I unearthed this video from 1980, when I was in sixth grade and, like the boy featured here, emotionally defenseless to the improbable rise and sudden fall of a truly lovable local football team.
Despite its tremendous campyy-ness, the video brought a tear to my eye, a direct descendant of those that I bitterly shed on in my parents' bedroom that terrible Sunday afternoon.
And I wondered: Is it possible to be permanently wounded, to have one's psyche forever altered, by a perfectly-timed disappointment, even if it's from outside the home? (At play, at school, at work?)
Sniff. I loved that team. Craig and I both talk about that fateful day…he cried too. It’s amazing the power sports teams have, isn’t it? It’s never been the same since moving to Southern Oregon, where the closest pro football teams are SF (9 hours south) and Seattle (6 hours north).
Well, it’s not the same in Cleveland either, Eileen. The club left for Baltimore, you’ll recall, and I believe the kid in the video committed murder-suicide with his father that year, leaving a note reading only, “You promised.”