Buffalo native Tom Miller arrived during the summer of 1991 at his car, adorned with an Oregon vanity license plate reading "GO BILS," to find a business card wedged underneath the windshield wiper.

"Say!" the back of the card read. "Give me a call! (I'm a big Bills fan!)"

Miller and Andy Beecher, the guy who left the card, have been watching Buffalo Bills games together ever since. And they've amassed a following: more than 100 people now regularly show up at the Cheerful Bullpen, a bar in Portland's Goose Hollow neighborhood, to cheer on the Bills every week during the National Football League season.

Back in the early '90s, during the Bills' so-called "glory days" – the team went to four straight Super Bowls, a feat no other team has achieved, only to lose them all – Miller and Beecher never could have predicted what they organized Monday evening. They stood among scores of fellow Buffalo fans in Portland, cheering on a team with the NFL's longest playoff drought, but also raising money for an unprecedented storm that has killed at least 13 and dumped more than seven feet of snow on certain Western New York areas.

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The game, a divisional matchup between the Bills and the New York Jets, wasn't even supposed to have been played on Monday evening. It was originally scheduled for Sunday afternoon on the Bills' home turf: Ralph Wilson Stadium in Orchard Park, N.Y.

But NFL and public officials eventually realized that it would be impossible to play the game in Western New York, which got pummeled with lake-effect snow from the evening hours of Nov. 17 through Friday morning. The "home" game was rescheduled to Monday night and relocated to Ford Field in Detroit.

Buffalonians in Oregon, meanwhile, were left uneasy – following news of the storm on the Internet was simple, but there was no way to help friends and family trapped underneath the snow.

"My major concern, being so far away, was that my mom has a pacemaker, a heart condition," said Bills fan Chris Kolb on Monday night at the Cheerful Bullpen. "And the deaths you heard about were people who couldn't get to the hospital in time."

Most of the 13 people who died during the storm suffered cardiac issues while attempting to shovel, use a snowblower or push vehicles, according to media reports.

Kolb, 42, grew up in Hamburg, a suburb south of Buffalo that accumulated more than 6½ feet of snow last week. He moved to Oregon with his wife two years ago and works as a database developer. Thankfully, his family members have (mostly) been doing well.

"My dad was going stir crazy," Kolb said. "I was worried about him."

As Kolb spoke, he half-watched the Bills game and half-listened to Miller, who was reading the night's winning raffle numbers. Every week, Miller raffles off Bills gear –such as a goofy Bills Christmas sweater or a T-shirt featuring running back Fred Jackson – and donates the proceeds to organizations like the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Last year, Portland's Bills fans raised $2,400 for such causes, Miller said.

But this week, Miller planned to send a $500 check to the Greater Buffalo Chapter of the American Red Cross for winter storm relief. Though the snow has stopped, some roofs have caved in, and the storm has caused widespread structural damage.

"Those pictures [of the storm] were amazing," Miller said.

"My friend just finally got out of his driveway [in Hamburg] yesterday," Beecher added.

Soon after the raffle winners were announced, Bills running back and Mississippi native Anthony "Boobie" Dixon – whose constant Instagram posting during the brunt of the storm entertained thousands – broke away from the Jets defense for a 30-yard touchdown run, putting the Bills ahead by a score of 38-3 and sealing the game for Buffalo.

The Cheerful Bullpen erupted. The Bills' "Shout" song blared through the speakers. Fans clapped along and sang.

Earlier in the game, Bills tight end Scott Chandler may have had the best celebration of all. He crossed the goal line, spiked the football and began mimicking the very thing Western New Yorkers will find themselves doing all winter long: shoveling snow.

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The Portland United Bills Supporters didn't always run in such large numbers.

"We started at some questionable places," said Miller, who moved to Oregon in 1970 to work at Hyster, a Pacific Northwest company specializing in forklifts. He later became the manager of a small business that designs and builds storage systems, he said.

Miller and Beecher – who recently retired after working in the cable industry and then driving school buses – spent years finding whatever pub would show the Bills, and whoever would join their watch party. They bounced around bars in Gresham, East Portland and downtown, before finally taking over the Cheerful Bullpen in 2009.

"This has grown so much since we've been here," Miller said. "Because it's like home. [Visitors from Buffalo] come in here thinking they're gonna find two dozen people and a small TV. And there's like 100 people here."

Tom Miller (left) shows the business card that Andy Beecher (right) left him in 1991 after seeing Miller's Oregon vanity license plate, which read, "GO BILS." The two founded the Portland United Bills Supporters and helped raise money for relief from an epic snowstorm back home.

The bar, at 1730 S.W. Taylor St., right across from Providence Park, has welcomed the Buffalo supporters. The walls and ceilings are covered with Bills paraphernalia. Notes are posted at the counter for unsuspecting patrons who are looking to watch another sporting event: the TVs will remain tuned to the Buffalo game, the note says, regardless of the amount of time left on the clock. Bartenders serve Labatt Blue – a Canadian lager ubiquitous in Buffalo but hard to find in Portland – and on Nov. 13, when the Bills were featured on nationally televised Thursday Night Football, the popular Buffalo "beef on weck" sandwich was on the menu.

For Western New York transplants in Oregon, the Cheerful Bullpen is a place to meet new friends from the old hometown, to laugh with self-deprecation about the Bills' eternal woes, and to share in the attitude that gave Buffalo one of its nicknames: "the City of Good Neighbors."

"When it snows, that's when you see all your neighbors," Miller said. "Everybody's out shovelin'."

-- Luke Hammill