Chapter 21: They Don’t Gain Another Yard. You Blitz All Night!
We begin this chapter with another look at “sharing a bed with a toddler”.
On our most recent trip to Texas, Sarah reached the point where she just asked to sleep on the floor.
It was the 4th of July, so we got decked out in our finest patriotic gear and went out to celebrate that most American of institutions football (or “handegg”, if you are European).
Excellent counter-argument:
Depending on your view, this is either a great sport featuring incredible strength, athletic feats, and teamwork, or it’s a brutal barbaric game that maims people for life. Personally, I love football and enjoy it immensely, but must confess that the more we read about the effects of the sport on people long-term, the more I wonder about the game’s future. At the very least, I’m glad all this research is being done, because then at least if someone chooses to play this sport, he goes in with eyes wide open.
Green Bay is the home of the Green Bay Packers football team, the third-oldest franchise in the National Football League. They started play in 1919 and are notable for being the only non-profit, community-owned professional sports team in the U.S. If they’d been privately owned, I’m sure they would have moved on to a larger city many years ago for bigger profits. In this case, the city owns the team, so they won’t be going anywhere.
The home of the Packers is
Lambeau Field, a historic venue built in 1957 and probably the only professional football stadium left in America that carries the same kind of cultural significance as historic baseball stadiums such as Wrigley Field or Fenway Park. The stadium has been renovated several times but still maintains its historic character. It now can seat over 72,000 fans. The wait list for season tickets has well over 80,000 names on it, including Barry, who should be able to purchase his tickets in about 400 years or so.
(If you’re a football fan at all, you’ve already thought of a reverent, dulcet-toned NFL Films announcer describing the “Frozen Tundra of Lambeau Field”, a description that has long become a cliché. Which is weird, because Green Bay may get cold in the winter, but there is no tundra whatsoever.)
Green Bay likes to refer to itself as “Titletown”, having won the league championship a record 13 times.
Being located in a relatively small community, the football stadium dwarfs everything around it. It can be seen for a couple of miles while driving into the city, and has the same odd feel as
Disneyland in the sense that there’s a world-famous site surrounded by incredibly mundane houses, fast-food joints, etc.
We arrived mid-morning for a tour of the stadium (Barry and I had actually stopped by earlier to get our tickets and make sure we got in). They have a few different levels of tours you can take, including a higher-fee tour that includes the Packers Hall of Fame. Being Philadelphia Eagles fans, we were more interested in the stadium than the Hall of Fame, so we passed on that.
The entrance to the stadium is guarded by statues of two Packer icons. Vince Lombardi, perhaps their most famous and successful head coach, flanks one side of the stairs.
Lombardi won five NFL championships in seven years and is the author of many quotes that have been co-opted by football teams all over the country, such as:
“Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.”
“Winning isn’t everything, but the will to win is everything.”
“It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.”
And, of course, there’s the Lombardi quote most commonly used by Eagles fans: “What the he—is going on out there?!”
The other statue is Packers founder and their first head coach, Curly Lambeau. Lambeau also won championships and has a stadium named after him in his honor, yet my only note for Mr. Lambeau is to acknowledge that he is immortally enshrined giving the “pull my finger” gesture.
When it was time for the tour, the guide gathered us in the large atrium inside the main gates. The atrium is a huge space, and Packers fans can (and do) rent it for large parties, weddings, and other events. They have some neat floor tiles patterned after a football field, and the guide noted that the lines are precisely in line with the actual field.
We took an elevator up to the roof and got a nice view of the entire stadium from there. I always enjoy it when I get to see something in real life that I’ve come to know through television, and this was no exception. Very cool to stand in the place where I’ve watched so many Monday Night Football games come to life.
I included this photo because you can see how there’s really nothing of note in the surrounding area. Instead of a large city, it’s just a massive football stadium out among relatively few people.
Here’s the whole crew. Man, we have a lot of kids.
We were taken into one of the fancy lounges for high-dollar ticket holders, where peons like you and me are never allowed to go. Seemed pretty swanky in there.
They had displays celebrating some of the great players in Packer history, and I found one dedicated to my favorite player ever,
Reggie White. Now, I remember Reggie White as maybe the greatest player ever on the Philadelphia Eagles. For years he played at a Hall of Fame level on some incredibly talented Eagle defenses. Unfortunately, they always struggled to pair the great defense with a functional offense, so the team never went anywhere. If you don’t know anything about football, I’ll give you a little secret: if you struggle to score points, you probably won’t win many games. That was the Eagles while White was in town—losing many low-scoring games.
