[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...

 

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.

[Buffalo Bills. The Cinderella Story]

The only parallel between the Bills and Cinderella is their proclivity to lose an article of clothing (a shoe and a jock strap) when it matters most.

 

Go Bills!!

 

Don't forget about lost helmets...

[Initial thoughts on Doug Marrone hiring?/]

Well, as a regular participant of the old school chat room that can't be mentioned on this forum, let's just say I'll have my waterboard ready to go for next season, just in case...

 

On the bright side, if things do turn out poorly, I won't have to alter my handle too much from "Richard Mauron".

[Russ Brandon named President/CEO]

Russ is cheap.

[I love Buffalo because]

 

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 ...

 

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.

[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.

 

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...

 

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 …

 

Ahhhhhh that was, indeed, a great day. If only Jerry Butler hadn't had his career so abruptly ended by injury... sigh...

 

See you in late August, big brother