[Where Were You?]

Thanks for the write-up Fader; that was really great.

 

That game is indelibly etched in my mind. I was living in Houston, and I watched the game by myself in my miserable apartment near the old Astrodome (this was pre-internet days, before I discovered the Bills Fan Club at Sam Sansone’s bar in West Oaks). For some odd reason, my sister had given me a blues-harp harmonica for Xmas when I was home in Buffalo the week before. As the game got completely out of hand with the Bubba Mcdowell pick, I slumped into my living room couch and started idly blowing some notes on the harp. Sure enough, the Bills go right down the field and score. Hmm … a few more notes and they get the ball back and score again. What the … ?? I’m playing that thing like crazy now, and Henry Jones picks off Moon!! Pretty soon, I am rolling on the floor, wailing on that harp; I was like Howlin’ Wolf and Elwood Blues combined …

 

Bills come all the way back and win. In a frenzy, I tried to call home, but all the lines to Buffalo were JAMMED! I thought that only happened in the 1930s. Tell me, what other town could jam all the phone lines over a football game?

 

So I went out on my rickety apartment balcony with my Bills sweatshirt and hat on, and just start screaming abuse at Houston -- everything I could think of. Of course this was Houston, where nobody ever goes outside, but it still felt good.

 

As for that blues harp, goddamn thing failed me against Dallas a few weeks later …

[What is your favorite Bills memory]

Great memories, all, Fratellone deficiente. Still, I think my favorite Bills memories, by far, are listening to Van call a game (any game, really) on that little black radio on a crisp autumn day while we were slinging a football around in the backyard or along the river picking apples. Hope your hand feels better...

 

 

Ciao Fratellino mio, I knew you'd surface ...

 

My latest Bills-frustration-related hand injury is fine. I just keep forgetting that Italian walls are made of concrete, not sheetrock ... But we won last week, so anything less than a mortal wound is quickly forgotten. Moreover, this hand injury pales in comparison to that of "Home Run Forward Lateral", "No Goal", "Just Give It To Them", etc. -- not to mention Jerry “No Fumble” Bergman. (I wonder how many of the other TBD old timers will remember that cheatin’ SOB? This must be apocryphal, but I recall that the Buffalo Evening News published his home address the day after that Miami game.)

 

Anyhow, someday it WILL happen, bro. We will win it all, and just like that, time will stand on its head. We’ll be 16 again slinging the ball around in the backyard with C on a perfect September afternoon, with Van making the call in the background. The electric lights will come on again over Buffalo for the first time, and even William McKinley will duck when Leon Czolgosz pulls out that revolver …

[What is your favorite Bills memory]

Then the Miami game in 2002 during the "blizzard", what most of us would just call a snowy day. The Bills are getting killed by Ricky Williams on the ground but improbably, Bledsoe pulls the Bills ahead 31-21 on two long pass plays to Moulds and Price and the crowd could smell victory. As if to seal the coffin, during the timeout between the third and fourth quarters a gust kicks up and the snow falls hard enough that I started to lose sight of the crowd on the other side of the Stadium. But I could HEAR them though, because we knew Miami had to miserable in the snow and the crowd cheered that snow gust as if it was another touchdown.

 

Ah, thanks for that one Kearney ... I'll never forget that game. The snow and wind kicked up like the wrath of God, and the crowd went beserk. You could just sense the life draining out of the Fish; they were done, reduced to staggering around the field, stammering, "WTF is wrong with these people??". A thing of beauty.

[What is your favorite Bills memory]

So many from which to choose, but one that really stands out is 1981, Roland Hooks catches a Big Ben TD on the last play of the game against the Pats. Listening on the radio at home (blackouts were the rule, not the exception back then, kids) with my Dad... Van Miller says... "Ferguson, back to pass... sets up... throws for the end zone.... and it's [eternal pause]... CAUGHT FOR THE TOUCHDOWN!

 

Four words that make a chilly Sunday afternoon in November magical.

 

 

 

Yeah … Roland Hooks ; thanks for that reminiscence, RJ. Indeed, Van was agonizingly slow in making winning calls. You’d hear the home crowd go nuts for a second or two before he would confirm. My brothers and I would always crack up over that (after we recovered).

 

So many other favorites …

 

Last game of the year in ‘73 vs. Jets; watching the game with my brothers in the basement on an ancient B&W TV that I think my dad had garbage-picked. The vertical refresh would go haywire every few minutes and we’d have to turn our heads sideways to see what was going on. Our favorite moment was not in fact OJ topping the rushing record, but rather Bill Cahill busting back a punt for a TD, effectively putting the game out of reach. Truth is, we cared more about winning the game than about that damn rushing record.

 

Home game against the powerful Raiders in ‘80. Fergie deftly feints left, then swings it out right to wide open rookie Joe Cribbs, who waltzes untouched into the end zone, both arms extended horizontally. To our astonishment, the Bills are 4-0, and after a decade of youthful futility as Bills fans, we sense we could actually win it all.

