Plays by Robert Bowie, Jr…

At 8:30 pm, kickoff time last Saturday night, it was four degrees below freezing but that didn’t bother me because I am still a young man and invincible. The truth is I was probably the oldest geezer at this playoff game at Ravens Stadium that night.

The only concern I had was how many layers I needed. I figured about three or four layers would keep me warm. I put on hiking boots, double socks, old long johns, regular zip-up khaki pants, zip-up snow pants with a snap at the top to hold it all together and then, above the waist, two parkas layered on top of each other, and my Ravens’ Ray Lewis jersey, then finished off with thick gloves and a hat that I could pull down over my ears. I probably looked like a Michelin Man moments before a career ending explosion.

As I dressed for the game, it never occurred to me that this might be absolutely the coldest I wiould ever be in my whole life.

Susan and I have compiled six season tickets on the rail at the corner of the end zone. These tickets are great because they are so close to the field it is like watching high school football.

I bought the tickets over 20 years ago when my son, age 12 and under five feet tall, announced he wanted to be a quarterback and begged me to get us Ravens tickets, which I did.

Of course, as soon as I had purchased the tickets, my son asked my assurance that if, per chance, the Ravens went to the Super Bowl we would also go to the Super Bowl, to which I agreed.

Even the Las Vegas odds makers were good with that bet. Much to my horror, that year we went to the Super Bowl and I found myself behind a 711 in a dark parking lot peeling off $100 bills to get tickets to Tampa Bay where the Ravens would beat the New York Giants.

Nonetheless, in the first game of that very first season, way before that Super Bowl, we met lifelong friends who would occupy the seats behind us. The father sat right behind me on the aisle and, next to him, right behind my son, was his son Derek, who was several years older than my son. Derek listened to the game with a headset while we all watched live. The first play there was a whistle blown, and all the people behind us burst into rowdy inquiries about what the hell was that whistle for.

My son, already a scholar of the game, immediately turned around and answered: “The quarterback took a step before the snap.” Instantly, the stadium announcer repeated the exact same words my son had said, as did the announcer on the radio, which Derek then quoted. From the beginning, Derek, his father, his family, and Rick and I became friends and have remained friends ever since. Derek, from the start, was a fact checker and reserved, thoughtful observer.

During the regular season, we give the tickets to our children and watch the games on TV. However, if the Ravens got into the playoffs, you gotta go!

So that’s how I got to see Derek again for the first time this year at Saturday’s playoff game. Everybody was bundled up, but the hugs and the high fives were everywhere as the stadium filled and became more and more raucous.

Despite my layering, I started to get cold as soon as I got out of the car. We had about an eight-minute walk to the stadium. I proved to myself what I had often heard, that you lose 30 percent of your heat from the top of your head, so I pulled the hat down over my ears as I plodded toward the stadium.

I was shaking with cold by the time we reached our seats. I wanted to take pictures with my phone but I had to take off my gloves first. I had no place to put my gloves so, finally, I tucked them into my hat and put my hat back on. Then I started to shake and the hand warmers fell with my gloves, onto the field. After my gloves were returned to me, my hat fell off onto the field, and that had to be returned to me as well.

By halftime, my feet were freezing and I had to go to the bathroom to try to warm up. There was a line in front of the stall where I had hoped to strip off each one of my three layers in order to be able to stand and deliver in front of the toilet with privacy. But because the line was too long, I had to strip down in front of one of the many urinals, and so a crowd watched me slowly disrobe as I tried to unzip three sets of zippers and drop my pants. That took some time, but it got much worse when I tried to pull the three layers back up, because the long johns’ old elastic waist belt had deteriorated and broke so I developed “droopy drawers.”

In order to re-dress myself, I had to move out of the way of others who wanted to use the urinal, so I stood in the middle of the floor with a bank of urinals on either side of me as football fans with beer-loaded bladders filed in, looking at me as I tried to zip up and button up and pull up my pants as they passed. The button snap at the top of the snow pants was an Olympic event.

By the time I reached my seats again, the roar in the stadium had continued to rise so nothing could be heard except the screaming of the crowd. Derek was screaming at the top of his lungs and had moved from his aisle seat down to stand next to me at the rail. The place was insane.

At the other end of the stadium, in the second balcony, a man started ripping off his shirt and started spelling out R-A-V-E-N-S, bare chested, and the stadium burst into cheers and chanted the letters. Then, of course, his entire performance was being performed on the Jumbotrons at both ends of the stadium.

At this point, I was convinced if I thought about how cold I was, I would give my brain frostbite.

I clenched my whole body to try and keep warm. Then there was an explosion of noise all around me. Why was everybody shouting around me and pointing at Derek?

Derek, who had always been reserved, was upstaging the guy at the other end of the stadium, and was now ripping off his shirt to the delight of the crowd. As I was freezing to death, Derek was getting naked on the Jumbotron.

If it takes a village to raise a child, it apparently takes a football stadium to mature a geezer.

I’m not quite as upset that the Ravens’ next game won’t be at home, and I’m certainly not going to Buffalo. If I don’t get pneumonia from the postseason, I’m planning to go to the first preseason game in late August — in shorts and a Ravens T-shirt.

Life has always been good to me as a slow learner. I finally threw away the snow pants with the broken elastic belt.