A hard Syracuse memory that I will always equate with early autumn:
Thirteen years ago, on a Saturday morning in September, I made a quick drive to Green Hills Farms to bring home some lunch for my family. I was on the way back to our house when I noticed how the police and many other emergency responders had taped off the parking lot of what was then a 7-Eleven — another of our regular coffee stops — at the busy three-way crossroads of South Avenue, Glenwood Avenue and Valley Drive.
That intersection is at the heart of the old Elmwood commercial district, maybe a half-mile from where we live. I was working at the time as a columnist for Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard. I dropped off the food at our home, and then went back. The late Nick Sakran, who ran the now-closed Valley One Hour Cleaners, was sitting in a lawn chair on the sidewalk, as he often did, watching the day-to-day rhythms of his neighborhood…