Search for Patriot Nation die-hards ends in the driveway

You have, what, a lousy Patriots bumper sticker? Fred Gallant has The Fan Van. Robert and Ann Marie Enos have defaced a perfectly good Kia Sportage to honor the team. John Skelton has turned a carpenter's step-van into The Touchdown Lounge, an elite tailgating vehicle.

Combined, they've owned season tickets for 45 years and missed eight home games.

Win or lose, they've been upstanding citizens of Patriots Nation. They will sweat blood during the game and in some cases, trek to Houston, damn the expense.

They're living this. You're just watching.

Fred Gallant will attend his 12th Super Bowl Sunday. The 52-year-old Dunstable resident has been a Pats season-ticketholder for 23 years and can count the home games he's missed on one hand.

His Fan Van is a converted Snap-On Tool truck he equipped with a 454 engine, TV dish (with the full NFL package), generator and fridge. On game days, he departs at 8:30 a.m., three sons (aged 21, 19 and 17) in tow, to spend the day in Foxboro.

For some time, the truck sat on his front lawn, until his wife, Denise, delivered an ultimatum: Get rid of it or do something with it.

"Boy, did I surprise her with The Fan Van," says Gallant, who franchises Kentucky Fried Chicken/Taco Bell outlets.

"We drive it to every home game. I get a lot of comments, give a lot of tours. It's retired now for the rest of the year, but it'll be out in front of the house during the Super Bowl."

Gallant is in Houston with Denise and two sons (one son can't make the trip), to meet two other couples, eight Super Bowl tickets in hand.

Do people think he's nuts?

"I'm sure some do. But I don't (care). I pretty much have taken all the kids in the neighborhood to games at one time or another, and they love it."

His devotion hails "to the Billy Sullivan era, when the team had nothing. But even then, there were players that gave 110 percent. Die-hards stayed with them in losing years. Real fans take the losing times with the winning times. It's like a marriage, with ups and downs. If they have a losing season next year, I'll still be there."

Twelve years ago, Ann Marie Enos of Dracut bought her husband, Robert, a pair of Pats season tickets for Christmas.

"I decided it was something we could do together as the kids got older," says Ann Marie, a kindergarten teacher at Lowell's Bailey School. "It became our Sunday thing." In that time, they've missed one home game, when family visited for Christmas.

When the Pats offered to put ticket-holders' names on the seats for an additional $150, they jumped.

The kids, now 30 and 25, have watched their parents grow increasingly Pats-crazy.

The basement where the kids once played is now plastered with game tickets, hats, jackets, pins, glasses, games, pens, "and anything and everything that may have a Patriots logo on it," says 25-year-old daughter Allisa.

Robert always loved the Pats. Ann Marie learned to.

The couple, married 32 years, build vacations around an away game each season. Arizona, New Orleans, San Diego...

Allisa says one day, in October 2002, "they went a little bit too far."

Robert Enos was looking for a small, four-wheel drive vehicle to get him to work in Andover.

They settled on a new Kia Sportage. White.

"We can paint it," Ann Marie said. "It blossomed from there."

It became The Patriots Mobile, customized with a professional paint job of the Pats logo, red, white and blue stripes, and "stickers all over it."

Finally, Ann Marie and Allisa told Robert, "No more. Stop."

Allisa says, "They won't even give up a preseason game to their precious daughter who has not yet seen Gillette Stadium."

"Well," says Ann Marie. "That's the one thing I don't give away."

John Skelton is a 44-year-old Boston attorney who lives in Billerica. He's guilty of Patriots mania.

He left for Houston yesterday with friends. Confident, he booked plane tickets some time ago, after the Patriots' eighth win. He hopes to snag Super Bowl tickets there.

He has missed a single Pats' home game in the decade he's held season tickets. He takes his children, Michael, 21, and Kristin, 18.

"It was four years ago and Michael was moving in to college, and I needed to be there..." There is a pause. "Right?"

"Sunday is a day for football, and it's when I spend quality time with the kids," he says. "We keep it family-oriented. We go to enjoy the game."

Not everyone goes in a vehicle called The Touchdown Lounge, which has its own Web site ( www.touchdownlounge.com

Skelton was the guy who brought the lawn chairs, Hibachi and other "stuff" for tailgating. It got fancier, and then on the 22-hour drive home from the 2001 Super Bowl in New Orleans, he had a four-wheeled vision.

In the spring of 2002, he bought a 1978 Grumman Olsen 21-foot step van from a local carpenter. The vision grew. There would be paint: Patriots Silver and Blue. Flying Elvis and Pat Patriot logos. Wall-to-wall blue carpeting. A bathroom. A bench, lockers. A wall-mounted, 19-inch TV/VCR, its antenna mounted onto a 14-foot field goal post, raised and lowered with a battery-operated motor. The vision was made real by "chief engineer" Tom Mullins.

