Jessica Buck remembers Auburn as a different place in 1980, but she feels her story still speaks to its residents today.
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Jessica Buck has put her impoverished life in Auburn and the problems it presented her and her family into a book titled “Makeshift Christmas.”
Jessica Buck has put her impoverished life in Auburn and the problems it presented her and her family into a book titled “Makeshift Christmas.”
Buck, of Shrewsbury, Pa., wrote “Makeshift Christmas” to chronicle her brief stay in the area almost 30 years ago. She shared a home with her daughter, Leslie Lopez, and son-in-law, Dan Warner, while Buck studied computer science and Warner took electronics classes at Cayuga Community College. That period in Buck's life was marked by poverty, and the book recounts the problems it presented her and her family.
“It was kind of hard to put abject poverty into words and what a struggle it was just to get your car out of the snowbanks and go to school everyday,” Buck said. “We always seemed to be out in the cold with a broken down car.”
Living two blocks from the Auburn Correctional Facility on Seymour Street, both Buck and Warner attended college while a pregnant Lopez tended their home.
Buck and her son-in-law also worked low-income jobs to support the household. Buck drove a bus for handicapped children and sang in venues like the Springside Inn and Raffles, a bar that stood in Spirit's former space. Warner, who once served in the Navy, crafted wood fixtures for Fingerlakes Mall, which was being constructed at the time.
Paying the rent and putting dinner on the table were daily questions Buck and her family faced.
“It was hard for me to watch the other adults in the situation,” Lopez said. “I wasn't able to do anything because I was going to have a baby, so I was feeling helpless watching them working so hard.”
To endure their troubles, Buck and her family relied on humor. They told jokes and laughed at themselves to lighten the difficulty of their stressful lives. Buck even performed stand-up comedy at Dilaj's Motor Inn.
Aside from its frigid winter, the town of Auburn was another source of solace for the family. Lopez recalls walking her dog near the prison without the slightest fear for her safety. As a current resident of San Diego, she prizes the small town atmosphere of her former home.
“It was quaint, with real, genuine people,” Lopez said. “It had everything you needed.”
As Christmas approached in 1979, Buck feared the holiday season would hit extra hard with such a low family income. But Lopez remembers the day as a pleasant one, which the three spent cherishing the lives and home they shared together.
Upon graduating from college, Buck took a job in computer programming in a nuclear laboratory at Cornell University. She marvels at the distance computers have traveled since her days there, noting that four refrigerator-sized towers stored only one megabyte of information at the time.
Buck left the computer field following a few years at Cornell. At about that time, she also committed her family's Auburn tale to paper as a short story. Only recently did she revisit it.
“I thought it was a nice, interesting story,” Buck said. “It was quite an adventure.”
As she turned the story into a novella, the names of the characters were changed and several details were omitted by Buck, who didn't want the book to read like a soap opera. She simplified the story of the divorce that preceded her move to Auburn as an “other woman” situation, when in reality the split was initiated by many more complexities. The custody battle that followed the divorce was left out of the book entirely. In October 2007, the finished book was published.
“I loved the way it flows, it's really easy to read,” Lopez said. “I try to imagine myself reading it as if it wasn't me, and I think I'd still be able to relate to a lot of the troubles.”
Though she currently lives in rural Pennsylvania, Buck still prizes the time she spent in Auburn and visits often. She hopes the book gives back to readers in her former hometown who relate to its morals.
“Hopefully they'll get a sense of the courage that went on during the internal struggle, when you want to just give it all up and quit trying,” Buck said. “Don't give up hope, eventually you'll rise above it.”
If you read
What: “Makeshift Christmas”
Who: Jessica Mary Buck
Publisher: Outskirts Press Inc., Denver
Cost: $11.95, paperback, available at Barnesandnoble.com
“It was kind of hard to put abject poverty into words and what a struggle it was just to get your car out of the snowbanks and go to school everyday,” Buck said. “We always seemed to be out in the cold with a broken down car.”
Living two blocks from the Auburn Correctional Facility on Seymour Street, both Buck and Warner attended college while a pregnant Lopez tended their home.
Buck and her son-in-law also worked low-income jobs to support the household. Buck drove a bus for handicapped children and sang in venues like the Springside Inn and Raffles, a bar that stood in Spirit's former space. Warner, who once served in the Navy, crafted wood fixtures for Fingerlakes Mall, which was being constructed at the time.
Paying the rent and putting dinner on the table were daily questions Buck and her family faced.
“It was hard for me to watch the other adults in the situation,” Lopez said. “I wasn't able to do anything because I was going to have a baby, so I was feeling helpless watching them working so hard.”
To endure their troubles, Buck and her family relied on humor. They told jokes and laughed at themselves to lighten the difficulty of their stressful lives. Buck even performed stand-up comedy at Dilaj's Motor Inn.
Aside from its frigid winter, the town of Auburn was another source of solace for the family. Lopez recalls walking her dog near the prison without the slightest fear for her safety. As a current resident of San Diego, she prizes the small town atmosphere of her former home.
“It was quaint, with real, genuine people,” Lopez said. “It had everything you needed.”
As Christmas approached in 1979, Buck feared the holiday season would hit extra hard with such a low family income. But Lopez remembers the day as a pleasant one, which the three spent cherishing the lives and home they shared together.
Upon graduating from college, Buck took a job in computer programming in a nuclear laboratory at Cornell University. She marvels at the distance computers have traveled since her days there, noting that four refrigerator-sized towers stored only one megabyte of information at the time.
Buck left the computer field following a few years at Cornell. At about that time, she also committed her family's Auburn tale to paper as a short story. Only recently did she revisit it.
“I thought it was a nice, interesting story,” Buck said. “It was quite an adventure.”
As she turned the story into a novella, the names of the characters were changed and several details were omitted by Buck, who didn't want the book to read like a soap opera. She simplified the story of the divorce that preceded her move to Auburn as an “other woman” situation, when in reality the split was initiated by many more complexities. The custody battle that followed the divorce was left out of the book entirely. In October 2007, the finished book was published.
“I loved the way it flows, it's really easy to read,” Lopez said. “I try to imagine myself reading it as if it wasn't me, and I think I'd still be able to relate to a lot of the troubles.”
Though she currently lives in rural Pennsylvania, Buck still prizes the time she spent in Auburn and visits often. She hopes the book gives back to readers in her former hometown who relate to its morals.
“Hopefully they'll get a sense of the courage that went on during the internal struggle, when you want to just give it all up and quit trying,” Buck said. “Don't give up hope, eventually you'll rise above it.”
If you read
What: “Makeshift Christmas”
Who: Jessica Mary Buck
Publisher: Outskirts Press Inc., Denver
Cost: $11.95, paperback, available at Barnesandnoble.com
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