Honk When You See the Fan Van
"Today, the Fan Van will ride again.
It will cruise to Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., with its sirens blaring three hours before the Jets play the Houston Texans.
David Small, a lifelong Jets fan, will have his green-and-white vehicle stocked with food and drink, a tent and a table, two barbecue grills and several folding chairs.
The Fan Van, a 1973 Ford truck decorated with Jets logos, Jets seat covers and green rims, comes out of storage for regular-season tailgating. It will travel only eight times this year, unless the Jets make the playoffs.
''The beauty of tailgating with the Fan Van is that on game days, I'm guaranteed to spend quality time with family and friends,'' said Small, 44, who lives with his wife, Sandy, and their three children, in West Orange, N.J. ''People come by and want to take pictures in front of the van. I say, 'Go ahead, take pictures, but you have to pay for gas.' ''
The Fan Van is in its rookie tailgating season. Small picked it up from a company in Parsippany, N.J., that renovates gas stations. The company, which once renovated stations belonging to Leon Hess, the Jets' former owner, often received free tickets from him. Those tickets went to employees, who painted Jets logos on one of the work trucks they drove to the Meadowlands.
But when Hess died in 1999, the tickets stopped coming. The truck was parked in the back of a lot, where it languished for six years. A year ago, a friend of Small's who worked for the company mentioned the abandoned truck. Small and his oldest son, Jamie, went to investigate.
''Mechanically, it was in pretty bad shape, and it looked old and beat up,'' Small recalled. ''We were told we could pretty much have it for nothing if we took it off the premises.''
Father and son huddled -- briefly.
''I told my father we absolutely had to have the truck,'' Jamie Small, now 21, said. ''I told him that if we fixed it up, we would have one of the coolest-looking tailgating vehicles out there.''
But there was another problem.
''It's got a stick shift in there,'' Small told his son. ''I can't drive a stick.''
Nevertheless, Small had the truck towed to Lodi, N.J., where he owns a kitchen cabinet business. He made the needed repairs, repainted the logos on the truck as well as the words Fan Van, and hired a mechanic, Douglas Davis, as chauffeur.
''I got honked the whole way here,'' Davis said upon arriving at Giants Stadium on Oct. 22, long before the Jets defeated the Detroit Lions.
Davis, who parked in section 8C at 10 a.m., offered a tour of the Fan Van. Its floor is covered in green carpet, its walls decorated with a pennant signed by the former Jets Fred Baxter and Wesley Walker. A Jets Christmas stocking and little football ornaments hang on a wire; the ornaments light up when Davis turns the ignition key. A bobblehead of Jets place-kicker Mike Nugent sits on the dashboard.
A few minutes later, the Small family -- minus 18-year-old Ashley, who is in college in Israel -- began to arrive. Sandy Small, holding Fluffy, a 10-year-old Shih Tzu, began setting the table. Her husband immediately put their sons, Jamie and 14-year-old Ryan, through the usual pregame drills.
''Ryan, break out the knishes and the chicken wings,'' he said with a bark. ''The burgers, Jamie, the burgers, let's go! We got about 50 people to feed today.''
Small wrapped a Jets apron around his waist and went to work behind the grills. Other relatives and friends began to arrive, and a handful of fans, including a young couple wearing Lions jerseys, stopped to take pictures.
With one of his burgers in midflip, Small's cellphone rang. His ring tone is the team's familiar cheer, ''J-E-T-S! JETS! JETS! JETS!''
''Hey, where are you?'' Small said to someone on the other end of the phone who was in search of his tailgate party.
''You can't miss us,'' Small said. ''Just look for the Fan Van.''
CHEERING SECTION E-mail: cheers@nytimes.com"