Someone on 219 just said "God Bless You!"

     Since the January 1^st entry, and thus the first installment of the 365 memories blog, was a quote of my Dad's, I'm thinking I can start each month with one of his memorable sayings. To understand this February 1^st quote, I'm going to include a description of the roads near our Heinrich house.

     The old Route 219 ran through the hamlets of North Boston, Patchin, and Boston before heading south to Springville or north to Hamburg. Zimmerman Road began at one intersection of 219 in North Boston – the law office on this very corner is where Mom worked for years and years. On the other corner there used to be an ancient tavern – but now there is a plaque commemorating the well of the tavern which was the source of a typhoid fever epidemic once upon a time!

      Zimmerman then goes over 18 Mile Creek. (Legend claims that 18 Mile Creek is 18 miles from Buffalo Creek), and just a little past the bridge, Zimmerman meets the beginning of Heinrich Road and then continues up one of the famous and picturesque Boston Hills.
          Heinrich goes down a slight dip over what we kids always called Riskie's Creek, and then Heinrich continues up the dip where it meets Valley Circle Lane and our old house on one of the corners; after that, Heinrich used to go up a hill, made a sharp right turn and then after a mile or so it intersected with the old Route 219 a couple of miles north of where Zimmerman Road met 219.

     It was a few years after college and my moving to Buffalo, that Heinrich Road was dead-ended just past our Valley Circle Lane subdivision, at the bottom of the hill before the sharp curve. The new Route 219 came through there – and the old roads of my youth were permanently changed.

     Valley Circle Lane goes around in a circle with houses on both sides of the road. Beyond Valley Circle Lane is 18 Mile Creek, a cow pasture that we kids called the Hickory Nut Woods, and a field. And just beyond that, about a half mile as the crow flies, was the old Route 219.

Our House at Heinrich and Valley Circle Lane; old Route 219 east of 18 Mile Creek

     So this has been a long-winded way of saying that the old Route 219 was about a half mile from our house .

     Now, Mom had some very loud sneezes. Not all of her sneezes were ear-piercingly loud, but every once in a while a really booming one would come out. And if Dad were home at the time, he would wait a second after the sneeze, and then he would point in the opposite direction of wherever Mom was in the house and say, “Did you hear that? Someone on 219 just said 'God bless you Mary!'” (Mom's name) 

     And that has stuck with me all my life. If I hear a really loud sneeze, no matter where I am, or even if it is my own sneeze, I say it in my head, and I've often been heard to say it out loud, “Someone on 219 just said 'God bless you!'” And if you have ever heard me say that – now you know what it means!

32 20150201 God bless you Mary!