When I was growing up, Western New York was booming, and people were optimistic about the future. The region had hundreds of manufacturing plants offering high paying union jobs. Buffalo's population was at its peak, and the area boasted some of the best school districts in the region. My family had prospered since the 1920s, and it seemed that the good times would never end. Sometime in the 1960s and early 1970s, however, that optimism began to fade. Whether it was the influ