The Life of a Buffalo Bills Fan on the Road to Kansas City
By Michael Billoni | January 31, 2022 | buffalorising.com | Submitted by Irma Cortes
For Therese “Tee” Forton-Barnes, the stage was set for the third and what easily would have been the largest and most raucous Buffalo Water Buffalo Club tailgate party at the Big Tree Inn in Orchard Park prior to the AFC Championship game against Cincinnati in Highmark Stadium on Sunday afternoon.
Irma Cortes of the Seneca Nation of Indians in Irving, her daughter and two friends officially joined the Water Buffalo Club before the regular season finale against the New York Jets because they are lifelong Bills fans. That is why the four of them left Irving last weekend for the Bills revenge game against the Chiefs in Kansas City.
Like Tee, the Grand Poobah of the Water Buffalo Club, the ladies from Irving were also extremely confident they would be bundled up for the AFC Championship game here.
13 Seconds changed all of that.
A Buffalo Rising story on January 6 explained how Forton-Barnes co-founded this grassroots club as an extension of Bills Mafia “…except we do not smash tables,” Tee explained.
Through her many contacts, a strong social media network and word of mouth has turned this fun venture into a full-time job over the past couple of weeks for Tee and fellow Water Buffalo Club officers, Lisa Brydges, entertainment director and Cathleen Hart-Frantz, treasurer.
Last Saturday afternoon, the day before the Chiefs game, the three officers set up their distribution center in the back room of the Big Tree Inn at a table in front of its Hall of Fame display, which now contains the distinctive blue Water Buffalo hat with the red Buffalo on the front.
While Brydges and Hart-Frantz distributed hats to fans who came from all over Western New York to pick up their hat, membership card and directions on how to keep the hat upright, Tee was on the phone with KC businessman Shane Cordes, whom she met at Jim Kelly’s golf tournament last summer.
“Shane is a great guy whom I met as he played in a foursome with Chris Berman and Jim. He has a suite for the Chiefs game and when he heard about our club, he ordered ten hats for everyone in the suite. I overnighted them to him during the week but on Saturday he had not received them yet. When he told me he had a ticket for me in his suite I immediately called the airlines and found a flight that left Buffalo at 6 a.m. on gameday,” she explained.
“It was important to me that he had those 10 hats, so I decided to go with 10 more hats for him,” she added.
As new members came into the Big Tree Inn Tee almost jumped out of her chair when she saw Michelle Knaszak of North Boston arrive wearing a full length red and blue Brotoga while her girlfriend Mary Violanti of Hamburg was wearing Zubas shorts over her jeans.
“My entire wardrobe is Bills clothing. I have been a fan my entire life and I am so confident they are going to the Super Bowl this year that I purchased plane tickets and reserved a room in Los Angeles last March,” Violanti said while Tee was explaining to her friend why she needed to borrow her Brotaga for the trip the next day. Knaszak obliged.
“It made the outfit!” explained Tee, who posted photos of herself on the plane and in KC on Sunday in her new Bills outfit.
While Tee and her team were at the Big Tree last Saturday Cortes, and her crew, had piled into a rental car Friday evening for what turned out to be quite the adventure to the Midwest. Irma, her daughter, Kalicia and best friends Robin and Nicky are all Bills’ season ticket holders. Caught up in the buzz of maybe beating the Chiefs in KC, they decided on Wednesday, Jan. 19 “We NEED to be at that game to support our boys,” Irma said.
“We packed our car in -5-degree weather and every crevice in the vehicle was filled with all the necessities–our Buffalo Bills attire, food, drinks, pillows and signs,” she added. Their first stop was in Cleveland for a photo opportunity at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, posting their Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs, “Bills Make Me Wanna Shout” signs and our Hiawatha Flag (We are all Proud Seneca Women) The trip took an interesting turn around 3 a.m. when they stopped at a rest area off the Thruway in Indiana. Irma explained: “When I exit the restroom, straight ahead was a bench with an open wallet on it. I wait for the others to come out so we can decide what we should do. I pick it up and notice on Daniel’s Arizona license that he is a Veteran. That makes us want to help him even more. We look inside for further information, noting that all the money is gone but there is a $2 bill along with credit cards and business cards that we presume are the company he drives for. There is not an employee present nor is there a drop box at the rest stop and we did not want to leave the wallet there on the chance he is sleeping in his truck as there are credit cards and a $2 bill which we think may be important to him.
