The Sunday Memory Drawer - Back When I Cared About the NFL

 

Because I don't know now.   Care, I mean.   But when I was a kid, I used to make a smooth and seamless transition from Met fan to Jet fan.

Ah, remember this configuration above.   Shea Stadium, a baseball park, being used for football.  Those field level seats on tracks and moved to create some semblance of pro football dimensions.  Regardless of the layout, the place was still a wind tunnel of nuclear proportions.   An October game in the upper deck was your quickest route to frost bite.

Still, since I rooted for the Mets, it made total sense for me to adopt the Jets, the football team that played in this frozen tundra.  Shea was my stadium.  I was a "one stop" shopper when it came to playing fields.

The only problem was that it was a lot harder to get tickets to see the Jets than it was for the Mets.  Back then, the Mets played 81 home games a year and it was a lot harder for them to fill 55,000 chairs for all those contests.  The Jets, however, had only 7 home games a season.  Plus, as soon as the franchise signed quarterback Joe Namath, this was one hot ducat.  Meanwhile, there was no television of home games.  If you really wanted to see the Green and White, you had to know somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody else. 

I knew nobody.  But, then again, I was only 11.

My father also knew nobody that could get us even remotely close to the stadium.  In those days, to watch a home football game on television, you had to drive to Connecticut where it was usually televised inexplicably on New Haven TV stations.   So, New Yorkers would drive there and set up shop on a bar stool.  Or take a room in a motel.

I once suggested the latter to Dad.

"WHAT ARE YOU SOME KIND OF NUT?"

So, that's a no?

At this rate, the only way I would ever see the New York Jets play at Shea is by flipping through the team yearbook.

Enter an unlikely solution to the problem.  In the body of my mother.

Mom had gone back to work once I hit the age of 8.  And was doing some sort of nightly factory work at the Union Pen Company on McQuesten Parkway in Mount Vernon, New York.  She probably was shoving pens into manila envelopes.  We certainly were never in need of ink in my house.  We soon discovered there was another perk residing at the Union Pen Company.  My mom shared it one Friday in September.

"My boss, Fran, is a season ticket holder for the Jets."

I was unimpressed.  Good for her.

Mom leaned over to whisper.  This meant the next piece of information was a little juicy, maybe even salacious.

"She goes with her boyfriend.  I think they live together."

The last part of the sentence trailed off.  This must really be racy.  I didn't really care.  Or understand.

"They have three tickets and offered to take you."

I love Fran.  Whoever the hell she is.

I'm unaware of the back room machinations that led to this momentous revelation and offer.  Usually on the incredibly shy side when it came to meeting new people, I was suddenly dying to meet Fran, her man friend, and anybody else living in that cozy love nest of hers.  They had Jet tickets.  And one for me!

I assumed my parents were totally comfortable with this arrangement.  Fran must have been thoroughly vetted.  It's not like they were handing over their son to the first stranger who pulled up his sedan to our front door.  Nobody really discussed this topic in those days, but I'm sure Mom and Dad were pretty sure neither or her boyfriend were child predators on loan from the Grove Street playground.

On Sunday, they pulled their Cadillac into our driveway and I was good to go.  As I bounded downstairs through Grandma's part of the house, I caught her spying through the curtains.

"Who the hell are they?"

My ticket to a Jet game, lady!  See ya later!

I was sky high.

Fran and her boyfriend were very friendly.  I don't remember his name for some reason.  Nevertheless,  I have vivid memories of both of them.  They were, for lack of a better description, grizzled.  Raspy voices likely due to the cigarettes that they had lit.  If I had to predict their Saturday night activity, it might be bowling.  Or adorning a bar rail at the local tavern.  Regardless, I was in seventh heaven.  And they were delighted to have me along.

As we pulled away from the house and started to motor down Baychester Avenue in the Bronx, I was floored by the next thing Fran and her beau did. 

She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. 

While driving!

Then Fran slid over closer to the driver.  She slipped his idle arm around her and they cuddled/drove all the way to Shea Stadium.

Huh?

What is this?   Something I'd never seen before.  Not from my usual spot in the back seat watching my parents in the front seat.  And these two were not just my folks' age.  They were probably even older! 

So, going to a Jets football game for the very first time, I was also going to be experiencing something that I really had only witnessed on television via Lucy and Ricky Ricardo or Rob and Laura Petrie.

Open displays of affection.

Fran and the guy held hands as we walked through the parking lot.  They had their arms around each other as we rode the escalator up to their Mezzanine seats on the 30-yard-line.  Whenever the Jets scored, they kissed.

Suddenly, the game was a side attraction to what I was watching as the main event.  I was captivated.

So much that I was even more eager when, two weeks later, I got the same invitation via my mother.  Fran had so much fun that they wanted me to go again. 

Of course, I said nothing to my parents about the added attraction...and education I was receiving.   How would I describe it anyway?

As it turned out, I was invited to five of the Jets home games that year.   I was starting to feel like I belonged there as a season ticket holder.  I saw the same people there every game.  Some even remembered my name.  And, every week, the interplay between Fran and her guy never wavered.  As a matter of fact, it seemed to escalate with the Jets' success that year.

The last home game of the year brought, however, an interesting sidebar to the whole Fran-boyfriend sexcapades.  One that was equally as mystifying to me. 

And a little unsettling.

I was being my usual crazy 11-year-old self.  Rooting wildly for a big yardage gain by the Jets.  The guy seated in front of us turned to smile as I cheered.   He turned to Fran.

"Your son is quite a fan."

Her response threw me for a loop.  She put her arm around my shoulders.

"Yes, he is."

I've always wondered about that.  Was it too complicated for her to explain to a complete stranger who I really was?  The kid of some woman who worked for her in a pen factory.  Maybe.

Or perhaps she liked, for a moment, the whole notion.  Maybe completing the ideal picture in her mind.  A loving man.  A football-crazy son. 

The American family.

I never told that story to my mother either.

One football season later, I noticed there were no more Jet tickets.  Mom told me Fran had left the company. 

And ditched her boyfriend.

Hmmmm.  Maybe there is an amazing consistency when two people sit on opposite ends of the front seat of a Buick.  Not saying much and perhaps connecting even less.

I know that, for the rest of my childhood, I paid a lot more attention to my folks from my spot in the back seat of a LeSabre.

Dinner last night:  Sausage and pepper pizza from Maria's.