My first bowl memory was my parents and their friends huddling around a black-and-white TV watching the January 1, 1965 Orange Bowl, immediately after the 1964 season. Namath was ruled short on a 4th down QB sneak, and as a 5-year-old in footie pajamas, I learned a lot of new words.
The first bowl for which I really remembered the game was the was the 1970 Astro-Bluebonnet Bowl where our kicker (whose name I remember, but choose not to reference here), missed a chip-shot FG late in the game -- maybe as time expired, but my 11-year-old memory is not that detailed. As I remember, he missed the whole end zone, not just the goal posts. We ended up tying 24-24 with Oklahoma, but that was the start of the most glorious period in Alabama football until now.
The first bowl I attended in person was also the coldest game I've ever attended: the 1997 Music City Bowl against Virginia Tech. Got our _&(#(%$ whipped, it was cold and wet and miserable and I had a Tennessee fan behind me who attended the game for the expressed purpose of trashing Alabama. An unforgettable experience in the worst sense of the phrase.
It was offset by being at the BCS game in Pasadena in early 2010. I can only hope to repeat the experience in about 23 days.