To view this site you need Adobe Flash Player and your browser must allow javaScripts. Go here to get the latest Flash Player. I I WHAT MADE HER OUR ROCK What made the building so special? What made her such an icon that when the Sabres played the first Winter Classic at Ralph Wilson Stadium, Hockey Night in Canada aired a final tribute to The Aud? What rooted her in the hearts of Buffalonians, so that we lined up at the fence day after day to bid her farewell? It was the building. It was the fans. And it was the moments that we shared there. Larry Owens remembers The Aud, and everyone who walked through the front doors of The Aud remembers him. Larry Owens is the peanut guy. He started selling peanuts outside The Aud around 1970. He not only has some long-term customers, he has also sold peanuts to their children and their grandchildren. SUZANNE K. TAYLOR mitts. ‘I’d like a bag of peanuts, young man.’ Thank you,” says Owens, doing an imitation of Andre the Giant that really could have begun with “Fee, fi, fo, fum…,” “Such a big guy, but real kind. He looked like a skyscraper.” Thomas Owens didn’t just sell peanuts. He learned about peanuts at the foot of George Washington Carver. “My father knew George Washington Carver on a personal level, first-name basis. My Dad would walk with him up to Tuskegee His father, Thomas Owens, sold [University] and just talk. He had peanuts before him down south and a lot of questions. But the thing then at The Aud. “My father sold about Dr. Carver, my father always peanuts to Joe Louis. Joe Louis used Larry “Peanut Guy” Owens at his table at HSBC Arena. Inside. With no peanut warmer. explained to me, was that he had so to love my Dad’s peanuts. You know, much patience with kids, an extreme you sell peanuts to Joe Louis you really hope that he enjoys them.” amount of patience. And if they asked him a question, if you asked Larry himself used to like seeing the wrestlers come to town, and he Dr. Carver a question, he would explain it in a simple kind of way, once sold peanuts to Andre the Giant. “His hands were like baseball he wouldn’t talk over their heads.” Left: Not a bad seat to be found, even for a packed house during a Buffalo Braves game. 1 0