BUFFALO, N.Y. — Ten Years Ago This Week in 2013:
Jim Kelly's Charity Golf Tournament was an event usually marked by jocularity. However, the 27th annual tournament will forever be remembered for the stunning announcement made by the Buffalo Bills Hall of Fame quarterback that he had been diagnosed with cancer.
Kelly, who survives today, would undergo months of grueling treatments and bring the phrase "Kelly Tough" into the vernacular in a way in which it had never been understood during his playing career.
20 Years Ago This Week in 2003:
"I'm sorry, but we have to make adjustments," said Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello, as he stood before reporters and city officials to say that the city's finances were in a perilous state.
The city faced a $29 million deficit and the prospects of massive tax hikes, reduction of services and hundreds of layoffs were grim indeed.
The NYS Comptrollers Office produced findings which concluded the city had a structural deficit and called for a remedy which then Comptroller Alan Hevesi admitted was, "fairly dramatic."
This week's News 2 You Pop Quiz: what "fairly dramatic step" would be taken to try and get the city out of dire fiscal straits? (for the answer, watch the conclusion of the attached video) .
It was the same week that one of the FBI's 10 Most Wanted fugitives, Olympic Park Bomber Eric Rudolph was captured, and when the long arm of the law also caught up with Martha Stewart, who was indicted for securities fraud and later sent to prison.
Air France conducted its final flight of the Concorde, the Buffalo Catholic Diocese announced it would be closing Turner Carroll High School, and Finding Nemo opened at box offices nationwide, later becoming the best selling DVD title of all time.
30 Years Ago This Week in 1993:
If you're old enough to remember using the card catalog at the library, or when newspapers contained pages and pages of classified ads, or when the outdoor concert venue at Darien Lake was still under construction, you also might also remember the controversy that erupted when Sabres goalie Grant Fuhr was turned down for membership at Transit Valley Country Club.
He suspected it was because he was Black.
The county club blamed it on a misunderstanding with his application.
Fuhr wasn't buying it and joined Fox Valley instead, and then later issued a statement when certain groups started threatening members at Transit Valley asking those making the threats to cease doing so.
President Bill Clinton's first Memorial Day as president did not go smoothly, as he was he lustily booed veterans who turned their backs on him when he came to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Twenty five years prior to becoming President, Mr. Clinton, as a college student during the Vietnam War era, ducked the draft, criticized the military, and protested the war overseas in Britain.
Clinton, who received educational deferments to attend college, later promised to join the ROTC when the laws allowing for deferments for graduate school were changed. Clinton entered the draft, but when he received a draft number so high that it would have ensured he wouldn't be drafted, Clinton then reneged on his pledge to enter ROTC.
It is also noteworthy that, with the exception of Barack Obama (who would have been too young to serve) every President since Clinton, including the current occupant of the White House Joe Biden, exercised all manner of deferments to avoid serving in Vietnam.
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