Eventually, he became a free agent. At the time, Philadelphia had a crappy owner who was a cheapskate and seemed determine to prevent his team from winning, so he didn’t even bother trying to re-sign White. Reggie left for Green Bay and ended up winning a Super Bowl championship there, because of course he did. Meanwhile, the Eagles turned their offense over to a quarterback named “
Bubby”, which should tell you all you need to know.
Still, White played more years in Philadelphia than he did in Green Bay, so I will always consider him an Eagle, no matter what nonsense Barry tells you.
A side cabinet displayed “Super Bowl rings” something with which Eagles fans are not familiar. But we’re not bitter.
We moved on to some seats in the end zone. If you’re wondering how well my kids get along with Barry’s, here’s an idea:
Here, the guide demonstrated the terrific acoustics of the stadium bowl. He said you can stand up and yell from this spot and get a perfect echo reverberating around the stadium. To prove it, he encouraged us all to stand and yell, “Go Pack Go!”
Now, he did make an allowance for those of us who were not Packer fans. In order to maintain allegiance to our own team, he said we could shout that phrase backwards.
Har-dee-har-har.
Still, I outsmarted him. I shouted “Og Kcap Og!” And I have to admit, the echo was pretty cool.
For the main event, we took the elevator down to field level. We walked under the stands, past the locker rooms to the tunnel that serves as the players’ entrance onto the field. The tour guide set us up beautifully. He told us that we were about to walk out onto (well, next to) historic Lambeau Field, site of so many great moments in football history. He told us to imagine that we were players, about to enter a crucial NFL playoff game, with over 70,000 fans shouting our names. He encouraged us to use our imagination—that if you really tried, you could almost hear the fans as we walked out to receive a taste of glory.
Naturally, as soon as they hit the gate, the speakers in the tunnel came alive with crowd noise, serenading us as we walked out to the field.
Was it cheesy? Yes. Did it work on me? You betcha. I was ready to tackle somebody. So I caught Scotty with a flying forearm shiver.
It’s always neat to walk out at field level at a pro sports stadium, to get an idea of what it’s like to be on the field. You don’t get this view as an average fan.
This is what happens when multiple cameras are present:
With that, the tour ended and we were forced to trudge our way up the bleachers, back to being common peons once more. No crowd noise pumping us up here.
Back outside, by the parking lot, there’s a statue dedicated to the
Lambeau Leap, a touchdown celebration invented by safety Leroy Butler. Basically, when a Packers player scores a touchdown, he runs over and leaps into the stands, where he is mobbed by the crowd. As celebrations go, it’s pretty fun. The statue is set up as a photo op where you can do your own Lambeau Leap. Here, Barry and I demonstrate the proper technique:
Sarah also shows excellent form, throwing in a
Wonder Woman-esque flex:
And Scotty does the…wait, what in the heck is that? Even Drew is flummoxed.
No, seriously, dude…what are you doing?
Sigh. I’m sorry you had to see that.
There’s a restaurant inside the stadium and we originally thought we’d eat lunch there. However, it’s a sit-down place, and the outdoor seating area only had one or two servers working, and they appeared to be moving at the same pace my kids do when we tell them it’s time for bed. So we eventually abandoned that plan and headed to our new home away from home,
Culver’s. Everyone seemed happy with that choice.
We still had a 4-hour drive ahead of us to head back to Minnesota, so it was here that we had to say goodbye to Barry, Bambi, and family. We hated to leave. They were terrific hosts, extremely welcoming and a ton of fun. Guys, every time we get together with you, we have a blast. It’s been great fun getting to know you and your family over the years. Thank you for being so kind and generous and for putting up with all of our crap. Let’s do it again! In Disney!
I don’t have much to report for the afternoon and evening.
We drove back to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, and stopped in to visit old friends of Julie’s. They were her neighbors when she was growing up in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania and had relocated several years ago to Minnesota. It just so happened that they were having a birthday party for their young niece on the day we showed up. So, yes: we crashed a total stranger’s birthday party. Not awkward at all.
Thankfully, they welcomed us and made us feel at home. We even had cake!
I know, it’s not pie. Which is sad. But it was cake, which is better than vegetables.
That evening, we checked into our hotel (splurged on an Embassy Suites, because we all needed some space at this point) just south of Minneapolis. As luck would have it, we got to see some 4th of July fireworks from our room, and proceeded to capture them in crappy blurry photos for your enjoyment.
And with that, we were entering our final day of the trip. Hey, stop celebrating!
Coming Up Next: One more DISMeet, with a side of Looney Tunes.
What do I win?
It actually does make some sense though...
Nice they all got along so well.
