Fort Lee Alumni Gather For Thanksgiving Bridgemen Football Homecoming
The annual Thanksgiving Day football game may be a thing of the past, but Fort Lee football lives on in the annual gathering of Bridgemen.
On a clear, crisp Thursday morning in late fall, they came together at the VFW with the same energy they once took the football field with--the hubris of their youthful invincibility still palpable, though scarred by age and experience. For years now, every Thanksgiving morning, Bridgemen travel from near and far to come back home to Fort Lee. They come together not so much to re-live their glory days, but to resuscitate every pass, every play, every laugh. Teammates from the 1940s to the 1990s were represented at the annual reunion of Fort Lee football players held at the VFW on Center Avenue. The gathering together of every team was the brainchild of Joe Viola ('70) and Frank Aiello ('72). Viola, who scored three touchdowns against …
