When the Bucs finally got around to scoring a touchdown against the Falcons Sunday afternoon – on a beautifully timed pass from Brian Griese to Antonio Bryant – I cheered enthusiastically. Suddenly I felt an arm around my throat, a pretty strong arm that had me in a choke hold.

I started to laugh. I was sitting in the Georgia Dome, corner end zone about 20 rows up. I looked over my shoulder and it was a woman, a black woman, who had kiddingly put me in the choke hold. A very cool and funny gesture, and a pretty nice way to treat a visiting fan. (Especially since she let go after a few seconds.) The play made the score 10-7 late in the first half, in a game that neither team really seemed to want to win, but the Bucs did a better job of managing to lose, 13-10 in overtime.

It was my first Bucs road game, and I’m glad it was in Atlanta, where the hometown folks don’t automatically hate the visitors, and they’re game for a little verbal sparring throughout the contest.

Later on, a guy in front of me and bit to my right, a tall, distinguished black man, said with a grin, “I can’t wait for you to go back to St. Pete.”

This is when the Bucs were doing pretty well in a mistake-marred performance. I responded, “I can’t wait to come back next year, and I’ll tell ya what: I’m going to make sure I have this exact seat."

This article appears in Dec 10-16, 2008.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...