A Fan's Notes

Dear Readers: Thank you so much for your very sweet reactions to last week’s entry containing my homemade video — where I read from my childhood diary.

Young Amy thanks you.

Old Amy does, too.

[Stay tuned for more Young Amy diary entries …]

[** note — this newsletter contains a number of videos. I strongly recommend watching them, if possible.]

Honestly, the fact that I use the phrase “sports person” should point to my cluelessness when it comes to professional sports.

However — and bear with me here — I definitely possess the temperament and the heart of a fan.

I’m talking about a big, sloppy, sentimental desire to latch onto a team. To cheer their legendary loser backstory. To want to wear a souvenir jersey to bed.

A fan’s love passeth all understanding. What I mean is that a fan — a real fan — will sit in the snow and yell their voice raw while they watch their team lose.

When I lived in Chicago I was all about the Cubs. Of course I was.

Moving back home to central New York State, my sporting affections sought a target, sort of the way Young Amy sought a date for the Sadie Hawkins Dance …

… with the interior energy of a heat-seeking missile.

Better put: A heart-seeking missile.

In my home region, you can root for Boston or New York. You can root for Pennsylvania or New Jersey. We are, as our slogan states, “centrally isolated.”

Which brings me to Buffalo.

Buffalo is a quintessential sports town: Big shoulders, tough climate, falling down, rising up, rusty and resilient.

The Buffalo Bills football team has experienced its share of slumps (droughts, they call them), but last year and this year …. things are looking up. Way up.

They’ve got a devoted, sentimental, and sweetly weepy Billionaire owner. They’ve got a brand new stadium (as of last week) — with NO DOME — because Bills players and fans love to play in the snow.

To wit:

Dateline: 1 December, 2024

Place: Highmark Stadium

Conditions: Heavy snow with a chance of victory

In the clip above, the Bills were scheduled to play the 49ers, but very heavy snow threatened the game.

Ground crews AND DOZENS OF FANS worked through the night to clear the stadium.

The Bills won.