Hard to describe how much I loved the Oilers. They were just like Houston back then; gritty, hard-nosed, blue-collar. We lived and died for them.
In high school I worked at a grocery store, and almost always worked Sundays. During the playoffs, we would use rubber bands to hold the store intercom mike near a transistor radio so we could play the broadcast for all the shoppers. Imagine doing that today!
Me and my brother used to gather all the neighborhood kids and play a game we just called "Billy White Shoes Johnson." We'd P for K a long ball and the guy back deep had to return it against everybody else. We had a long front yard so it was tough, but if you made it through the gauntlet you got to do the shaky leg dance.
My future mother- and father-in-law used to have big game watching parties and everyone in their neighborhood would decorate their yards with Oilers gear on Sundays. When Bum brought the boys back from Pittsburgh, they went to the Dome to join the crowd. For some reason, I decided not to go and missed out.
Man, those were good days.
I had Texans season tickets that first year but never renewed. It was not the same. I haven't watched a game in a decade or more.