Punchlines, Ghost Stories, Gallery Lights

Picture the last night of a class here in Batavia. No test. No grade. Each person stands up, alone, and talks for three minutes about what their life is supposed to be for. Some of them are high school athletes, saying it out loud in front of their own teammates. The man who teaches that class works upstairs on Wilson Street. I found him under a pop-up tent at the farmers market.

Welcome to Batavia This Week, the downtown socialite edition. A headliner on Wilson Street, ghost stories on the Riverwalk, gallery lights on Friday, and Oktoberfest in broad daylight. Pace yourself.

I'm Gary Ricke, and together with several students at Batavia High School, we're building bataviail.co. Here's why. Batavia has around twenty-two hundred businesses, and there's no one place to find them all. So we go find them. We stop at the tents, we walk into the shops, we ask the people behind the counter what they're up to. Then we come back and tell you.

Fourteen East Wilson Street. Right next to the Comedy Vault, up a flight of stairs, there are forty-five hundred square feet that most of us have walked right past. That's Eighteen Thirty-Three Leadership. And the man who runs it, Jeremiah Chaney, is about as Batavia as it gets.

When I stopped at his tent, it took about a minute to figure out I already knew his son. J P made the video tribute to Coach Dennis Piron. And Jeremiah? He played for Piron. In the nineties. Back when the coach was just getting started.

So when Jeremiah talks about what one adult can do for a kid, he isn't guessing. He was the kid.

What he teaches is servant leadership. The goal, in his words, is moving relationships from transactional to transformational. Less, what can you do for me. More, who are we becoming.

Here's how it works. A coach or a business sends a group, twelve, fifteen, twenty people, and they go through a ten-week class together. One week to get started. A week on each of the core virtues. And then that last night. Every person stands up and gives a three-minute speech about what the impact of their life is supposed to be. Think about being sixteen and saying that out loud, in front of your whole team.

This past year that was Batavia basketball, Batavia football and Geneva football. Wrestling joins this fall. A coach in Greensboro, North Carolina is running the curriculum with his team, there's another coach up in Michigan, and they've even done training in Ethiopia, where his daughter teaches fourth grade. Three years in, it's still a grassroots nonprofit. As he put it, they're just trying to get their feet on the ground.

Now, the catch. You can't just sign up for the class. Not yet. It runs on trust and a little vulnerability, so groups usually come in through a coach or a leader who already knows the people. But I asked him if he'd ever open it up, and here's what he said. If he's got fifteen kids who want to show up, let's do it. Let's try it.

So here's your door in. Start with a workshop. Life Mapping You is seventy-five dollars. You look back at the moments in your life that actually meant something, and you find the handful of things that give it meaning, no matter what your job title says. The Personal Impact Statement workshop is fifty. And Thursday mornings, six thirty to seven thirty, there's Men's Fellowship, which Jeremiah describes as just dudes coming together, trying to figure out how to be better husbands and fathers.

Go to eighteen thirty-three leadership dot org, fill out the contact form, and tell them what you're curious about. And if you know fifteen kids who'd show up? Tell him that too. He meant it.

Up the stairs at fourteen East Wilson, people practice standing up and saying something true. Right next door, at eighteen East Wilson, people stand up and say something funny. Thursday through Saturday, the Comedy Vault brings in Yannis Pappas for a three-night stand-up run. It's twenty-one and over, and the listing doesn't give showtimes, so check with the Vault before you go. And if you want to see where comedy starts, the Vault runs an open mic every Monday night. Somebody on that stage is trying a joke for the very first time. Be generous. Laugh early.

Same river. Lower light. And suddenly you're willing to believe things you'd laugh off at noon. The Park District's Mysterious Batavia Walking Tour takes you along the Riverwalk and into the town's spooky side. It's rated PG-13, so maybe leave the eight-year-old at home, and it's weather permitting. Thursday, six o'clock in the evening. Tickets are twelve dollars, and you buy them ahead. The listing starts you at three twenty-seven West Wilson, the Civic Center, so confirm the meeting spot when you get your ticket. Wear real shoes. The Fox doesn't care about your loafers.

Here's the secret about gallery openings. They're the one night art stops being intimidating. The work is new, the artist is standing right there, and what's this made of is exactly the right question. Second Fridays in the Arts District is free. Water Street Studios throws open its galleries, and the neighbors, Kiss the Sky and Warehouse 55, open theirs too. Water Street has been home to working artists since two thousand nine, so you're walking into a building that makes things all month long. Friday, six in the evening, Water Street Studios. Free. Go ask somebody what they made.

The Moose Lodge has been gathering Batavia around its tables since nineteen eleven. Fish fries. Scholarships. Generations of the same families. So when the Moose says Oktoberfest, trust that somebody in that building has opinions. Saturday afternoon, it's food, music, beer and games, starting at one thirty, which means you can celebrate in daylight and still be home for dinner. Fifteen thirty-five South Batavia Avenue. The price isn't listed, so call the lodge first. And bring somebody who's never been inside. Watch their face.

That's Batavia This Week. There's a whole lot more we couldn't fit, and it's waiting for you at bataviail.co. Here's my ask. Pick one thing you heard today and actually go. And when you get there, tell them you heard about it here. I'm Gary. See you down in town.