The Buzz: This Week in Buffalo

Butterflies, WBUZ, and the World's Creepiest Ouija Board

Jun 05, 2025

Mary Kunz Goldman is known around town for The Buzz, a long-running weekly column in The Buffalo News, and for other hit features, including the adventurous series 100 Things Every Western New Yorker Should Do At Least Once. She brought back the Buzz column six weeks ago. Please subscribe — it’s free! — and pass this column around to keep it rolling!

Quote

“Once you’ve made your way through the space, you will exit through another vestibule to be checked for hitchhiking butterflies.”

— The Botanical Gardens, introducing its Butterfly Experience, opening Saturday

We Get Butterflies

Visiting the Buffalo Zoo’s Aviary, Buzz loved the drama of the signs on the doors cautioning you to close one, then another, carefully — so our fine feathered friends would not escape. Now we can have the same fun with butterflies! The Botanical Gardens is launching its Butterfly Experience — get details here. They, too, caution you to take the doors one at a time, and also tell you that before you leave, you are to check your belongings and clothing “for stowaways.” What if we are caught absconding with a Blue Morpho? Hope we can return it, no questions asked!

Harebnb, Part 2

New and exclusive: photos of Rodney, the handsome University District cat with a hunter’s heart, chronicled in last week’s Buzz. His owner, Daniella Marino, sent us two. Don’t be fooled by the big eyes and fluffy paws — Rodney recently presented Daniella and her husband, Gary, with a very alive, very bitten baby bunny. The good news? The bunny is recovering. Gary tucked him into a soft bed in the garage, fed him spinach from the garden, and named him Charlie. The patient rallied. Somewhere in that garage is a candlelit salad course happening. Meanwhile, here's Rodney — looking innocent.

Rodney: Allegedly adorable. Photo courtesy of Daniella Marino.

The predator, recharging. Photo courtesy of Daniella Marino.

Next Up, WBUZ?

Buddy Shula, owner of WECK, has snapped up WHLD (Talk 1270) in Niagara Falls and this week, it flipped to the same oldies format that made “the Big WECK” a local brand. Alas, it’s not the Jerome Kern and Glenn Miller music Buzz once cherished — that ship has sailed, along with its audience. Instead, it’s the usual classic hits. But the real headline? The price. Buzz looked it up: $150,000. That’s all it took to buy a whole radio station? We were stunned. For that kind of money, we could sell our house, buy a station — and if we get anywhere near our astronomical assessed value, maybe even snag a new house too. WBUZ! Watch for it.

Trash Day Meets Twilight Zone

What’s creepier than a Ouija board? Half a Ouija board. Howard, the guy Buzz married, dug one up while working the yard of a property he owns, on the former site of the Pan-American Exposition’s Alt Nürnberg. It was small, made of glass. Wisely acting on Buzz’s advice, he tossed it in his garbage tote and buried it under yard waste and winter junk. A few days later, he got a friend request from a glass antiques dealer. Was the board valuable? We’ll never know. When he went back to check, it was gone. Gone from the tote, gone from the trash, gone, gone, gone. But not forgotten. What’s creepier than half a Ouija board? One that vanishes!

Howard’s freaky finding. Photo by Howard Goldman.

The Buzz

In America we say “Break a leg.” In France, they say, “Merde.” We’ll take either one, just wish us good luck when we sing Renaissance music with the St. John Paul II Schola Cantorum at 5 p.m. Sunday at St. Louis Church. We can’t help notice we have been placed in the middle — six singers to our left, six to our right, and the director right in front. No pressure. … God is in charge: Artificial intelligence advised Buzz to pray a Glory Be. It also told us, when we saught its advice on singing, to sing the “Ave Maria.” … Thanks to our sponsor, Lounge Academy. Howard entertains every Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. at Johnny D’s in the Hyatt Regency, and Buzz is always there. We’ll be the one with the Blue Morpho in our hair.