I read historical sources for
information about the period, and I traveled to some of the actual
places where the fiction is set. I even sailed on a small Greek cruise ship
from Marseille to Istanbul in an effort to see what Armand de Potter
saw on his final voyage.
—Brian Wood

Charlotte is the site of four minor battles during
the War of 1812. The “Valiant 33,” a group of
locals defending the hamlet, marched in and
out of the woods, fooling the British into
thinking there was a larger military force.
The British never returned.
Sam “The Yankee Leaper” Patch successfully
jumped High Falls in 1829. Due to poor fundraising,
he decided to make the jump again
one week later on Friday, November 13. He
plunged to his death. The body was found
beneath the ice in Charlotte the following spring.
The Times Square Building at 45 Exchange St.
was designed by Ralph Thomas Walker. Each
of the aluminum wings on Walker’s “Wings
of Progress” is 42 feet high and weighs
six tons.
The first permanent settler on the east side of
the Genesee River was Enos Stone in 1790. The
location is now part of the Brighton township.
Frederick Douglass’ family house was located
at the present location of the James P. Duffy
School No. 12. The house burned to the
ground in 1872.
The original Reynolds Arcade Building (now
replaced by the current Art Deco style) was
the first indoor shopping mall and housed
first headquarters of the Western Union
Telegraph Co.
The Kimball Tobacco Co.,
located at Court Street in 1880
(now the site of the Blue Cross
Arena), was one of the nation’s
largest cigarette manufacturers.
In 1881, William S. Kimball
commissioned his brother-inlaw,
J. Guernsey Mitchell, to
create the replica statue of
Mercury, the Roman God of
eloquence, skill, and trade. It
stood 21 feet tall on top of a
smokestack. Today, Mercury
grasps his satchel of gold and
caduceus in a new location: the
Aqueduct Building.
Child Street is named after
Jonathan Child, Nathaniel
Rochester’s son-in-law and the
first official city mayor.
The statue of Frederick Douglass
at Highland Park originally
stood at the New York Central
Train Station on Central Avenue
until the station was demolished.
Culver Road and Oliver Street (one block
west from Culver Road and East Avenue) are
named after Oliver Culver. He once walked to
Irondequoit Bay from Ticonderoga, N.Y., out
of boredom while waiting for a boat that never
came. He proudly survived a deadly tomahawk
wound to the head, and was heralded as
a shipbuilder, businessman, road builder,
politician, community leader, and coroner,
amongst many other titles.
Cobbs Hill Park housed three Army prisoner
of war encampments during the fall of 1943,
the summer of 1944, and the winter of 1945.
German and Italian POWs as young as 16
years old worked as many as 60 hours a week
at farms and food processing plants. To the
city’s dismay, as many as 200 civilians gathered
at night on Norris Street to enjoy the German
POW men’s chorus in exchange for candy,
cigarettes, magazines, musical instruments
and novelties.
Rochester’s first train station was the Auburn
Railroad shed, a wooden building replaced in
1852. The Rochester Historical Society houses
an oil painting of the structure by Eugene
Sintzenich.
The Catholic Daughters of Charity opened St.
Mary’s on West Main Street in 1857 as the first
hospital in Rochester. In June of 1863, it was
declared a government hospital and treated
5,000 Civil War soldiers. St. Mary’s introduced
the first horse-drawn ambulance, and purchased
the city’s first motorized ambulance in
1915.
—Carlie Fishgold
Sourced from the Monroe County Library digital collection
70 POST | Issue 9 January / February 2015

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