Oakwood Cemetery event reimagined

Last year, it was “Spirits with the Spirits.” The year it was a “Spirits Faire.”

The annual Oakwood Cemetery Fundraiser is evolving.

It moved to the front of the site, with tents, beverages and music in the shadow of the house that serves as offices.

Tickets were $20. We spent another $20 on basket raffle tickets.

Beth and I sampled Blackbird Cider and Old Scotland Road booze before encountering Mark Baerwaldt of Steelbound Brewery and Distitllery.

Baerwaldt isn’t in the business of losing. Whether Springville, Ellicottville or Buffalo, he does not bet on losers.

He’s opening a Steelbound location in the Sheraton in Niagara Falls. The thing is, before you shake your fist at another government subsidized garbage franchise selling junk food to unsuspecting tourists, Baerwaldt is an entrepreneur getting in on the ground floor.

He will never sell a slice of DiCamillo’s pizza for $12 when they can get it for $4 two miles away. He is also buying low, the the work going on with the Heritage Gateways, the reimagining of the Rainbow Mall, big projects downtown and the rebirth of the City Market all sure things. All of these things are positive turns costing in excess of $10 million each even if a big data center or hockey rink never gets built.

We saw the mayor walking with his wife, holding hands, but didn’t talk to him about any of it.

Anyway, the Spirit Faire vendors were through the center of the cemetery. We checked out the Mausoleum.

I saw the state parks trolley and thought it was offering some sort of added tour but it was transporting people through the cemetery. We would have climbed on for a ride but it was better to stroll through the trees and graves.