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    Section 6: a memoir of family, football and fandom
    Section 6: a memoir of family, football and fandom
    Section 6: a memoir of family, football and fandom
    Ebook92 pages1 hour

    Section 6: a memoir of family, football and fandom

    By Chris Garson

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    About this ebook

    The Cleveland Browns have provided fans in northeast Ohio memories to last a lifetime. For the Garson family, those memories stretch over four generations, beginning with my grandparents and ending, for now, with my son, niece and nephew.

    Section 6 is less a football story than it is a story of family and hope born from years of Sundays, a story describing more than six decades of family traditions, traditions steeped in brown and orange.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherChris Garson
    Release dateFeb 26, 2013
    ISBN9781301627059
    Section 6: a memoir of family, football and fandom
    Author

    Chris Garson

    Officially, I was laid off and have a severance package to prove it, but really, it was an early retirement. Very early, I was just shy of fifty. When the time came to make the cut, I gladly volunteered. I’d had enough. Now, after three years of writing, rewriting and rewriting, I’m dipping my toe in commercial waters. I haven’t sold a word, not yet, but then again, I haven’t tried until now. Don't worry, I’m no starving artist. I provided twenty-five years of leadership as an IT executive with a Fortune 200 company. That’s a quarter century of corporate moments, some of which have already found homes in short stories. I was nationally known, in insurance technology circles, which is to say entirely unknown, led an organization commanding a nine figure budget not counting pennies, and spoke to thousands at industry events.THE CURSE OF ARVYL’S FOLLY is my first full length work seeking an audience since my fourth grade classmates were subjected to “Augusta the Dragon” forty-two years ago. After leaving Mrs. Hamilton’s classroom, I attended Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, where I devoured fantasy and science fiction classics and became an avid gamer on my way to graduating with degrees in psychology and sociology and a minor in King Arthur. Now, I live in Cleveland Heights, Ohio and my seven year old son Neil lives on the east coast. I named my cats, China and Rider, from a Grateful Dead set list, and I still like dragons. My collection is large, Neil ran out of fingers and toes just counting the winged ornaments dangling from my mantel, and very cheesy.

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      Book preview

      Section 6 - Chris Garson

      Section 6:

      A memoir of family, football and fandom

      By Chris Garson

      Copyright 2012 Chris Garson

      Smashwords Edition

      Table of Contents

      Dedication

      Introduction

      Otto Graham to Frank Ryan

      Bill Nelson to Brian Sipe

      Bernie Kosar

      Bernie Kosar to Vinnie Testaverde

      No Quarterback

      Tim Couch to Brandon Weedon

      The Fifth Quarter

      This memoir is dedicated to:

      My grandfather, Emmanuel Joseph Garson, 1900-1994 and grandmother, Marian Bing Garson, 1909-1999, for having the foresight to purchase seats in Upper Deck, Section 6, Row 1.

      My father, John David Garson, born 1935, for teaching me about football.

      My son, Neil Garson Porter, born 2005, to pass it on.

      Introduction

      Being a native Clevelander, I bleed brown, not red. Like many people in northeast Ohio and Browns Backers across the globe, I was raised on a steady diet of all things Brownie. So, what’s the big deal? Browns fan are a dime a dozen around here. What may set me apart is how long my family’s romance with the Browns has lasted. My grandparents were among the 60,135 fans watching the Browns defeat the Miami Seahawks 44-0 in their inaugural game September 6, 1946. In the sixty-six years since, my family and I have been in the stands, in dens and in sports bars watching our team and loving it with all our heart and with all our soul, through good times and bad, in sickness and in health. It’s been a true marriage, with ups and downs, even surviving a lengthy separation in the 90’s.

      This is a football story, but you won’t learn the secrets of the West Coast offense or the virtues of a 3-4 D. If you’re interested in how Mickey McBride founded the team as part of the new All-American Football Conference, or our first coach Paul Brown, who the team may or may not be named after, or our championship teams of those early years, or Art Modell’s midnight flight to Baltimore, or the Lerners’ crusade to bring back our team, look elsewhere.

