Over on the ECFC blog, we were talking about about our favorite NFL teams. I mentioned that the Buffalo Bills were my 2nd favorite team (after the Steelers of course), and I explained why that is so……
I was born in Buffalo, and my earliest football memories are of sitting on the couch, watching the Bills with my Dad. Then he got a job that required him to work on Sundays, so my ’special job’ was to watch the game for him and then he’d call at halftime and game’s end, so I could give him a report on the game. Of course, at that age, it didn’t register with me that since he knew exactly when to call meant he was either watching or listening at work! This was back in the days when Jack Kemp was QB and Daryl Lamonica was his backup, before the Bills traded him to Oakland. Cookie Gilchrist was the running back, until this young hotshot rookie from USC came to play for the Bills. I got to meet Simpson his rookie year, still one of the coolest things im my memory book.
In one of those weird twists, my very last memory of my Dad also involved us sitting on the couch, watching the Bills play. It was August, 17, 1973; my 13th birthday. I was a hotshot teenager now, but it was still the best thing in the world to sit on the couch and watch football with my Dad.
Since we had moved to Roanoke, VA, we very rarely got to see our beloved Bills play, but this night they were playing the Washington Redskins in a pre-season game and our local station was carrying the game. How cool was that, getting to see the Bills on my birthday.
While we were watching the game, Dad got a phone call and found out he had to go to work that night to drive a truck for a guy that had called off sick. So he watched as much of the game as he could and then left for work. As a birthday treat, I was supposed to go out on the truck with him, but I had fallen asleep and he didn’t want to wake me.
At 6 am the phone rang; there had been an accident….
My last memory of my Dad will always be that of sitting on the couch, watching the Buffalo Bills….
Posted on August 28th, 2006 by Paul
Filed under: Football and Other Sports
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