“We decide to get on the road, taking the wallet with us. We’ll reach out to him via the company business card info and mail it to him. Robin does some investigating; Daniel Rodriguez and a phone number comes up on Google. She calls and leaves a message. She then pulls out the two business cards of the Trucking Company and proceeds to reach out to them explaining the situation. We are now approximately an hour away from the rest stop. About a half hour later she gets a message from someone at the Trucking Company stating they reached Daniel and he did not even know he lost his wallet.
“He was indeed asleep in his truck at the rest stop. Daniel calls Robin and we explain why we decided to take it with us and we offered to mail it, but he needs it to complete his trip. We are now about two hours away and Daniel is headed in the other direction. We remember seeing a Love’s Truck stop card in his wallet and recommend going to one of those as a meeting place or perhaps we could leave it with the manager for Daniel to retrieve it.
“She’s still talking to him on the phone, and he is thanking us, saying he didn’t think there are still people in this world that would do that. She then tells him about the $2 bill and Daniel was ecstatic, stating he was the happiest about that. He received it in a care package mid deployment when he was serving our country with these letters written by some kids. He has been carrying them around for the last decade. We google Love’s and there is one a couple exits away. We stop and explain the situation to the Manager, and they are happy to assist by keeping Daniel’s wallet in the safe until he arrives. Later, we make a stop at the Arch in St. Louis before heading to our Airbnb. While there, Robin receives a picture of Daniel holding his $2 bill along with a message: “Package received. What could have been a bad day turned out great.”
Happy with the good deed completed, the Seneca clan checked into their Airbnb in Overland Park and took a quick nap before hitting the pre-tailgate parties at Bill’s Backer’s Bars (Al’s and Tap’s). Their Water Buffalo Hats and Brotogas caught everyone’s attention.
“Upon arriving at Al’s, which was packed beyond capacity, we ran into “Booker” a popular Bills fan is always at the 97 Rock tailgate party,” Irma continued. “What a great time meeting Bills fans from all over the world, including our own WNY Elvis and American Rapper “Benny the Butcher,” who is from Buffalo.
“On game day, I wake up like it is Christmas morning shouting Hey, ey, ey, ey, and shaking my cowbell clacker trying to awaken the house. We made our way to the stadium with our Bills flag and signs on our rental car. We parked near fellow Bills fans, so we put on our Water Buffalo hats and Brotogas. We must have taken 100’s of pictures with Bills and Chiefs fans and 98% of the Chiefs fans were friendly and welcoming. We meet a Chiefs fan asked who was a fan when the Bills had been in the Super Bowls. All four of were, so he gave us Buffalo Bill’s trading cards, that included Jim Kelly and Thurman Thomas. What a great gesture.”
Tee was honored with a certificate for her first game at Arrowhead Stadium, where she watched the game from Cordes’ suite.
“I will never forget the experience of going to Kansas City,” she said.
“We all know the outcome and I had so many people worried about how I was mentally after that game. Honestly, in the end I was OK. There is something about this team that makes you believe this is not a fluke and we are going to the Super Bowl very soon and we will win it.
“As the founder of the Water Buffalo Club and as its GrandPoohbah, we have a lot to look forward to and I can’t wait to wear our hats in pride and honor at the 2022 home opener, which I believe will be another very good year for the Red, White and Blue!” Tee added.
Tee and her board will also be spending the off-season working on details of a charitable arm with the Water Buffalo Club and the Buffalo Zoo. Of course, it will have something to do with its herd of buffalos.
For Irma and the ladies, the long ride home began after visiting Gates BBQ for lunch. “We were honored to meet the owner, Mrs. Gates,” she said. “She welcomed us with open arms and hugged us after our tough loss and also sent us off with parting gifts of all her bottled seasonings and thanked us for showing up in our Bills attire.
“We were still so proud of the game the Bills played,” Irma said. “They left their hearts on that field as we did in that stadium! We laughed until we cried then we cried until we laughed!”
YaaBa DaaBa Doo!