"You know," says Skelton, "a lot of people have all sorts of hobbies. Some guys are married to their golf game. Football is great because you go with a group of people, good friends and family."

His wife?

"Obviously, she's very supportive. Otherwise, would she allow that thing to be in our driveway?"

More Patriots Nation all-stars:

Ronnie Knox, Pepperell, 49: Grew up in Townsend and played high school football for the North Middlesex Patriots. No season tickets, but notorious scrounger. Attended two home games this season. Watching at home, just before kickoff, instructs wife of 13 years, Cathy (resigned to second-place in his life), to turn down the ringer on the phone "and leave me alone." Views game in solitude. Owns enough Pats shirts, jerseys, jackets to fill a double-door closet. Owns vial of dirt and two-foot length of bench from old stadium. Four-foot-tall Christmas tree festooned with only Pats ornaments does not come down until season ends. This driver and hauler for BFI has instructed co-workers to be on the lookout for curbside Pats items.

Matt Byrne, Chelmsford, 24: Inherited Pats fever from father, Mike. "I actually get excited on Monday. It's one day closer to the next Sunday," Matt says. "After this Sunday, I'll count the days 'til training camp." An 11-year season ticket holder, Matt attended first game when "it wasn't always such a family thing." At first game, watched "some guy's front teeth land next to me." Avid collector with jerseys, tickets stubs, autographed items, and photographs, in home and in storage. A philosophical fan: "Being a fan does a lot for you in terms of life. It enhances your ability to have something to look forward to all the time, something right here that you can be proud of...In my house, the Patriots reign as supreme as religion."

Tony Ippolito, Tewksbury, 64: Recently retired and a die-hard "since 1960." In 1985, had his picture plastered across the front page of USA Today when the team faced Da Bears in the Super Bowl. "Fenway, B.U. Harvard, I went, even in the down era." When Schaeffer Stadium opened in 1971, was there "in those nice, cold aluminum seats." Owns stunning archive of Pats T-shirts, pennants, hats, videos, etc. to which living room was sacrificed. Veteran of three Super Bowls, several AFC championship games. "My wife, she thinks I'm a nut."

Jason Watkins, Hudson, N.H., 30: Left (Friday) for Houston with wife and 5-month-old daughter, Cameron Elisabeth. "She hasn't missed a game in her life," he boasts. Uses buddy's season tickets when available. Got Super Bowl tickets through a pipefitter co-worker. If not heading to Foxboro, has a game-day party. "Every Sunday is Patriot's Day in the Watkins house." Recently finished the basement, added 48-inch flatscreen TV, dubbed it The End Zone. During his wife's baby shower, snuck into gift pile a box containing two patriots onesies for Cameron. She wears them every game. One exception: Cameron's Christening. "I let that one go, but it was close."

Mark McNulty, Shirley, 43: Realtor who Ayer office is shamelessly enshrined with Pats stuff. Left for Houston (Friday), without tickets, but "I'll work it out." Working ex-Pat and golfing buddy Henry Thomas and Troy Brown's brother for tickets. Enjoys use of boss's club seats often, made it to three away games this year, too. Went to Super Bowl two years ago. On June 12, flew self, wife and two daughters to Daytona Beach for a Making of the Patriots Cheerleaders Calendar video. Donned wig and pom-poms, danced. Appears in video.

Jon Doherty, Chelmsford, 38: Lifelong fan, says long-suffering, generous wife, Lisa. "I got him season tickets to The Pats 11 or 12 years ago as a birthday gift, shame on me, as I've had to do it ever since." He bolts for Foxboro at about 8 a.m. every home game with three pals, returns three or four hours after game. Downstairs of home packed with Pats things, from signed tickets to photos, to NFL team helmets, organized by AFC and NFC allegiance. "He's nuts about it," says Lisa. "I watch the games but not like he does."

Gary Mulkigian, Chelmsford, 32: Chelmsford native now living in Haverhill, 10-year season-ticket-holder. Former owner of The Patsmobile, a 1985 Renault Alliance convertible. Hand-painted a new color design each year. Drove to every game with top down, including 1997 championship game "which was colder than that game this year," he says. When brakes went, Patsmobile retired three years ago under wife's directive. (Still, they towed it to the Super Bowl two years ago, hooked to the back of a Winnebago.) Never misses home games. And his recitation of away game attendance is worthy of Howard Dean's in Iowa: "San Francisco, Dallas, Arizona, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Buffalo, Cleveland..." Super Bowl-bound this morning.