What is your BEST Bills related memory that doesn't involve a game's result?

[SinceThe70s]

I've only been to three games at Orchard Park (all wins!). After the first we went to the Big Tree Inn and at one point Bruce Smith squeezed by me in the crowded bar. JFC, he was an absolute wall of a man.

[Ethan in Cleveland]

Quick Fun fact

I've been to the two coldest games in Bills history 

 

Bills Raiders Jan 1994

Bills Pats Jan 2022

[Ethan in Cleveland]

Ok last one...

Bills Browns MNF 1995

Drove up from Columbus for the game. Bills win on last second FG.

Walking back to my car and I met and spoke with Senator Alphonse D'Amato for several minutes. 

[Neo]

23 hours ago, Sestak4ever said:

All right now. This goes back a long time ago. I was 9 or 10 years old and the Bills were practicing in Blasdell I believe at the Camelot motel. They had an autograph session and handed out 8x10 black and white glossies that they autographed. There was Tom Sestak, Darryl Lamonica, Pete Gogolak and Dick Hudson. I remember how massive Tom Sestak seemed to me. Just a giant of a man. I still have those autographed photos! Go Bills!🏈

I rode my banana seat bike to exit 56 and watched, as well!   More than once, OJ Simpson stayed late and played keep away with a group of us.   Imagine ten boys trying to encircle and catch The Juice.    Years later, I met him at the sports bar in the Hyatt on Main Street.  He was there with an Oakland Raider equipment guy.   They were in town for a Bills Raiders playoff game where OJ was a broadcaster.    THe bar was empty, before “happy hour” started.   OJ waived us over and I sat down and finished a beer.   I told him the twenty year old story of chasing him around a field near the motel.   He laughed, of course, and asked if we’d like to try again.

 

What a charismatic, engaging guy.    Seeing him through a different lens is still unsettling.   

[Bob in STL]

Way back in about 1964-65.   Our parish on the West Side had a fund raising breakfast called All Sports Night.  Two Buffalo Bills came to the event and spoke, Al BeMiller and Joe O’Donnell.  I was a grade school kid, and they made a very positive impression on me for sure.  We watched the Bills Highlight Video and they talked about their careers and the team, the role of sports in their life,  a they told a few stories about the AFL Championship Team.  

[smward8]

Thanks for starting this thread.

The day the drought ended, I was on a cruise ship out of Miami.  After dinner, I sat in our state room watching the scrappy on board ESPN ticker for what seemed like an eternity (in reality, probably a half hour).  I'm not a kid, but I jumped around when I finally saw the news we were in the playoffs.   

  I rejoined my wife and friends in the piano bar, and it turned out the piano player was from Rochester and also a Bills fan.  He announced the news and played a short rendition of the Shout song.  Turns out there were a few other Bills fans on board.  We started celebrating hard at that point, and don't remember much of the rest of the night.   

Wife wasn't too happy with me.

[Shaw66]

9 hours ago, PromoTheRobot said:

 

They are at the corner of Jefferson and Best. They left just the 4 gates that were at the corners of War Memorial. They took down the rest of the original stadium.

 

 

Thanks.  I'm definitely going there this fall. 

[MarlinTheMagician]

Standing with Mom and Dad and my first wife while Whitney Houston sang the National Anthem and Jets roared over the stadium.  I lost my beloved spouse in a car accident nine years later.  Luckily I have three of her great children.  Dad is gone now, Mom has Alzheimer's.  Happily I have a terrific new spouse who loves the Bills and is so similar to the wonderful woman I lost it is eery at times. 

 

Second - Dad protecting me from the throng at the men's room when I was five years old at the Rockpile before the Raiders at Bills in 1967.  And seeing how green the field was that day when I walked in and saw my first NFL field for the first time.

[I'm Spartacus]

Getting Jack Kemp's autograph in 1964. They used to practice at a hotel in Hamburg (forget the name) off the 90 thruway. I was six at the time.

