Cowsrus

7 hours ago, Zombo said:

Thanks, Doug, I wish I didn't share as many details about my own trauma as I did, but I was up late and ... Grief is strange thing, it just takes your emotions and runs with them.

Didn't even really scratch the service with Skippy ... Little League Baseball, Cavs Indians, Mentor HS, Candy Apple Red Chick Magnet Minivans, Casinos, Vegas, Bud Light, Fireball, Umbrella Drinks ... He loved them all. But most of all he loved Kathy and the kids. Keep thinking about them.

And how, when you were with Stan, you were always laughing. That damn, Sheet-eating grin ...

Zombo

I don't mean to keep interjecting but Z, you said you wish you didn't share as many details about yourself as you did & didn't say much about all the other things about Stan. I have to disagree with you though, respectfully of course. In sharing your story about that horrific time in your life you showed exactly who Stan was. He was there for you, no words, no judgement, but you knew for a fact that he was there and all in for you and was there to support you in ways you probably didn't know at the time that you needed. That's what a friend does, what a brother does, no questions asked no pressure, just be. That speaks volumes and embodies everything he was, kind, funny, a smartass and a naturally good human being in a world full of selfish, cruel sometimes crazy people and always just plain there for you to let you know that you have a back up if you need it. I remember you going through a lot at that time and it wasn't my business and I had no idea it rose to that insane level. You said you don't think you ever thanked him for helping you when you came up here, from my heart, I think he knew how much it meant to you and 2 words thank you were conveyed to him just the same even though it was just an ordinary act for him. 

You're right, grief is strange. When something like this happens, like lightening out of a clear blue sky, you are in such shock that given any idle time at all brings the memories of all the past both good and bad and what will never be and it hurts. Even the good parts hurt right now because damnit,  it's not fair. He's not here, it wasn't supposed to happen, he was a great guy, we need people like him to balance out the effects of the (sorry 'bout this but) assholes in this world. Emotions come when it's quiet as it's good to share and open and let everyone know what kind of man he was and what he means to you. He was a part of your life and nothing will fill that hole in the defensive line of your life quite like that because souls like his are a rarity and should be cherished. I for one am glad you said what you did, it spoke volumes of who Stan is and says tons about his character. So, thank you for sharing. It's good for the mind and soul. So please don't think you over shared, it was unreal what you went through. A lot of people would have crumbled but you rose from the ashes. We all keep things private but the burdens we share mean we don't need to carry the heavy load alone. 

With everyone sharing, I don't know what made me look in my messages and there was one from Stan from 2009. Why it's still there I have no idea but it was classic. I was apologizing for saying something to someone, I'll never remember who but they said something about Stand and I went off on them then felt bad thinking I was out of line and I never try to offend anyone or argue but I don't like jerks so my mouth got away from me. He said he was glad I did, proceeded to complain about some of the members and their fighting and what I interpreted as general frustration at all the work he did and they made it harder (I'm paraphrasing). It was true Stan, he loved the Browns, he worked hard for this board for all fans to share their Browns love/hate but it was still a huge undertaking. He thanked me and said he wished I posted more and not to beat him at Fantasy Basketball lol and I am now glad that somehow that was the only one of his messages still in my inbox. Still trying to figure out what I said on the board to the other member but for a reason that will remain unknown sleestacks were mentioned and I told Stan I still want one LOL. 

Just now, Zombo said:

So I guess it is time for me to share my Stan story…

October of 1997 … The Indians and Marlins are in the World Series, the Browns are in limbo and I am assembling a desk in my new condo as I await the delivery of my Gateway2000 … I’m going on the World Wide Web, Ladies and Gentleman!

It arrives, I take it out of the box, plug in the phone line, turn it on, slap in that free AOL disk and I’m ready to surf. Screen name? Hmmm. I’ll pick one for business, Meehan2000, and one for fun … It’s Halloween, so how about my favorite Munster’s character … Zombo2000 it is. (Kids, “2000” was very sheik in 1997.)

So I’m in … And the first two words I typed in to the Internet were “Cleveland Browns”, Well those “keywords” took you to a place called AOL Grandstand. A wonderful place with all of these colorful characters like “Ghoolie” and “Hoorta” and “Furnier” posting about my beloved Cleveland Browns.

You have to remember, before the internet, many of us Browns fans were isolated. I spent my whole adult life Fall Sundays sitting by myself in the corner of a sports bar in New Jersey, Michigan, Florida, California or somewhere with the “bad TV” and no sound. So this was a spectacular discovery that I was not alone in my Browns obsession.

So then there was this character, “Anteater” or some sort of Sheet. He seemed like the “know-it-all” of the group. Who was this guy, an ex-football coach or something? He had a method of letting somebody get carried away with themselves and talking out of their asses … and then he would dissect their posts line by line and make them look like an idiot. This guy was good.

