It was a ritual gathering of the neighborhood tribe, a few hours for beer and chili and laughing at Dan Dierdorf. It was a chance, in Cincinnati in the 1990s, to see genuine NFL football.

Maybe "MNF" is still a big deal. I doubt it, not with every football game on the planet shown on some channel as part of some package. Too much of anything kills its mystery, whether its sex or Hershey bars or football. To those of us who grew up in the '60s on the East Coast, watching the Rams from Los Angeles in 1965 was like watching Neil Armstrong take one small step. To anyone under the age of 40, it's like watching car ads.

The Bengals are playing on Monday night for the first time since 1992. A lot has changed since then, the neighborhood included. It used to be a tight group of good friends. Now it's busy people who wave. The tightness began with my friend Laird, every Monday night. It ended when he moved, a few years ago. Last week, I went looking for Laird.

"You just kind of wanted to be there," Laird said Friday. "I mean, how many times did we watch games that were bad, teams that were bad, and we stayed until it was over? Just all being together in the same room. It seemed important, somehow."

Yeah, it did. Who knows what 30-something married guys do now, to escape for a few hours? I'm not 30-something. I watched football. I never missed a Monday night at Laird's. He had the best basement, the best bar, the coldest beer. I even liked him a little. He hosted the first week of "MNF" every year.

Laird invented ways to make Mondays better than the games. One year, we brought photos from our high school sports days. Laird tacked them on his basement wall. It was the lamest Wall of Fame

ever.

My wife donated a photo of herself as a gymnast, in a leotard. Hers was the only women's picture allowed.

Another year, Laird created what he called The Battle-Ax Tax. Every guy who showed up put a dollar in a hat. At halftime, we'd draw a name from a list of all the regulars. The winner's wife got the money, but only if the winner was there that night. Otherwise, the money rolled over. After a few weeks of no winner, wives were pushing their husbands out the door. It was guilt-free and perfect.

Laird had a decent library of NFL Films videos. We watched them at halftime. Once, he decided to sub in some, uh, stag flicks. We decided we'd rather watch the football stuff. No, I swear, we did.

The wives wanted to know what did we talk about. What they meant was, who did we talk about. When we said we talked about Steve Young, Jerry Rice and the Steelers defense, they didn't believe us. This is the difference between men and women.

"We have no friends here," Laird is saying. He has lived two years in Pennsylvania, halfway between New York and Philly. It's a beautiful, historic area, one of the nicest on the East Coast. No one talks.

"The neighbors open their garage, drive their cars in, close the door," Laird said. "I couldn't tell you their names."

The neighborhood changes. The new people arrive with strollers and training wheels. Your kids are 18. The only thing you have in common is the driveway. We live in a we'll-get-together-soon world. Soon is always around the next bend and beyond the next carpool to soccer practice.

We don't have "Monday Night Football." We've grown up, away, busy. Maybe next week. Laird divorced his wife and married her again, in a chapel in Las Vegas,

Elvis officiating. Seriously.

Friendship should mean more the older we get. Maybe it will, as the kids leave us for friends and neighbors of their own and the house is too quiet for just two people. Maybe then, we'll locate a bit of the good past and resurrect "Monday Night Football."

That'd be good.

We'll hoist a lager to Laird and the good days we took for granted. And to Dan Dierdorf, the big dope.

Life goes on, never as good as we remember it.

E-mail pdaugherty@enquirer.com

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