There was another “Boom” in Seattle before the “Legion of.” It was the “Sonic Boom,” and I signed up for for a decade of fanaticism. I’d moved to Seattle in ’72 from small-town Illinois, where basketball was king, where winters were so harsh and bleak that the best option for entertainment was to be packed into frigid cinder-block gyms in the dead of January to watch sons of farmers play the game. I transferred my basketball fan punchcard to Seattle and started listening to Bob Blackburn on the radio, and daily scanned the sports pages for stories about the SuperSonics in all three newspapers. Yes. Three.

I was ecstatic when they began to win and make the playoffs, and I committed myself completely to the journey. In my saved box of Sonic history are newspaper clippings, a poem of mine that had been published (“Goodbye, Marvin; No Hard Feelings!”) and a front-page picture of myself and friends holding up a banner during the Denver playoff series (“We Got ‘em by the Nuggets!”).

I had absolutely no business spending my hard-earned money on season tickets, but I did it anyway, investing in them with my best friend, a school teacher who somehow managed to convince Sonic management that she was a professional photographer, so I would hang with her courtside pre-game, and be admitted to downtown building roofs open only to the press, perfect vantage points for the post-season parades. I still have the 8-by-10 black-and-white glossies from those.

I was employed in a highly seasonal industry at the time, and days off during busy times were verboten unless somebody in your immediate family died. I was a prototypical German Catholic uber-worker, but in spite of that, when the Sonic siren called out to me, I couldn’t resist. I marched into the general manager’s office and said, “Fire me if you have to, but I’m going to the parade.”

Later there were more connections to the team: My sister briefly dated Jack Sikma, and I helped P.I. sports reporter Blaine Johnson write a book about the Bill Russell years called “What’s Happenin'”.

Besides the newspaper clips, there’s a gold “World Champs” T-shirt, a hardbound NBA Sonics Yearbook and a vinyl LP featuring “exciting play-by-play highlights, interviews, Sonic songs and the post-season celebration!”… historical artifacts that I’ve faithfully retained, and like my memories, easy to access. Except for the “Sonic songs.” I don’t remember those at all.

So if you believe you’ll never get over the Super Bowl, think again. Consider my Sonics experience. Today I recall only the fun, the highs, the shared insanity, the car horns honking in the night, waiting in the rain for playoff tickets with other zealots, all the good stuff; and I remember absolutely nothing of the losses, none of the lows, the disappointments, not even the pain of losing the Sonics altogether.

And just think: The Seahawks have only begun.

You can reach Pat Detmer — who may fire up the phonograph to hear those Sonic songs — at patdetmer@aol.com.

Contributed Mikie Coffman, formerly of Newcastle, general manager of Ride the Ducks, stands near one of the business’ 17 duck tour vehicles.

An estimated 300,000 people are expected to line the Seattle streets to watch the Super Bowl champion Seahawks parade through the city Feb. 5.

The Seahawks will travel on Ride the Ducks amphibious vehicles. Ride the Ducks is a company that provides fun, scenic tours of the city and just so happens to bear a Newcastle connection.

Until just six months ago, the company’s general manager Mikie Coffman called Newcastle home. She lived in Newcastle since 2006 and recently moved to downtown Seattle to be closer to work.

“My heart is still in Newcastle,” she said “I still have friends at the Starbucks.”

Ride the Ducks got the call from the Seahawks expressing interest in using its vehicles for the Feb. 5 parade on Monday, just a day after the Super Bowl. Coffman said she screamed with delight when she heard the news.

“It’s wild,” she said. “We were absolutely so excited, thrilled and honored.”

It’s been a whirlwind of controlled chaos around the office since, said Brian Tracey, Ride the Ducks’ CEO and president, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“We’re just so honored to be part of one of the biggest celebrations in the history of Seattle,” he said.

Tracey said the company will have 12 Ducks in the parade that will be occupied by Seahawks players, coaches, staff and Sea Gals.

The company’s been working with the city and the team around the clock to hammer out logistics. The plan’s changed seven times already, Coffman estimated, but she said she can’t wait to see it come to fruition.

“We’ve really become a part of Seattle,” she said. “You think Ducks, you think Seattle and we’re just so excited to be a part of this.”