So after lurking for a couple weeks, I finally got up enough gumption to respond to one of his posts. It was a full year and a half before the “new” Browns first draft, but this Anteater guy was already trying to convince everybody that Ohio State LB Andy Katzenmoyer needed to be the Browns first pick. I made a reasonable reply that it was too early to choose, but that they should probably consider at QB with that pick, and I’m not sure how I worded it, but I will never forget his response: “That’s a real knee slapper, Zombo…” and it was on. I had my first internet battle. I famously called Katzenmoyer a “big dumb redneck” and we started debating and disagreeing on every subject … and we never stopped until last Saturday Night. In fact we were still arguing about the 1999 NFL draft the last time I saw him.

And when I say “argued”, I mean we almost always disagreed … but always made each other laugh.

After we both had that “Who’s this guy?” moment, the Atenears/Zombo show was on. We picked a side, dug in and destroyed everything in our path to make our point and took wild swings at each other’s loyal henchmen.

I became the leader of “Camp Couch” while Stan became the voice of “The Dark Side”.

We argued for days about legendary Browns like Corey Bridges, Darren “Chia Pet” Chiaverini and Terry “1700” Kirby. The only thing we agreed on was that Scott Rehberg sucked.

The 1999 NFL draft was more analyzed on the AOL board than any Presidential Election anywhere. Was Chris “Rosey” Palmer going to select my boy Tim Couch or Skippy’s idea of drafting Ricky “small hands” Williams or doing the Ditka Trade for a bevy of picks … if you supported anybody else, like say Akili Smith  … you were gay.

So when the dust had settled over the draft, and we looked over the scorched earth of the AOL Grandstand Board to see who was still standing … we realized we had a pretty good group. And we also realized that real football games were going to start and we should get together … as in meet as real people and not our screen name characters.

So, after the Hall of Fame game against Dallas (Couch looked great) our first preseason game was in Tampa, two hours from me. We knew this great Camp Couch Loyalist named “Flugels” who lived in the Tampa area, and I was only a couple hours away, so we convinced Stan he should come down to Tampa on “business”. So he set up a few sales call for his Penis Pump manufacturing business and made the trip and the first official Browns Board tailgate consisted of Me, Stan, Flugels, a crazy cat named “Vette” and some friend Flugels brought along who we called Booger … because he looked like the character from the Revenge of the Nerds movies ... in the parking lot of the Best Western walking distance from “The Big Sombrero” in Tampa.

That night was a whole story itself … If I see you at a tailgate next year ask me about the “Pizza Boy”, Vette’s arrest, the cops in the parking lot and the fight in the stands. What can I say … I may be one of the graybeards around here now, but when we started on AOL, I was 33 and Stan was 30 and we both acted like we were 20. Or 17. Some will say I still do.

So then Stan got together with Ed and Don and started the tailgate in the Flats down by some bridge. It was awesome. We had our own AOL Private “Clubhouse” board now, thanks Furnier, away from the prying eyes of trolling Steeler and Ravens fans, and Stan and some blonde chick named “Boo” were the moderators after we chased off the rent-a-cop moderators they provided us. Poor Boo … We gave her so much Sheet.

But Stan and Boo were on TV for the first ever Cleveland Browns Home Game in 99 against the Steelers telling the newcasters about this crazy “internet group” from the “world wide web” that had never met on-line before that day. And Ed was grilling burgers for a whole lot more people than he ever imagined.

I made it up to that tailgate later that season and finally met the legendary “Roachmaster”, “Furnier”, “Hoorta”, and the larger than life “Gumbo Dog” … amongst many, many other great folks that I met that day and at future tailgates.

I got Season Tickets in 2000 and always made it up to one or two tailgates a year and that is where my friendship with all these fine folks began … at the Browns Board Tailgate Stan started.

We may have found a permanent tailgate home in Cleveland (we thought), but we were still lost in the internet desert on-line, with Stan as our Moses trying to find us a place. The Clubhouse thing was dropped by AOL, we went back to the regular boards, but it was too trolly with Steeler and Ratbird heathen, we spent all of our time fighting with them and never got to discuss the important issues of the day like Wali Rainer’s bleeding forehead and Percy Ellsworth’s inability to cover anything.

We went to a CBS Sportsline forum that Stan secured for us … but it was too corporate … too many rules. Fatdad (Jim Deetz) started his own Cleveland website “The River Burns”, but God rest his soul, he wasn’t focused too much on the sports part of it and we knew we needed another place, a place devoted to Cleveland Browns Football … A Browns Board.

