This time of the year always reminds me of a special Thanksgiving season many years ago.

The year was 1961, and I had practiced long and hard for the annual Ford Motors Punt, Pass, and Kick competition, held each fall for youngsters in the greater Bangor-Brewer area. The prizes were great, and the first-place winner left the proceedings with a brand-spanking-new New York Giants football uniform, football pads and helmet included.

If you were a kid in those days, it was the Giants uniform that you really wanted to win.

Problem was, I ended up in the hospital, and I missed the whole thing. By the time I got out of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, the competition was over, and I was a mere shadow of my former athletic self. Good thing the competition wasn’t held after I returned to our Brewer home because I would’ve begged my parents to let me go.

Back in those days, I was a big New York Giants fan. I drove my teachers nuts because I spent every waking opportunity in school drawing my favorite players in my notebook. I knew them all by heart, name, and number.

Now, how many sixth-graders do you know who can spell out such names as Andy Robustelli, No. 81; Dick Modzelewski, No. 77; Jim Katcavage, No. 75; or Rosey Grier, No. 76? Not many, I’m guessing. Y.A. Tittle, No. 14, was my favorite player of all time, while Sam Huff, No. 70, was a close second.

Tittle was the quarterback on some great Giants teams. He came to the Giants from San Francisco. What an arm this guy had. I was also a big fan of Del Shofner, No. 85, who brought his talented hands to New York from the Los Angeles Rams. What a wide receiver this guy was.

Channel 5 TV in Bangor carried all the Giants games back in those days. They were the talk of the town. Channel 2 picked up the Boston Patriots broadcasts. Make no mistake about it. I knew all the Giants by name and number, but I also knew what was going on in Boston. I knew the Patriots by name only back then.

The Patriots were always the background music to the symphony the Giants were playing every Sunday in my house.

It was as simple as that.

In 1961, the Pats picked up a guy from Oakland named Vito “Babe” Parilli, an experienced quarterback. They also had a solid defensive back, whom they converted into a flanker named Gino Cappelletti.

Then in 1962, they drafted a solid linebacker named Buoniconti. What a player Nick turned out to be.

All these stars met each and every Sunday afternoon before dark in my backyard to replay what had just transpired on our living room television set. You’d have to say that I held the first of many Super Bowls on that Washington Street lawn, long before the AFL and the NFL had at it officially.

The Giants usually prevailed, but if Parilli had a decent day on the tube, I’d recreate it out in the snow and the mud.

You see, I was the only participant in those games back then. I’d line the field with my father’s lime. I used ski poles for yard markers. One of my father’s handkerchiefs served as a penalty flag. I had an official NFL football that I had purchased at Wight’s Sporting Goods in Bangor. And, I had a real football helmet that my grandfather brought me on one of his many trips to our house.

What I lacked was that Giants uniform. I even went so far as to paint Tittle’s No. 14 on the sides of my store-bought helmet with my sister’s red nail polish. (She never knew that!)

What a time I had.

My mother was always the referee for those contests, standing watch at her kitchen window. When the temperature dipped, she lured the captain of the Giants inside with cocoa and cookies, crafty official that she was.

One Sunday, my game was rained out. My sister wasn’t much for football of any kind. She usually assisted my mother with the food chores. Essentially, I was stuck indoors, reliving the TV action on my electric football game.

The doorbell rang, and I sneaked to the landing above our stairs to see who it was. I recognized the man from church, and in his hands he held a huge box, decorated with the Ford Motors logo and the New York Giants insignia.

Hmmm … I’m thinking. I scurried back to my bedroom and waited.

Up the stairs my father and Mr. George Craig came. They knocked on my door – I always kept it shut when engaging in such important activities as electric football – and said they had something for me.

I, of course, opened the door, then stood there dumbfounded looking at the grand prize of the Ford Punt, Pass, and Kick competition.

I’m sure my eyes were as big as saucers.

“We had an extra uniform,” Mr. Craig explained. The rest of what he said had something to do with my unexpected hospital stay and keeping a stiff upper lip. Those words floated to the top of my room and hung there over me. I felt my face glowing red with the combination of childhood embarrassment and the beginning of tears.

I wore that uniform out during the many games I played in the yard. I still have the helmet as a constant reminder of one man’s generosity toward me at a time in my life when football fantasies took my mind off the reality of an extended stay in the hospital and future physical ups and downs.

It was a memory I will cherish forever.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

NEWS columnist Ron Brown, a retired high school basketball coach, can be reached at bdnsports@bangordailynews.net