 

Crushing the Fish 27-0 in ’87, with Jimbo revealing after the game that the Bills were especially fired up after Fish Linebacker Jackie Shipp commented before the game that he had been “embarrassed” to lose to the Bills earlier in the season. You could just feel the power in that Bills squad about to burst forth …

 

… and burst it does: Bills at Browns as Municipal Stadium in 1990 (42-0 payback only 10 months after the Ronnie Harmon playoff drop). Jamie Mueller leads Thurmon left on a toss sweep. Some hapless Browns safety flashes into the backfield, and Mueller … lays … him … out. I mean thundering, limbs-splayed, flat-on-his-back OUT; hitting the ground so ferociously you could barely follow it live. The slow-mo in my mind still shows Mueller’s lips curling into a vicious snarl an instant before he lays the wood .…

 

Watching the game alone in my crappy apartment in Houston in ’93. Trying in a frenzy to call home after Steve Christie kicked the comeback winner – and all the lines to Buffalo were jammed. The freaking lines were JAMMED. God, how I loved my tough little hometown at that moment. I went out on my balcony with my Bills sweatshirt and hat on and screamed every abuse I could think of at Houston for about 15 minutes (until I thought the better of it; lots of guns in Houston).

 

Last Sunday night. Sitting on the edge of our living room couch here in Italy, clinging to hope, headphones connected to my laptop, following John Murphy’s call on GR online; trying desperately not to wake up my wife and kids. Punching the wall when EJ throws the pick-that-came-back (goddamn hand is still sore as I type this a week later). Doing the silent scream when Stevie hauls in the winner. My teenage daughter staggers blinkingly into the living room: “Papi, what was that weird squealing sound?” I swear I don’t know. The kid of course informs on me in the AM, and my wife calls me a “deficiente” (exactly as it sounds).

 

Honestly, I don’t blame her. But you guys all understand.

[I love Buffalo because]

Point taken: it likely was Kelly or Dave Schultz or one of the other dozen or so assorted goons and thugs (thanks San Jose Bills Fan for dredging up some of those names) on that Flyers team getting his comeuppance in our backyard I do seem to have a vague recall of a real fight between Schoney and Clarke one time, however.

 

Yup, San Jose is right; it was "Hound Dog" Kelly squaring off with Dudley.

 

I just YouTubed that fight for the first time since we saw it live 37(!) years ago. Almost as good as the first time -- although this time I didn't have you guys screaming, "Kill 'em Duds!! KILL 'em!!!" in my ears. (Or maybe back then it was mom doing the screaming ... )

[I love Buffalo because]

Don't forget about going out to shovel driveways around the block, coming home 5 hours later, fingers and toes numb to the core, sitting in front of the register trying to thaw the aforementioned extremities, and shuffling through a stack of 30 or so singles to split with your brothers, thinking you really made a killing today... and snow football in the backyard with goal line plunges into the deep pile next to the pavement (watch out for the fake punt!)... and hockey on the narrow slice of ice that passed for a "rink" in the back of the yard that somehow, in our imaginations anyways, was large enough to allow for Gil Perreault end-to-end rushes, Rico Martin slapshots, and Sabres-Flyers brawls with Rick Dudley pounding the snot out of an uproariously laughing Bobby Clarke...

 

See you in late August, big brother

 

 

"But you all understand exactly what I mean." Haha ... QED little brother, QED.

 

See you soon. The kids can't wait to see Uncle A.

 

P.S. Wasn't that Battleship Kelly getting his snot pounded out by Rick Dudley? Bobby Clarke was watching the brawl off to the side, toothless grin on his face, probably after instigating the whole thing ...

[I love Buffalo because]

I’ve been enjoying this site for a few years without posting, but you guys have really inspired me today. There’s been some disputation about Buffalo weather in this thread. Well, here’s my take: A “Four Seasons Tribute” to my beloved hometown.

 

Winter: Getting up with my brother at 5:30 to deliver our newspapers -- pitch darkness and hellish weather be damned -- and never missing a day in 3 years (even that first morning in ’77, when our main goal was to prevent our eyeballs from getting lashed from our faces). Simple and unsaid rule: our dad went out to work in the worst winter weather, and so the hell did we.

 

Spring: That ONE day, when you would stumble out of school into the brightness, throw off your jacket, roll up your sleeves for the first time since September, and then just stand there – silent, slack-jawed, blinking with disbelief; feeling that indescribably sweet warmth on your skin. No one could ever experience that feeling without first living through a Buffalo winter.

 

Summer: Dull roar of kids playing outside mixed with the dawn-to-dusk blare of lawnmowers and 97 Rock. 10-cent afternoon swims at the public pool, Lions-PAL baseball at Delaware Park, Chevy Tonawanda UAW softball games, evening basketball and touch football after the church parking-lot asphalt cooled down a bit. Jostling with my brothers to grab the sports page when the BEN arrived, eager to check out the Bills’ training-camp news (some rookie named Lucious Sanford hitting everything that moves …).

 

Fall: In the backyard on an exquisitely beautiful late-September Sunday afternoon. Tossing around a football with my brothers while Van Miller calls out the play-by-play from our parents’ 1950s-vintage radio, perched in the open dining-room window. Rookie Jerry Butler scores FOUR touchdowns, Bills beat the hated Jets – and the very first leaves are starting to tinge red and gold on the maple trees.

 

I adore my non-Buffalonian wife, but if I told her that September afternoon with my brothers was probably one of the 5 happiest days of my life, she would look at me with disbelief -- and I honestly couldn’t blame her. The damn thing is, I don’t know any of you guys here on TBD, but you all understand exactly what I mean. THAT is why I love Buffalo …