Stan and I were very tight friends at this point. He always invited me to stay at his house, offered to feed me, whatever I needed … but I was doing pretty well for myself so I’d usually get a hotel room for us to trash as we literally spent the entire tailgate weekends partying. He was with Kathy now … He was still with the “Toothless Hag” when I met him, and I was there for him through his divorce and then he met “Hag2” and they blended their two young families and added a fifth kid, Alexis … and Kathy put up with out shenanigans. Or, actually, she participated in most of them. The stories from this era are legendary, again, each should have it’s own thread: “The Bloody Turban”, the “Cab door”, Zombo Gets Arrested (OK, “detained”) Parts I, II, III and IV …

About this time, Stan decided he was buying his own website dedicated to Browns fans. He wanted me to be an administrator and moderator while he did the backstage tech stuff. I had never moderated, didn’t want to moderate … I wanted to be the “Bad Guy” … but when Stan asked, you knew it was for the good of our little on-line family, so I accepted, and here I am today moderating 2,000 cool guys and Ghoolie.

Marko and Hoorta were tabbed as moderators as well, and the First Lady of the Browns Board, KS “Kathy” Hutchins, affectionately known as “Mom”, kept us in line. And all was right with the world … Except the Browns still sucked.

My world changed in the Summer of 2007. That is when I found out that the woman that I had been married to for two and half years was actually a sick criminal strung out on prescription pain killers who had taken out second mortgages on all of my Florida properties, taken out countless credit lines under my name, stole $13,000 from my elderly mother and ran up $128,000 in credit cards in my name. In one year I went from thinking I was financially set to financial ruin. When I finally got away from this awful human to visit my family in Pennsylvania, I lost everything I owned in one day. She cleaned out our joint checking accounts, cleaned out our house, reported everything “stolen” and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it because I was married to it. All I had was the clothes on my back, my trusty beagle, my car and a friend's laptop. Thank God I had that laptop because the Brownsboard was my only place of peace.

Then came the hordes of false accusations of unspeakable crimes, going after my family, my Mom, my disabled brother, my innocent 10 year old niece … No, I didn’t kill her … But I should have. She went to prison. I went to hell.

The only person I reached out to outside of the family was Stan. I met Stan and Ed and a few others in Youngstown for a high school football game, it was the first time I had gone anywhere socially since everything went down, and I was a wreck inside. Stan never judged, never waivered. He had my back. He invited me out to the Browns opener against the Steelers on his dime. That’s when I met Marko, the Soup Nazi, Jarrod, and a few others but most importantly, I had a good time … and forgot my troubles for a day or two. I don’t think I ever thanked Stan for that, we never got all gushy and talked about feelings and Sheet … but he knew I had his back and I knew he had mine.

Eventually I got back in the game and the tailgates remained my one thing to look forward to every year no matter what. Marko, Mike from Atlanta, Howie and Gareth from the UK and Keith from Scotland joined our tightknit group with Stan and Ed and Don. There was Russ, and the other Russ, and Rich, and Gipper and the legendary Westside Steve. There are a ton of other folks that were huge parts of the Browns Board and the tailgates and if I started naming, names, that is a whole ‘nother thread too.

Then there was the big Anderson/Quinn wars where Stan and I MAY have taken out some frustrations in our personal life on half the Browns Board. The Browns Board had become too much work. It was supposed to be fun. Stan grew tired of people complaining about the way THEY wanted the board run, and he reminded everyone that it was his board. He once told me “You know, I just started all this so everyone could have a place to come and you, me and Flugels could enjoy ourselves at night”. It became too much. We chased off about half our membership, but lost a lot of good posters and good people in the process, and Stan was hurt that some of his closest and favorite posters went to the new rival board.

After that, I think Stan felt a little bit betrayed, and he became increasingly frustrated with how the Browns were run and he slowly relinquished control of the board to me and eventually pretty much stopped posting all together.

But he never closed the place down, he kept it going for his true friends. I know for a fact he has lost money on this site every year. And he grumbled about it. And he threatened to shut it down … but he never could. Because his friends were still there. And that will tell you everything you need to know about Stan.

Stan and Kathy were made for each other. Funniest couple you will ever meet. One night out on the town with them and you will end up crying your eyes out in laughter every time, guaranteed. Kathy was always a good friend to all of us “idiots”, and Stan and Kathy always rolled out the red carpet when the “wolfpack” came to town to drink themselves silly and watch Phil Dawson kick field goals.

Stan and I stayed in touch the past few years mainly through Facebook, texts and messages. Not like the AOL days where we were “Instant Messaging” each other every night laughing about the trouble we were stirring up on the Board, but enough to know we still had each other’s backs. I missed the tailgate weekend this year, and it bothers me more than you know.