      This is the story of my family and the Browns over six decades, the fond memories of a third generation fan, the story of time honored traditions, those known by football fans from coast to coast – like our bone chilling winds, the Dawg Pound and Stadium mustard - and the lesser known, no less treasured Garson traditions, lovingly established watching our beloved team. The Browns have rewarded me with so many memories. Sure, the Drive, the Fumble, and Red Right 88 are among them, they’re graven in the mind of any true Browns fan. I’ll never forget my disbelief when we lost with victory all but assured, my emptiness when the clock hit zero or my heart pounding with excitement after beating the Jets in double overtime, but my most cherished memories aren’t about any game in particular. They’re about a lifetime of Sundays down by the lake.

      Otto Graham to Frank Ryan

      The Garson football saga began with my grandfather, EJ Garson, and his wife, Marian. His contemporaries called him Red, for his red hair, but by the time I came around, he didn’t have much hair at all and the little bit left was snowy white and almost always covered by a man’s hat. I didn’t call him EJ or Red or even Grandpa, I called him Beepo – all six of us grandsons did – me, my younger brothers Scott and Matt and my cousins, Michael, Jeffrey and Peter Cristal. Michael, the oldest, christened him Beepo, no one knows how he came up with it, and dubbed my grandmother Meemo. That’s right, out of all the great names he could have chosen, he came up with Meemo and Beepo, and I loved him for it. No other family had a Meemo and Beepo. As a boy at summer camp in New Hampshire, I wrote letters addressed to Meemo and Beepo (no last name, no suite number) never dreaming that the mailman for their apartment building wouldn’t know them by those names.

      Beepo was born in 1900, making it easy to remember his age, in Cleveland, Ohio and returned after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. He was a drummer who dreamed of playing gin palaces during the Prohibition, made a living in real estate and playing the stock market, and was a card shark. Gin rummy was his game and Cutty Sark was his Scotch of choice. He met Meemo, known to others as Marian Bing, after dating her older sister Kay. He must have had a thing for younger women. Marian was nine years his junior. They married in October of 1929, when she wasn’t old enough to vote and on Black Tuesday, they were in Europe on their honeymoon. After losing his shirt, Beepo turned to insurance. He started out in his father’s office, David Garson sold life insurance, but got his license in property and casualty. Within a few years, he’d founded a new agency with Bob Blau, who had married Meemo’s older sister Kay. By the end of WWII, the Garson-Blau agency was successful and Meemo and Beepo were regular fixtures at Oakwood, an east side Jewish country club, where their friend Bob Gries, a minority owner in the Browns, belonged. Bob convinced Beepo to buy season tickets and that is how the Garson clan came to inhabit Upper Deck, Section 6, Row 1, Seats 5 and 6 at Cleveland Municipal Stadium seven or eight Sunday afternoons each fall.

      My father, John, was lucky enough to attend some games in the 40s and watched those early teams win game after game and championship after championship. Dad was there in ’64 against the Colts and remembers the Browns winning the title. Back then, the roster was packed with future Hall of Famers, not like today’s teams. Call me crazy, but I don’t think future generations will remember Chris Ogbannaya or Oniel Cousins as standouts. Dad and Beepo left the house early that morning and had breakfast downtown before the game. He remembers everyone expecting a dogfight that day, not a 27-0 blowout.

      The weather down by the lake in December could be brutal and Dad joined the Indian Guides to learn some necessary survival skills. Why the Guides and not the Scouts? I’m not sure. Maybe it’s because the Scouts have such a strong anti-gay outlook and he sensed that one day gay rights would matter to him. A downside of sitting in the front row of the Upper Deck was that water runs down hill. If it rained on Saturday and then dipped below freezing, the floor would have an inch or two of ice on it and as the game wore on, the cold soaked through the soles of your shoes and into your feet. Dad would bring charcoal briquettes and a #10 can into the Stadium and make a small fire to keep warm, just like they’d taught him in the Guides. By the time I went to games, they had rules against that sort of thing, though nowhere near as many as in the post-9/11 era, but my dad had mastered the secrets of staying warm and taught me and my brothers. Layers, he’d say. Two pair of socks and layers, lots of layers, and pantyhose under the thermal underwear when it was really cold.

      In 1960, the year I was born, Beepo fought through prostate cancer and during his recovery, my father ran the agency. In his brush with death, Beepo faced his own mortality. He walked away from the disease with his strength returned, but now that he knew my father could manage things, he wanted to take a step back. He turned over the reins to Dad and remained active in the business another thirty years. Tennis became a year round favorite of his and when he wasn’t in the Oakwood card room, I could find him on the clay in summer and swatting balls indoors when it

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