Parental Reflections

Millions of Africans and Southeast Asians believe the Buffalo Bills are one of the most successful National Football League teams in history. How could they not think so, when they are clothed in T-shirts from 1991, 1992, 1993 and 1994 proclaiming the Bills Super Bowl champions of those respective years?

Of course, Buffalo lost the penultimate game in each of those years, but by a long-standing practice of the novelty souvenir business, manufacturers produce “winning” merchandise for both teams prior to each championship game. To the victors go the spoils, the saying goes, meaning merchandise with the winning team’s logos sells like hotcakes. Meanwhile, merchandise proclaiming the losing team as champion quickly is bundled up and shipped overseas for distribution by charity and relief organizations.

I bring this to your attention because of the dominance of news reports these last few days about the sell-through of NY Jets merchandise at New York area sporting goods shops. It seems retailers couldn’t get enough green and white jerseys in the run-up to this evening’s American Football Conference title game against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Thirty years ago my father got caught up in the frenzy of sports memorabilia. Football was never part of his Americanization. He could barely master the intricacies of baseball. But, as my brother Bernie recalled, in late December 1979, Dad, an independent apparel manufacturer, surprised him by saying he was rooting for Philadelphia to win its next game. Bernie asked if he knew whether the team was playing football, basketball or hockey. “I don’t know, or care,” he replied. “I only know that if Philadelphia wins and plays next week, then I have an order for 10,000 green T-shirts with white sleeves!”

It was the Philadelphia Eagles football team. They played the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a divisional playoff game. Philadelphia lost, 24-17. More importantly for Jets fans, the eventual winner of the Super Bowl that season was the Pittsburgh Steelers!


Zsa Zsa Gabor is back home after having her right leg amputated on January 14. For those not familiar with the 93-year-old Hungarian-born celebrity, Zsa Zsa and her sisters Magda and Eva, along with her mother Jolie, were the Kardashians of the post-World War II era. Zsa Zsa was an actress of questionable talent, but she and the other Gabors were always in the gossip pages—Zsa Zsa, alone, has had nine husbands. Eva wound up outshining her in front of the cameras when she starred with Eddie Albert in the CBS situation comedy Green Acres in the late 1960s.

Zsa Zsa Gabor makes me think of my mother. Like Zsa Zsa, she was born in Easter Europe in 1917. Like Zsa Zsa, my mother had her lower leg amputated. Already frail from smoking too much and diabetic, Mom’s life became even more sedentary. My parents had to give up their homes in Brooklyn and Miami Beach as they weren’t wheelchair compatible. They moved into an independent care facility near Bernie, in Rockville, MD.

As her blood circulation deteriorated even more, she was scheduled for an operation to amputate her other leg when she died of a heart attack. One week from tonight I’ll light a memorial candle to commemorate her passing in 1996.