With the exception of the traumatic and the dramatic, it’s unlikely you remember with any specificity an otherwise typical Monday back when you were twelve-years-old.

That’s certainly true for me, but for one – October 15, 1984.

I was in Sister Leticia Lake’s 7th grade class in St. Christopher’s parochial school on Long Island. My life revolved around my family, church, classes, friends, altar boy assignments, Boy Scouts, my paper route and lawn business – and sports.

I was far from the best athlete, but I was committed. We played CYO basketball in the winter, baseball in the spring and summer – and football in the fall. In September, we’d line our backyard grass with lime, make a field goal pole out of wooden tomato stakes and string up my dad’s painting drop cloths to prevent kicked balls from going over into the Friel’s yard.

Being from New York, I rooted for the Jets and especially liked that they played football on the same field where the Mets played baseball – just like us. But I also rooted for the Denver Broncos. My Uncle Eddie had moved from Brooklyn to Denver in 1949. He was on a waiting list for season tickets for years and finally got them in the mid 1970s.

Because long-distance phone calls cost more than a 20-cent stamp, Eddie would write these incredibly descriptive letters to my dad about sitting in the last row of Mile High Stadium with his wife and kids. He’d sometimes mention them being wrapped in sleeping bags and drinking from thermoses of hot soup or coffee. There would be references to swirling snow and “Rocky Mountain Thunder” – the sound of thousands of fans simultaneously stomping their feet on the metal stands.

My dad joked that Eddie worked for the Colorado Board of Tourism. To me, his life seemed more exciting than ours. On Christmas Eve in 1982, my aunt Charlene called to ask for prayer. Eddie, who managed a Mays D&F, was forced to walk the 5 miles home in a blizzard. He called back to say he made it. In my eyes, his star rose higher.

With no cable, we rarely saw Broncos’ games on television, but the whole country got to see them play the Green Bay Packers on ABC’s Monday Night Football on October 15, 1984. It happened to be the 200th edition of the broadcast.

In what would become known as the “Broncos Blizzard,” over 62,000 fans braved a raging snowstorm that night up in Mile High Stadium. Up to three feet would fall between Monday and Tuesday, and there was already a whole lot on the field. Men driving plows and pushing shovels would occasionally clear a yard line.

With wet snow blurring cameras, it was difficult to make out everything on television. But like many, I was enthralled. It snowed in New York, but not in October. The fact that so many fans still came out in a blizzard solidified my suspicion that Broncos’ fans were a lot tougher than New York fans. I envisioned my uncle buried but undeterred up in that last row.

“Just get your mind off the weather and get your mind on your business,” Denver’s head coach Dan Reeves told his team. A young John Elway took the charge to heart. The Broncos beat Green Bay 17-14. Rich Karlis, the team’s barefoot kicker, was the difference maker with a 30-yard field goal.

Circumstances and people are always teaching, often leaving unintended consequences behind. We’re very impressionable. It was reported that ski vacation bookings soared after that Monday night game in 1984, as viewers around the country caught a glimpse of our winter wonderland – and the bug to come to Colorado.

Impressionability goes both ways, of course. When short-sighted politicians legalize marijuana, they’re communicating to young people the drug isn’t bad when, if fact, it’s worse than most people realize. When a right to kill a preborn baby is codified in the state constitution, we’re not just ignoring the rights of that child but devaluing life overall.

It’s been 41 seasons and three Super Bowl titles since that memorable snowy Monday night. Dan Reeves passed from this world to the next three years ago, but his sage counsel still rings true on and off the field: we’d be wise to keep our minds on our business – especially our responsibility to be good examples as the storms of culture rage.

Paul J. Batura is a local writer and founder of the 4:8 Media Network. He can be reached via email Paul@PaulBatura.com or on X @PaulBatura.