I miss that big guy with the big laugh and the razor-sharp sense of humor. He was loyal, he was fair, and he was bigger than life. And I can’t wait to belly up to that bar in the afterlife (Yes, there’s a bar) and hear from across the room “Hey, Zippy, that’s a real knee slapper…”

Zombo

 

Wow. This was both heartbreaking and heartwarming with laughter in there all at the same time. Beautifully written Zombo. Going girly for a second to send you a hug (sorry). Stan may not have been a big emotions guy but I think he would be touched by your words that reverberate with love. I am very sorry for the loss of your friend. And when you step up to that bar when you see him again, you're probably going to have to have 2 at a time to catch up.

2 hours ago, The Gipper said:

A lot of people who have not been on here much lately have popped in to give their condolences, and to tell their tales.

Here is hoping that they will not such strangers in the future,   Bermeck, Riffer X, Ballpeen, Chicopee John, Roach, Sperk , Furnier...I am sure I missed a few.   Too bad it had to be this event for you all to check in.

 

I too go all the way back to the AOL Board days with you all.  (my screen name then was Atty460).  I don't specifically remember Stan from those days, but I remember a number of you.   I think I may have actuallys started  the "change the name of trolls"  tradition, as I recall, at that time there were a lot of arsehole Ravens fans on our Browns AOL board, thumping their stupid chests over the fact that they were successful, somewhat, in having their government pay bribes to Modell to try to move the Browns there...as if that was something they had a right to be proud of.  I gave them what I called "Delta Chi" names, after the Animal House fraternity tradition.  But my alternate names for them were by no means complimentary.

When this Board was created, I was among the first to sign on, as I think my membership back to the original startup date or like the next day.  However, I was for some time one of the few holdovers on the AOL Board. There were only a smattering of posters there near the end for me. In fact, there were more Steeler trolls than Browns fans I think. The Ravens gaggle had basically dissipated,  The end finally came for me when I got reported to AOL by a gutless Steeler troll because I told him that he should get up close and personal with the product that Messrs. Smith and Wesson had produced. So the thought Nazis over there kicked me off pretty much permanently.  I stayed on at AOL because it had a format that I was just familiar and comfortable with, and I was not so comfortable with this format, even though I was a member for some time.  I even patronized something called the Diva Boards, if any of you remember that.  But that too was going downhill, and WSS then convinced me to start coming on here, even though I hadn't been as familiar.   Thus, I missed the whole Anderson/Quinn wars on here that  all you all have talked about so much; so I think I started really coming on here only after that big schism.   So, it was only after that that I became a regular here, so while I was familiar with many of you for some while, you were just names on the board to me.  (Except for Steve, of course whom I have known since high school).  It was not until he invited me along to one of the tailgate parties that I got to put some faces with some names....and especially  Stan, Z, Ed, Larry and a few others. At that point I too was just a name to all of you, but since then, I have gotten to know many of you, and have come to appreciate you all as people and as Browns fans.

So, while this thread commemorates our Board's founder.......rightly so....let it also commemorate all of us and the camaraderie that we have all come to enjoy...and hopefully continue to enjoy.   And that is why I emplore all those who have been away from the board for so long to please make some regular appearances here, just to let us know that you are still upright and breathing...and that you are still adamant Browns supporters.  And it wouldn't hurt for you to help out kicking a few Steeler trolls in the keister.  And, also, to them, let me say that we here also appreciate you being a part of this friendly...or not so friendly   rivalry. 

So, let's all drink a cyber toast to Stan...and hope that soon we can get together and do a real one.

Remembered Joy
Don’t grieve for me, for now I’m free!
I followed the plan God laid for me.
I saw His face, I heard His call,
I took His hand and left it all...
I could not stay another day,
To love, to laugh, to work or play;
Tasks left undone must stay that way.
And if my parting has left a void,
Then fill it with remembered joy.
A friendship shared, a laugh, a kiss...
Ah yes, these things I, too, shall miss.
My life’s been full, I’ve savoured much:
Good times, good friends, a loved-one’s touch.
Perhaps my time seemed all too brief—
Don’t shorten yours with undue grief.
Be not burdened with tears of sorrow,
Enjoy the sunshine of the morrow.

A toast to Stan: Stan, May you get to Heaven a half hour before the Devil knows you're dead. 

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/name/stanley-aten-obituary?pid=190716476

Here is a link for Stan in case anyone needs service/calling hours information or just to leave a condolence message/sign guestbook for his wife & family. 

Omg, this is quite a shock. My thoughts, sympathy and prayers are with Stan's wife, family and friends. He kept this place going not only for Browns fans everywhere but through his complaints, I think he did it for himself as well. Godspeed Stan. 😪