August 18th, 2025

Good morning folks,

      Over the past seven days Julie and I have put nearly 1000 miles in commuting back-and-forth to Rochester for family events and of course, work. We had three memorial services to attend to….the sister of a good friend of Julie‘s, my cousin Charlie’s wife, Molly and my cousin Rick‘s dear daughter Misty, who passed late last year. I’m getting used to going these types services, it comes with the age and it’s a good way of helping people get through a loss. Of course while we’re in Rochester, we had to stop at the store and we ended up working all day, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Then on Sunday, we had planned to attend the Genesee Country Museum’s "Folk and Fiddle Festival" which we helped sponsor. We were supposed to work the booth just like in the old days. However, when we were a few miles away a downpour cast a damp cloud over the event and we decided to go out for breakfast with Ryan instead. We canned the whole idea and decided hang out in Rochester with our daughter Rose and her new baby Talia.

    Afterwards we attended a gala celebration of the graduation of my brother Pat’s grandson, Conor, who just received his degree from the first graduating class of the Thomas Galisano School of Business. It was a great party with of course, stunningly great food from Leo’s Bakery and Deli…and Cafe!

    As a result, all I’ve got is a few pictures of the week with some appropriate captions on each. We plan on hiding out in Branchport for the week so perhaps there’s some fishing in the future now that the weather is cooled off a bit.

With peace,

John Bernunzio 

This was our planned route on Sunday of course it was a 3 hour drive spanning six of the Finger Lakes. We didn’t get home until nearly 9 o’clock on Sunday night…. it topped off our 700 mile week.

Ryan set up a great booth on Saturday and response was terrific. There were all kinds of people coming through and he sold a few things, but Sunday was just not in the cards.

So we bailed and had a great breakfast at the Scottsville diner the town where I had my very first teaching job back in 1972.

When I drove to Scottsville as a teacher, it took me past this particular house and I had to stop to take a picture of the memory. This is the house of the late, BB Myers. She owned a quirky bar tucked away on Lake Avenue in Rochester, called Bullwinkle Café. I regularly snuck in there (under age) when I was in high school. It was a piano bar and much like an old style speakeasy. BB, or Betty as she was also known, held court every Saturday night. They would play music from the early 1900s and everybody sang along and was encouraged to wear one of her collection hats. BB Myers was an advocate for animals and fostered hundreds and hundreds of dogs, cats, goats, fish, birds and other beasts who were left defend for themselves. She always found homes for the downtrodden. Additionally, for nearly 60 years she hosted a free Thanksgiving dinner in Rochester for the homeless. She was a graduate of the Eastman School of Music. It’s nice to see the home still stands as a legacy. Her motto was "God is love and animals are the angels". Perhaps she should be in the Rochester Music Hall of Fame! 

Since we scrapped the plan to work the festival, we took our time getting to Rose’s house as Talia was taking a nap. We couldn’t pass through Genesee Valley Park without taking a little bit of a hike and here is a picture of the confluence of the Genesee River and the Erie Canal.

my little Rose is at Highland Park!

Some other exciting things happened too, but maybe we need to talk about them next week…