They say you never forget your first.

And it's true, you don't. Kiss. Car. Bionicle Lego set. All of them memorable, keepsakes, safe from the hurricane of emotion and turmoil that the rest of life turns over.

So it's safe to say that last Friday's Blazers game, the latest of The Resurgence, would find its place in the lockbox of the heart.

But then Roy had to channel Clyde, via Damon, all in front of Terry. Roy, who generally has enough cool to make Fonzie proud, had to go and roar, deafeningly, like he did. Then Travis Outlaw had to snipe with stepback swishes. Then Greg Oden had to bash Shaq, put away soul-shaking dunks, and swipe two huge offensive rebounds in the waning moments. Then the Blazers had to go and play like they did, in the first game I could watch all year.

See, Australia's NBA contract is about as copious as the Bush Administration's limits on terror, meaning that the only Down Under shots I saw of the Blazers were the chopped-up dregs of the internet. Without download speed belonging to the dial-up dinosaurs of the '90s ("Crack Bing Zzzzzzzzp Doom, Doom, Enchhhhhhhhxxxxxxxxx: The Soundtrack of the Decade"), I went without seeing Oden suited up, without watching Rudy Fernandez float like a Spanish butterfly, without catching Roy continue his development to transcendentalism.

But tonight, braving both snow and the extra 30 pounds wrought by my Mom's desserts, I found myself finally ready to see the fruits of the team's labors. My pal's 52-inch TV held the goods, and with Marv Albert calling the shots, I was ready to return to Blazermania.

Welcoming the Phoenix Suns, a team they hadn't beaten since 2006 (11 straight games, enough to qualify as "bothersome"), the Blazers did not take long to recall my feelings of fandom. Sure, absence makes the heart grow fonder, but 5,000 miles of distance could not hold a candle to seeing the team finally coalesce on the court.

The most welcome sight, as you may have guessed, was a clean-shaven Oden—the rookie looked like Zeus warring with Kronos; I'd never seen the generational split more pointed than tonight.

Shaq had clearly invested in the Butterbean diet, looking more like his gravitational pull would click into effect than ever before. The two opened the contest as if on a one-on-one mission, trading pound-and-dunks before finally realizing the others on the floor were teammates, not just fans dressed alike.

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