[LewPort71]

We lived in NE Ohio during the 1980's right on Lake Erie.  We   went to a picnic on Sunday afternoon and brought the portable radio as my friends were Browns fans.

The Browns radio broadcast was 970AM.  As I adjusted the dial, I heard  the  familiar voice of Van Miller as 930 WBEN came in clear as a bell.

I have no idea who won, but the fact I could get the radio signal altered my NFL Sundays after that.   Radio on 930 and TV muted.  

[Augie]

1 hour ago, I'm Spartacus said:

Getting Jack Kemp's autograph in 1964. They used to practice at a hotel in Hamburg (forget the name) off the 90 thruway. I was six at the time.

 

In third grade I was friends with Jack Kemp’s son, Jeff. We used to walk home from school and go to his house. That was very cool, and it’s where I first saw a color TV. Jeff’s “toy chest” had nothing but AFL game balls in it, and he spent quite a few years in the NFL himself as a QB. It was great to have him visit my neighborhood and beat all the older boys for a change! 

[Bills!Win!]

In 2000 my dad brought one of those small portable black and white tv’s with him into the bills game and watched at least half of the game on that and we had seats in the 100 level end zone on the scoreboard side. He always was an odd guy.

[CNYfan]

Cheerleaders

[Thrivefourfive]

(When after the 1987 season) My dad said, “grandpa thinks the Bills aren’t so bad.”

 

And the Bills weren’t so bad for a decade. That was it for me. Ages 10-20 were filled with Bills magic, and heartache. 

 

 

[Let's Go Buffalo]

My favorite Bills related memory has to be when Steve Tasker visited my family and I at my house in my hometown. One of our neighbors heard about it, and came by too, and Steve didn't mind at all, and we all just sat on the couch and chatted for a bit. This was back in the 90's, but it's one my favorite memories of all. Go Bills!

[Thrivefourfive]

4 hours ago, LewPort71 said:

We lived in NE Ohio during the 1980's right on Lake Erie.  We   went to a picnic on Sunday afternoon and brought the portable radio as my friends were Browns fans.

The Browns radio broadcast was 970AM.  As I adjusted the dial, I heard  the  familiar voice of Van Miller as 930 WBEN came in clear as a bell.

I have no idea who won, but the fact I could get the radio signal altered my NFL Sundays after that.   Radio on 930 and TV muted.  

You went to a picnic January 6th, 1990. Insanity!

 

[Augie]

6 minutes ago, Thrivefourfive said:

You went to a picnic January 6th, 1990. Insanity!

 

 

My father was an odd man in many ways. He hated flies near his food so picnics were out of the question…..until they all had too much to drink one New Year’s Eve and someone said “There won’t be any flies out tomorrow” on New Year’s Day.  And so the tradition of the New Year’s Day picnic in a state park with Bloody Mary’s, bacon and eggs and snowmobiles was born. 

 

There’s your random memory of the day. 

[Thrivefourfive]

17 minutes ago, Augie said:

 

My father was an odd man in many ways. He hated flies near his food so picnics were out of the question…..until they all had too much to drink one New Year’s Eve and someone said “There won’t be any flies out tomorrow” on New Year’s Day.  And so the tradition of the New Year’s Day picnic in a state park with Bloody Mary’s, bacon and eggs and snowmobiles was born. 

 

There’s your random memory of the day. 

I thought there was no way. This made my day. 
 

Yes, dad’s have the strangest quirks. Like freezing at a picnic because of a fly.

[gregmo]

Free Whopper coupon on the back of the ticket stub.

[Bigvinny]

Met a bunch of the 90's Super Bowl team at a Lakers exhibition game they had at the aud. Walked up to Bruce at the snack bar, also chatted with Metzelaars, a few others.

 

Probably '95 had to pickup playoff tickets in John Butlers office. They were from Ted Marchibroda to my uncle. They crushed the Dolphins that day.

Edited May 25 by Bigvinny