Holy Cow!
I graduated from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 1963 (finished in '62 fall semester) and moved my little family to Rochester to take up my first engineering job with the Pfaudler Company out on West Avenue. While waiting for my new house to be built in the Town of Chili just off Fisher Road, I rented a house on Magnolia Street which was only a few blocks down from the Bulls Head juncture of Genesee T., West Main St. (Chili Rd.), West Avenue (Rte 33, Buffalo Rd.), and Brown Street at St. Mary's Hospital.
I guess you must have been about ten years younger. I lived in Chili for four years. While in the Gates-Chili Fire Dept., with them I fought the fire when the amusement park totally burned down on the July Fourth holiday of (I'm pretty sure) 1965. Was also in the fire company when we were on call to fill in for city companies water-cannon battling the city renegade population during the riots of 1964 (that really were being rehearsed in 1963 when I lived on Magnolia, which ran between Genesee and Plymouth). Then in (I think) the winter of '65-'66 was the huge snowstorm. About the same time frame, we went into Greece on reserve when their Main Street block of stores burned up. Exciting days, those.
For the last years with Pfaudler, I worked at the Research complex on Lehigh Station Road that ran between Route 15A (West Henrietta) and E. Henrietta Rd that goes out to Rush and therefrom to Honeoye Falls and Lima); winding up at Clover Street, Honeoye Falls' other route to Rochester and East Avenue.
What I remember most about the Gates-Chili Fire Department is going down to the Company 1 Fire Hall on Saturday mornings to soak up Genesee Cream Ale (Golden Nectar) splits and play euchre while waiting for a call.
(Couldn't find a picture of the 6-oz splits.) Of course, after two splits, we were barred from riding a truck on a call--OK in the winter, but not in the summer when we were fighting grass fires that arose from people burning their trash (no more of that now, you bet, with Environmental breathing down everybody's neck). Some weekends every company was out and with Indian pumps as well as the reel hoses using the truck tank water.
The most memorable--after the amusement park fire--was (with another fireman) holding down the nozzle bore of a 2 1/2" hose in two-foot deep snow while fighting a raging barn fire. We learned later that we kept the fire from reaching the tanks of an oxyacetylene gas welding rig. Whooee!
But thanks for bringing back a flood of forgotten memories from fifty years ago!
I suppose Mississippi is quite a long way from the terminus of the Genesee River, both in distance and in culture. You remember the story of the fish that was a cross between Cohoes salmon, wall-eye pike, and muskellunge to survive the contaminated outflux of the Genesee River into Lake Ontario? The one called "Kowalski" (although not every one could be taught to swim)?
Cheers, my Empire-State-born FRiend!