Cool event Sunday: breakfast with Roy and Cathy Gruss, of Missoula, Mont. They won an all-expenses-paid trip to the Super Bowl from Bose, and part of the trip (Bose is a sponsor of The MMQB) was a meal with me. So we met at 9 a.m., on the East Side of Manhattan, and Roy, wearing his Montana Grizzlies jacket, and Cathy told me their story of the weekend.
Roy is 61. He is the Missoula County Public School Food Service warehouse manager. He had never been to New York, and he had no plans to go. Ever. Actually, he had never been east of Chicago before, except for Florida. When he and Kathy landed at JFK Airport Thursday evening, they were picked up in a Mercedes sedan (“Amazing leather seats—we sunk right into them!” Roy said) and dropped off at the Renaissance Hotel Times Square. On Friday, they ran into Troy Aikman at the hotel. In an elevator, they saw Randy Moss and said only, “Hi.” Said Cathy: “We didn’t want to bother him.” They walked a lot. Ten blocks north of the hotel and back. Ten blocks east of the hotel and back. Ten blocks south of the hotel and back. They sampled as many Irish bars as they could. “Black and tan’s my beer,” Roy said. “I like beer. Too many beers, too little time.” At home, he’s partial to Moose Drool, a Missoula brew. And Saturday night, Cathy fell asleep before midnight, but the din from the Jay-Z concert nearby seeped through the window of their sixth-floor room. “I loved it,” said Roy.
“This trip,” said Roy, “has been a total lightning bolt. Amazing. A couple of times I said to friends, ‘You know what I think I’ll do this weekend? I think I’ll go to New York for the Super Bowl!’ My friends have said to me, ‘You sure you want to take your wife? I’m available.’ ”
“Let’s just say,” said Cathy, “this is a little bigger than a Montana Grizzly game.”
“What,” I asked, “would you guys be doing today for the Super Bowl if you didn’t come here?”
“We’d be at the Eagles Lodge for a pot luck,” he said. “Eagles Lodge 62. Maybe about 150 or 200 people would show up. The day starts about noon with a cribbage tournament. For the food, someone would bring elk sausage, somebody else wild-game chili, and we’d probably bring some smoked Rocky Mountain trout, from my own smoker. It’s fantastic.”
The Grusses were scheduled to return to Montana on Monday. “I have work Tuesday,” said Roy. “I’ll be up Tuesday morning at 3, into work by 4:30. Everyone here has been so nice. You hear things about New Yorkers, but the people have been wonderful. But we’ll be ready to get home.”
Good to meet you, Grusses. Thanks for the company.
