Thanks to Netflix and a special eight episode series about the 1990s Dallas Cowboys, I have been able to relive some of the details from a favorite moment in our lives that has up to this point eluded my recollection. I remember watching all three of the Buffalo Bills Super Bowl losses throughout college with my friend Brian who lost more than a little money year after year after year, especially on the third game because nobody could lose three of the biggest games on the planet in a row, could they?
I recall the ups and downs of those games. I remember how fun and entertaining and exciting it was watching them with all my friends. I remember the heartache of my giant friend who has sadly passed away so I can’t call him to reminisce like I wanted to when I sat down to write this. He was a huge guy and he had a huge heart and a huge laugh and we had a great friendship built around writing and golf and being editors of our college literary magazine, The Griffin, and of course, basketball (Boston Celtics - both of us) and football (Miami Dolphins - Brian). We were far from Buffalo fans, but we were familiar with the underdog, the down-trodden and the misunderstood. Hey, we were artists, though we also, admittedly, couldn’t stand when a missed field goal decided things. Getting beat was one thing. Losing the biggest game in the world by one point -- that was hard to swallow.
My second “date” with Jen was the second Aikman, Irvin, Smith and Jimmy Johnson Super Bowl. It happened to be the fourth consecutive loss for Jim Kelly. It wasn’t the fault of Brian and myself, Ha! We weren’t watching that one together. In fact, I don’t think he could bear to watch that one. Anyway, I didn’t remember the details of the game because they paled in comparison over the last 30 years to the details of the evening itself.
At this point in my life, my parents were finalizing their plans to move up here to Ely and I was ready for a change. My plans weren’t concrete, and if you know me, you know that even back then, in fact, all the way back to fifth grade and earlier, I was mixing Sakrete by hand with too much water in an old wheel barrow -- the only solid part of my plan included taking some time to write my first complete novel. I thought perhaps I’d move up here and spend some time at Mom and Dad’s log cabin and write it and figure the rest out. Little did I know that the writing in my life was being tapped out on a keyboard with a much larger plot in mind, with a much different cast of characters. I felt like I was beginning to grow some roots, but they weren’t ready to do much but chew up some topsoil.
My roommate in Dekalb at NIU where I was working for the university as a Financial Aid Officer and simultaneously working on my Masters in English, called me from a local sports bar and said, “We’re back from the theater and we’re watching the Super Bowl. Jen is here (he knew that we had met a couple weeks before). You should come down.” I think it was probably halftime and I think that might have been the fastest six or seven or eight blocks I walked in my whole life. I didn’t care about who might have been playing, who might have been performing at halftime or what I was wearing or how much cash was in my pocket. There might have been a little bit of old Tom Landry in my swagger, though.
After being set up on a blind date by one of her roommates, I’d been trying to secure some time in her busy schedule to take her out. This wasn’t going to be just the two of us, but I wasn’t about to pass up on an opportunity. It felt like, from the moment that I arrived, that something had clicked. I knew that I wasn’t an underdog. I knew the Bills were doomed. I knew that I wasn’t going to move to the Northwoods and become a hermit writer anytime soon. I suddenly knew that the stars were aligning and they were pointing North, but like the constellations through the seasons, they were, like the soon to be two-time champion Dallas Cowboys, flying down the field, across the night sky like a shooting star. Not just the silver and blue star on those white helmets. I knew this because time had slowed down for me while all around me everything about that Super Bowl night was exploding like fireworks created by and set off by Gandalf himself.
It was fun to watch the highlights of those two Super Bowl wins against the Bills. One of those games represented a time in my life that I could never go back to but that I would remember fondly. The other game, that I watched some of for the first time, represented the first night of the rest of my life. It represented the night that I changed my stars. The night that I reached out and touched the brightest and closest star that ever came within my orbit. September will bring my 56th birthday and before that, our 30th wedding anniversary, the day I celebrate my Super Bowl win! Thanks, Jennifer Joy, for being responsible for the most unwatched, high-profile football game of my life!
