("Well, how long you been living?")

I grew up in Homestead, Florida in the early 1970s...reputed to be the Lime Growing Capital of the World. Alls i know is that in the early to mid 1970s it was the monster truck drivin, confederate flag wavin, mailbox-trashin, sideburn-growin capital of my world....it was what it was, and i was what i was.

Homestead. I've been on the VS for over a decade, and have seen many people reminisce over their shared/separate adolescences while they grew up in similar areas.........but i've never seen anyone admit to growing up in...or even visiting....Homestead.

Anyone?  Bueller?

That's what i thought.

But, to get to what i originally wanted to write about.....you football fans....can you even imagine what it was like to grow up in the atmosphere of THE greatest football team EVER....and then have them disappear, after two of the best years in football history......into obscurity?

Worse still....before you were old enough to gamble??

My dad, rest his soul, brought me up on football. He taught me that the QB was the guy who was crouched just a little bit higher than the other guys. He taught me to pass, he taught me to catch. He led me like he expected me to be at the pylon when the ball got there.

But somehow, growing up smallish, i moved toward kicking the football. I would kick anything around that was available, be it football-shaped or not.

I got good at it. I came in 2nd in the Miami-Dade PPK finals for my age group, despite basically whiffing on a free kick from the Mark Moseley toe position at the behest of my dad, despite my greater comfortability with the newfangled sidewinder approach. I went with what dad said, but it didn't work that day.

My favorite player.....yes, even with Griese, Csonka, Kiick, Morris, Warfield, Twilley, Briscoe, Scott, Morrall et al on the team, was of course tiny Cypriot kicker Garo Ypremian. Holy cow, Garo went 24 of 40 on field goals that year! 

My beloved dad told me that in the offseason, Garo supplemented his income by selling ties at Burdine's, and that we could go and see him pretty much any time.

So, .....and i know that you're all waiting for a happy/autographed-lined ending.....well anyway, one day my dad and i drove up to the Dadeland Mall where Garo was supposed to have been working. I was still a towhead 8 or 9 year old who had no idea what a necktie was even for, let alone how to tie one....we got to the right place at what my dad told me was the right time.......but it did not turn out to be. It was Garo's day off.

C'est la vie. We drove back hoome, passing Kendall, and then Goulds.

It was a disappointment at the time, but if you'd told me that i'd be a middle-aged, gray-haired old fart before the next time that my beloved Dolphins would even sniff coming close to another Super Bowl triumph......well....i wouldn't have believed you.

One of these days....if i live long enough.