Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 28, 1992 TAG: 9201280384
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Kathleen Wilson
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
'SKINS SUPERIZED SUNDAY
Some lesser-known statistics from Super Bowl Sunday . . .\ Total yards:
Washington Redskins: 417
Buffalo Bills: 283
Roanoke Mingling: 98,560 (or 56 miles)
We earned our own victory passing and rushing our way from party to party, encountering some 500 ming-a-lings. At each gathering we found lines at the bathroom, great food, beer, cheer and at least one person rooting for the Bills because they really were Dallas Cowboy fans.
\ First quarter: No topping Barry and Phyllis Marshall's party for 'Skins spirit. These were a dozen of the most wildly dressed people I've ever seen. Gaudy and proud of it.
Jim Carson wore 'Skins boxer shorts over a pair of Zubaz, which are psychedelic red and gold tiger-striped pants - said to be the hottest thing among professional football players and their most rabid fans. Jim's wife, Helen, talked to the referees on television with a 'Skins hand puppet, wearing Redskins earrings made out of ping-pong balls.
The decorations were a hoot. Signs boasting "We'll have buffalo burgers for dinner" and "Redskins have always killed buffalo" hung around the room at the Marshalls' Northeast Roanoke home.
All hell broke loose when the 'Skins first scored. Barry Marshall - in red and gold from head to toe - turned off the TV sound, blasted the team's anthem, "Hail to the Redskins," on the stereo and did a war dance around the room wearing moccasins.
"Don't get too close to him," Jim Dalton joked. "That's his good-luck outfit. He's worn it for every game this season, and I'm sure by now it smells a bit."
\ Second quarter: Some 65 fans turned out for Frank and Diane Hancock's 17th annual Super Bowl party at their elegant home on Avenham Avenue in Roanoke.
The Hancocks' party boasted the most people per square foot and had some impressive statistics of its own. There were eight pots of chili, seven cases of beer and four half gallons of assorted spirits. Twelve heads of lettuce went into making the salad.
"The biggest problem is trying to figure out how much toilet paper to buy," confided Diane, who noticed that in every photograph taken of their Super Bowl parties over the years, she's in the kitchen.
Name dropping was a must here.
George Preas played for the Baltimore Colts for 11 years and was among the serious crowd in the bedroom. He retired from pro ball in '65, two years before the very first Super Bowl, and was wearing a 1958 world championship ring he let me touch.
Chan Bolling - who I was told would pout were his name not mentioned - pointed out Evans Jessee, a member of the University of Virginia's board of visitors, who admitted he was on a first-name basis with Patricia Kluge.
Robert Bolling, a former state wrestling champ, was the only one in the house rooting for Buffalo.
\ Half-time: Spent lost and getting directions at Cave Spring Exxon, where Dave Green and Jerry Wright watched the game in the garage. It might as well have been a party, Dave said, because they'd had only two customers in two hours. And I wasn't even buying gas.
\ Third quarter: WDBJ Channel 7 weather jester Patrick Evans somehow talked his girlfriend, Joan Haley, into opening up her Southwest Roanoke County house to about 50 of his friends. "It was brave," she admitted.
Cameraman Grant Plaskon wore a bright red Bills cap on which he claimed he spent half his paycheck. "Somebody has to be the antagonist," he said.
At one point the group called some friends in Buffalo. Collect.
Later, Evans sang a solo a cappella version of "Hail to the Redskins," which nobody seemed to mind.
Don "The Life of Any Party" Nimey drove all the way down from Washington and was rooting for the Bills. He and Evans grew up together, but somehow, Nimey said, "he grew up a Redskin and I grew up a Cowboy."
\ Fourth quarter: The game was such a blowout by now that the last two stops were nearly deserted; only a handful of people and the artifacts of a Super Bowl party remained. Roanoke's First Baptist Church treated 300 of its members to hot dogs and two big-screen TVs in its Family Life Center following evening services.
And over at the Salvation Army's Red Shield Lodge, 25 homeless men watched the Super Bowl on a big screen and were served a spaghetti dinner by a church group that prefered to remain anonymous.
Growing up in Pittsburgh, where football might as well be religion, my dad taught me there's only one way to watch a Super Bowl: Alone. In the room closest to the bathroom. With the TV sound turned off and the radio blasting a local sportscaster's play-by-play. When the Steelers scored, you simply nodded your head knowingly. No cheering. This was no party. It was serious business.
Roanoke taught me something new Sunday. Maybe father doesn't always know best.
THE PARTY LINE: If you'd like to invite free-lance Mingling columnist Kathleen Wilson to a party or social gathering, call her at 981-3434; when asked for the mailbox, dial MING (6464) and press the key. Then leave a message as directed. Or write her in care of the Features Department, Roanoke Times & World-News, P.O. Box 2491, Roanoke, Va. 24010-2491.