I don't know if I could explain to my children what things were like in the days before VCRs, DVD players and the Internet, especially YouTube.

You might see something on television that you really enjoyed, and the only way you could remember it was, well, in your memory. You couldn't tape it, or burn a disc with it, or save it to your hard drive. In fact, you might never see it again. I remember seeing Sarah Brightman on the Tonight Show in 1991, singing a very cute little song about visiting Beverly Hills, and although I bought numerous albums by her over the years, I never found that song until I looked for it on YouTube two or three years ago.

Just last night, I was listening to Randy Newman's "I Love L.A.," and it brought to mind a parody of the song that was being played on the Denver television stations when I moved there in the fall of 1986. "I Love Elway" was a tribute to the Broncos' great quarterback, and it featured local folks saying, "We love him," including the mayor of Denver and the governor of Colorado.

I don't think I saw the video more than once or twice, and then it slipped from my mind until yesterday. I checked YouTube, and although the video I found was of really poor quality, it was that great song that I remembered. I know I have said before that John Elway was the best athlete I ever saw in person -- and yes, I saw Michael Jordan several times -- but I don't think I've said that I never enjoyed my job as much as I did on those autumn Sundays or Monday nights at Mile High Stadium.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3gl6qf18NQ

Being in the middle of 76,000 screaming fans, nearly all of them living and dying with the success or failure of the Broncos, I'm not sure it was ever any better than that.

It has been a long time since I cared about the National Football League, and at least part of that is that the two teams I always cared about -- the Broncos and the Washington Redskins -- haven't been good for a long time.

I stopped covering sports in 1996, and after that I allowed myself to become more of a fan. I never asked for autographs when I was a sportswriter, and there are several great athletes I met that I really wish I had been a little less professional and gotten them to sign for me. As it is, I've got my case of a dozen baseballs, I've got a photograph of Secretariat winning thew 1973 Belmont Stakes signed by jockey Ron Turcotte, and I've got my orange Elway jersey on the wall.

[caption id="attachment_890" align="alignright" width="300" caption="&quot;I Love Elway&quot;"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/20110105_1.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-890" title="20110105_1" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/20110105_1-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" /></a>[/caption]

It's funny. About five years back, when I was working as a business editor at my last newspaper, I had the chance to meet Elway again at the opening of John Elway Toyota in Ontario, Calif. I didn't ask him for an autograph, but I did get the chance to tell him how much I had enjoyed watching him play.

He had been retired for some years, and it had been 20 years since I had seen him in Mile High Stadium.

But it's nice to know that good memories last.

Yes, they last.