Young Picture of Me Flirting With Being a Dallas Cowboys Fan

In recent months, I have been doing a ton of cleaning work. That includes a storage space where I had to dump a lot of stuff in when we had to make a relative emergency move out. So much of the stuff was not properly packed, and some of it was in simple plastic bags. Flimsy plastic bags, which can easily rip. And did. It made that work much, much more difficult than it otherwise would and should have been. Finally, after months - the work got disrupted during the whole Covid-19 pandemic - I was able to get the storage space cleaned out, but that was in uncomfortable circumstances, in a dark and cramped space during what felt like a massive heatwave with tremendous humidity.

Not fun.

Plus, I have been working on cleaning my parent's old house, which has also proven to be quite the task. Since I managed to finish cleaning the storage space, the focus has necessarily shifted to this house. Not particularly comfortable or fun. Again, though, it needs to get done. 

Yesterday, after one of my brutal weekends (weekends when I work all possible shifts for both of my jobs), I began the process of focusing mostly on the house, with the storage space out of the way. And I feel that it was good work, that I made a lot of progress for the first real day. There is still obviously a lot of work yet to be done, but yes, it does feel good to have gotten off to a good start.

One thing that I ran into, which was a relative, albeit pleasant, surprise, were some old pictures. Pictures from the eighties, when my brother and I were still kids. Pictures that I suspected existed, as well as some pictures which came as a complete surprise to me. One of the major surprises were a couple of pictures - only two that I found thus far - of a trip to Belgium that my brother and I took (or rather, were taken to) back in 1985. Honestly, I did not even know that these pictures existed at all, so it came as a pleasant surprise to find that, indeed, there were at least a couple of pictures of this trip, which took place about 35 years ago as I write this!

I will post those pictures, and the best of the rest of the pictures, later. There are a lot of them, so it might take some time. But I am just beginning the process, so bear with me.

In the meantime, here is a picture of me from when I was still a very young kid, back when I was obviously flirting with the possibility of being a fan of the Dallas Cowboys. I remember the Rawlings jersey well, with the distinctive name of the team printed fairly prominently on the front of the jersey, just atop the numbers. Admittedly, I do not remember the helmet at all. But I remember feeling excited about NFL football in general back then, and getting really excited about getting all dressed up like this.

This particular picture was taken in the living room of my grandparent's house in Liberty, New York. It was taken circa early 1980's, probably within even the very early eighties. I am guessing maybe around 1982 or 1983, possibly Christmastime, since it looks like all of this stuff was brand new. Then again, this is close to where the Christmas tree would have been, I think, so maybe I am mistaken about this. My grandfather's private library collection is partly in view in the rear, and if I am not mistaken, on the  bottom left corner, there is a glimpse of the old piano, which used to fascinate me.

Frankly, I do not even remember having gotten this particular helmet, although I do remember buying a Giants helmet at Toys 'r Us years later. I still have that helmet. I also got a Jets helmet around the same time, even though that seems to have gone by the wayside. 

I have been doing a ton of cleaning lately, and unearthed some old pictures from my childhood. Here are some pictures of me when very young, flirting with being a Dallas Cowboys fan. It was between them, the Giants, or the Jets, with my grandfather and my brother being Jets fans. The Cowboys were the flashiest team, and at the time, a model of success, so they appealed to me, before I got some sense and gravitated towards my natural favorite, the New York Giants. But this particular jersey - a Rawlings jersey with the distinctive name of the team on the front of the jersey just above the numbers, which was the style at the time - lasted me years and years. I was much older in the latter two pictures, but still wore that damn jersey, even though the numbers had faded and were hard to see following a laundry mishap. Lol!


Here are some other pictures of me wearing that same Dallas Cowboys jersey, years and years later. It lasted me many years, even though the numbers got faded after one ill-fated laundry washing. I still continued to wear it, possibly even until middle school, if memory serves correctly!

And here is another picture from Liberty, which I thought would be appropriate to add here. I posted a similar picture some time ago back when I found another, similar set of pictures. But this one is slightly different. Again, this was from sometime in the early eighties (possibly, but not probably, even the late seventies), although I really could not be specific with the year. 

Here are some other, somewhat related pictures - including that similar picture to the above which I mentioned earlier - from us in Liberty, back in the early eighties: