Packers 2009

There was once a day when I reserved a Green Bay hotel room for every home game once the schedule came out. I just wanted to ensure lodging for the one game I would eventually attend.

Perhaps it's a sign of the post-Favre times that I barely took notice when the schedule came out today. Or, more likely, it's a sign of my enthusiasm that my son will reach the top of the season ticket waiting list in his late 50s, which will be the new 30s by then. That I'll require a handicapped seat is actually a plus!

More immediately, I'm sure tempted by the Bishop's Charity Game on Aug. 22 when Freddy Jackson and the Buffalo Bills visit Lambeau Field. Though, damn, I've seen enough real games that preseason football doesn't much appeal to me, Freddy is likely to see a lot of action as he looks to be the Bills' starter at running back for (at least) the first three real games.

Then again, I saw the Coe College product excel in a real game last season in Kansas City. Buffalo returns to Kansas City in mid-December, but it's the same day the Packers play in Chicago. Granted, I wasn't in Kansas City, but I didn't have any luck the last time I tried following the Packers in Missouri.

As for the Pack, they open at home against the Bears. Jay Cutler cuts his NFC Norris teeth at Lambeau Field. It's a nationally televised Sunday night game, which I'll be content to view from my couch in high-def.

Then it's Bengals (no), Lions (NO!), Vikings (hmm), Cowboys (HMM!, but nationally televised, so, no), 49ers (ho-hum), Ravens (Monday Night Football!), and Seattle (no more). Maybe I'll reconsider my pre-season opposition.

The road schedule offers two national telecasts. A Monday nighter at the (former) Dome of Doom in Minnesota and Thanksgiving in Detroit. (Guess I should host this year.)

Road games within reach include St. Louis in late September and Chicago in mid-December.

But, wait. The "regular" season ends Jan. 3 at Arizona. Bet it's a lot warmer there then it will be here.

flashback

In tribute to the news out of Detroit that Pontiac may cease to be even sooner than the rest of GM, here again is the tale of the only Pontiac I ever owned and owned and owned.

The Sunbird
originally posted January 28, 2007

This is a story of a woman and a car. Once upon a time, the woman was young and the car was new. She was on the verge of graduating from college, and the car, though not fancy, seemed cute and comfortable and reliable enough to take her out into the world. If nothing else, it was a definite upgrade from the Chevy Nova she'd been driving for six years. As it turned out, she and the car would be together for a long, long time, though the car, had it been capable, may have wished for a different fate.

In the beginning, of course, she took special care of it, and invested wisely in ArmorAll and oil changes. It was a real disappointment, then, when Kenny, her fellow student teacher, busted one of the air vents on a ride to lunch when the car was mere days old. And it was sadder still when the woman accidentally drove down a freshly oiled street when the odometer was still in the triple digits. The paint was never was the same.

Nevertheless, the car was dependable, and the woman and her friends took it to Memphis and back, and then to Memphis and back again. The woman graduated and drove the car through all those endless Illinois cornfields looking for a job. Finally, at interview number 13, she halfway succeeded (the work was part-time), and she moved her car out into the country, racking up the miles to visit civilization, and her friends (both the close by and out of state), and the homebound students she took on for extra cash. Soon enough, she got married and moved to another town, and she and the car continued their commuting life, first across the Illinois prairie and then around the St. Louis highways.

Three years into their relationship, the woman towed the car to Green Bay behind a moving truck, paying extra for an undeground parking space so as to protect the car from the Wisconsin elements and herself from the drudgery of cleaning them off. A year later, she and a puking, shedding, nervous wreck of a cat drove the car to Iowa, where she would be happy but the cat and the car would be less so. Getting the car moving in the cold Iowa mornings developed into an elaborate ritual involving cans of starter fluid and depressing the gas pedal in a way no one but the woman could master. So maybe that's why, when she cracked the rear bumper on an on-coming car (yes, that does take skill. or tragic inattention when one backs out of the driveway) and scraped yellow paint from a concrete pylon at the bank onto the front fender fixing those cosmetic flaws was a low priority. Surely the car was on its way out. Alas, financial priorities change, especially when news of a new baby is received, and since the car was basically trustworthy (though touchy) and thorougly paid for, it stayed, both long enough to trade its Wisconsin plate for not one but two Iowa models and to deliver that baby home.

The same year the baby arrived, the woman and her family moved to Indianapolis, and the car came too. The car became well acquainted with the "boys down at Firestone," but they drove it as long as they could--right up until it started randomly losing power on the freeway as the woman delivered her work to the office each morning. Adventure is grand, just not on I-465. Now, at that point, believe it or not, that car was the only one the woman and her family had: the husband's car had been totaled back when they lived in Iowa, and, Iowa City being manageable on one car, they'd kept the cash and tried life with a single vehicle. That was less workable (read: a huge pain in the ass) in a larger city, so once a new car was acquired, the woman was tempted to keep the Sunbird to see if it could be resurrected, so she did. Their itinerant life being what it was, it was now time to move again, so they towed the car back to Illinois and dropped it at a trusted mechanic's. And hark! there was a miracle. While the Indiana mechanics had planned to gouge $450 to "maybe" fix it, the woman's new best friend in the whole world found a loose connection, charged $40 for his time, and restored the woman's faith in humanity and her place as a member of a two-car family. Hallelujah, indeed.

The woman abused the good nature of that car for two more years and thousands more miles, but even she agreed it was time to give it up at the end of mile 168,000. But what to do? It certainly had little value according to Kelly or any other expert. And she really didn't want to sell it to someone who'd know where to find her, its maintenance--except for the oil changes, her father having drilled that right into her head--being as spotty as it was. The solution? Donate it! Surely the non-profit would just sell it for whatever parts remained anyway, and she could walk away with a clean conscience. Which she did.

The non-profit had other plans, though, and so did the car: not long after she gave it away, the woman saw it on the road. There was no mistake: it was always easily recognizable, given the bumper, the fender, the Bluenote in the back window and the local tax stickers in the front. Now, however, it was even more identifiable. The new license plate? SEXY 64. The woman was chagrined, and momentarily wanted to rescue her car from whomever had that kind of vanity, but at least the car was still going. We should all hope to endure so much and last so long, she thought. The woman's entire family knew the story of SEXY 64 and would occasionally see it around town, or even further afield than they'd think safe to drive it. Heads shaking with disbelief, they'd update each other on what had rusted or faded or fallen off the car that would not die. Eventually, the car was spotted with a new license plate, and though the woman was relieved that the old car's honor was restored, she figured that this sighting might well be the last.

Which it was, until the phone rang today, seven years after the car was given away, sixteen years after it was new.

"Guess what I saw!" said the woman's husband. "The Sunbird!"

But did she learn how to spell Ashwaubenon?

Did you hear the one about the thirty-three year old high school cheerleader, dateline (more or less) Green Bay? True story, at least for a day. But, hard to continue a felonious identity-theft-from-your-own-out-of-state-teen-daughter ruse after being locked up for some other crime--that one only a misdemeanor. And even if she coulda made bail, high school girls can be so catty. So it's probably just as well she didn't go back. Then again, if you ask me, if they truly want to punish this candidate for Hoos-oisie mother of the year, forget the $10,000 and six years she could theoretically owe the government for using documents that were not her own, take her at her "I wanted to live what I missed out on" word, and make her do high school until she graduates. Day after day after day.

I'm not saying it makes any sense

I'm saying it made me laugh.

Then again, it's early.

The more things change...

Oh, sure. That wasn't #4 out there. But #12 looked good in his starting debut.

In fact, I'm quite impressed how Aaron Rodgers has handled the whole Brett Favre matter. At any moment in the past few weeks, months, years, he could easily have slipped. Done something stupid. Said the wrong thing. It happens all the time.

Not this time, though. Rodgers coolly took the Packers' reigns and performed well, well enough for the win, which is all that ever matters.

His touchdown pass was Favre-esque.
His mobility was not (and that's a good thing).
His "Lambeau Leap" was fun, but troubling (you have to be able to put your butt on the railing).
His read-on-the-fly-touchdown-pass-called-back-by-penalty to Donald Driver was beautiful, and telling.

This guy is ready. Most importantly, he's not alone.

Again one of if not the youngest team in the league -- losing a 38-year-old quarterback will have that effect -- this is a team again. Everyone has a job. It's not on one guy.

I'm encouraged. Welcome back football season!

Diva Favre

Now I'm not a hater -- never will be. But this is too darn funny not to share.

From my couch

For once, I'm not going to let the media influence my view of the post-Favre era in Green Bay. Other than the ESPN talking heads -- and does Tony Kornheiser really get paid for that? -- here's my assessment of the first game since 1992 started by someone other than #4.

I'm enthused.

I'll put my Packer fan credentials on the line with anyone, but maybe, just maybe, Ted Thompson knows what he's doing.

Aaron Rodgers is no Brett Favre. No one is. But he looked more than capable in his quarter of action tonight against the Cincinnati Bengals. More importantly, the surrounding cast performed.

No longer, so it seems, will the quarterback have to carry this team. Instead I sense a camaraderie that has been missing far too long. I was not surprised to see Donald Driver running hard and breaking tackles. But when James Jones ran into the end zone without his helmet, it was symbolic.

This is not your father's Packer team, anymore. And maybe that's ok.

Mr. Rodgers' Neighborhood

Let's see how this goes.

Not happily ever after

I wish I was talented enough to express my views on this sordid affair. How things got so bad, so fast defies logic. One minute they're shipping his locker to Kiln, MS, next minute they're not. One minute he's on the active roster, next minute he's not.

At this point, it appears Brett's playing days in Green Bay are over. Hard as it is to imagine, I was a Packer fan before you and I'll be a Packer fan after. But I wish you well, my friend I've never met.

How it couldn't work defies logic. But I'm forever a fan of the Green Bay Packers and Brett Lorenzo Favre.

Back from the future

On Monday, the Green Bay Packers will apparently step back from their foray into an Aaron Rodgers led future and welcome Brett Favre back to training camp, where they're now saying he will compete for the starting job. Hallefreakinlujah!

I've been in Favre's corner all along, even when I've questioned his tactics and motives. His retirement press conference was convincing, but I have little doubt he'll win back his starting job -- and the streak goes on.

I know the Packers were put in a bad spot, but I have serious concerns about how they've handled the situation. At first they said they'd welcome him back as a backup and at last they indicated willingness to trade him to the rival Vikings, whom they had earlier filed tampering charges against. As difficult as it was to fathom anyone but #4 under center for the Packers, it was doubling disturbing to imagine #4 under center in Minnesota, or Chicago, or anywhere.

As they say, all's well that ends well. But I think there's some major fences in need of mending. You got what you wanted, Brett, and I couldn't be happier. But your reputation took a hit in the process. Time to show the world that the future is now in the NFL.

A year off

These are the words that stick in my head. Sure I cried while watching the retirement press conference live in my office. I so wished it wasn't so. But it was clearly over, this Brett Favre magic carpet ride.

Somehow, though, after all hell broke loose, the only comment I can remember is Deanna's. Clearly uncomfortable about sharing the stage with her husband, she said the annual celebrity softball fundraiser was off. They were going to do nothing for a year.

Some nothing it turned out to be.

My Packers, on the verge of a Super Bowl, are in turmoil or will soon be once Brett reports for camp. My allegiance is conflicted and I can't even decide who to hate. On the plus side, my son talks to me more than ever now.

He remains optimistic that this will end the right way. I, conversely, am starting to come to grips with the notion that Brett Favre will wear a different uniform. After he takes a year off, of course.

Talk about your mixed messages

Brett Lohan, nee Favre, finally spoke today through Faux News' Gretta Van Susteren, an Appleton native and Packer shareholder. The situation seems only to continue to deteriorate beyond repair. I found one quote most telling.

"You're telling me playing there is not an option, but playing elsewhere, we just can't - we're trying to protect your legacy," Favre said. "Well, thank you. I appreciate that. But apparently now, they're trying to protect my legacy by bringing me back and having me be a backup. Boy, that is really good."

Instead of whining about being put in a bad position, Ted Thompson better get his head out of ass and fix this pronto. I've been a Packer fan for twice as long as Favre has been in the NFL. I don't know what I'll do if I have to choose between the two.

And if you think I'm pissed off, check out Favre's friendly reporter at the Sun Herald.

In her own words

She's a woman heartbroken, a woman betrayed, or at least that's how she sees it. To her table of regulars, she drops all pretense: "Oh, these shenanigans just piss me off!" She sighs, and she shakes her head, and she'd throw her hands up if she wouldn't drop her tray and order pad, the one with the Green Bay Packers sticker displayed on the back. We tell her we like it.

"I'm from Fond du Lac," she tells us, in Manitou Springs, Colorado, in an accent as strong as her allegiance to the gold and the green. "They've got two religions," she says, though the pronoun might as well be"I": "Catholic and Brett Favre."

"And he sat there in March," she picks up in the middle of the rant that she's been perfecting,"all that boo-hoo-hooing. . .said he didn't know. . .liar!" in a tone so harsh it surprises. And then back over her shoulder, "I cried too!" I nod and try to remember the stages of grief.

"Do you know how many magazines with him on the cover I saved?" she offers with refills and a description of her spare bedroom shrine to her man. "I was gonna have an affair with him," she jokes, kinda, about the man as young as her son, and then follows, "We wanted him to run for president!" She lowers her voice: "Better than that Obama."

"I'll never forgive him. Do you believe that?" I'm not sure that I do, considering she's worried he's going to get booed, if he ever comes to Lambeau--God forbid--in some sick and wrong colors. We've already established the obvious, that he cannot. be. a. Bear.

When she casts about for reasons, and says, "It can't be the money!" we blurt out, "He just wants to play," before she rolls on. She concedes, but sees her Packers in a corner and no way for that to happen in the only acceptable way. Some religion with little faith.

And again I hear about the shenanigans, though she's talking across the room. And then the ridiculous opinion that number 4 should have retired two years ago, from some man (who may or may not be a jackass, but) 30 years removed from the Badger state. In a pancake place. In Colorado. In July. Meanwhile, my daughter contemplates eating watermelon rind in an effort to clean her plate "like we do in Wisconsin" since anyone who could be mad at Brett Favre is just a little scary.

"Clearly I have no life," she says, with a wry smile that pretends to try for chagrined. "E-mail me the latest," she kids, "since I'm all the way out here." We leave a note with the tip and happen to see her read it as we get in the Pathfinder to drive away. She's on the patio having a smoke and talking to her fellow waitress, her twin sister (how I wish we could go back for lunch) when her boss brings it out. She pockets the scrap with a roll of her eyes and is off on a tear again. "Go Pack Go," indeed.

Off my chest

I've long subscribed to the philosophy that whatever doesn't kill me, makes me stronger. I don't think it applies to the current Packer drama, unless it does in fact kill me, making everything moot.

I mean, come on already.

Yes, Brett Favre is behaving like a diva, again.

But, also yes, he's the greatest Packer of all time.

As far as I'm concerned, he can dictate game times. The suggestion that he returns as Aaron Rodgers' backup is laughable. Mr. Rodgers would look good in purple. It's not like he'd be the first Favre backup to move on -- see Matt Hasselbeck, Mark Brunell, Aaron Brooks, etc.

What's the big deal?

Maybe, just maybe, the quarterback of the future isn't Rodgers but Brian Brohm. The quarterback of the present is Brett Favre damnit!

Somehow, this didn't happen in Wisconsin

Man fined for buckling in beer, not toddler
Police 'shocked and appalled' after Australian leaves 5-year-old on car floor

DARWIN, Australia - An Australian man has been fined after buckling in a case of beer with a seat belt but leaving a 5-year-old child to sit on the car’s floor, police said Tuesday.

Constable Wayne Burnett said he was “shocked and appalled” when he pulled over the unregistered car Friday in the central Australian town of Alice Springs.

The 30-can beer case was strapped in between two adults sitting in the back seat of the car. The child was also in back, but on the car’s floor.

“The child was sitting in the lump in the center, unrestrained,” Burnett told reporters Tuesday.

“I haven’t ever seen something like this before,” he said. “This is the first time that the beer has taken priority over a child.”

The driver was fined 750 Australian dollars — about $710 — for driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle and for failing to ensure a child was wearing a safety belt.

Another Brett Favre tribute

coincidence

Today a teacher dragged into school, barely remembering her role or function. Appearing at the appointed hour seemed accomplishment enough, given the jet lag and the time change. But, she'd been gone for more than a week and a new semester was starting; no time for easing in or for sleeping. And there was a fact that she'd persuaded her director to send her across the ocean to be rejuvenated and recharged. Slacking upon return would be untoward, especially now that she's a supervisor. Or so Tatiana from Latvia explained to me, during the one evening of our lives that we'd share.

We met in the Canal St. subway station, trying to determine why the street-level sign promised R and W trains while the platform only indicated a 6. Ah! there's the passageway! Ah! there are friendly but erroneous New Yorkers who promised that we couldn't get there from here! So from there we shared a mission, a walk back through Little Italy to another station with a W train which stopped right back where we were (sometimes tourists with maps know more than the locals), a circle on the Staten Island Ferry. And then more walking, her introduction to the Village, dinner, and her first margarita in six years.

Turns out that one of things that Tatiana and I have in common is that we both spent a year living in Wisconsin. Tatiana, the EFL teacher from Riga, Latvia, whom I met on the Chinatown/Canal Street subway platform in New York City, once lived for a year in Wausau, Wisconsin. Sometimes I love the world. And good conversation and serendipitous meetings and knowing that thousands of miles from here the thoughts and memories of an educator in a former Soviet republic have been the tiniest bit informed by running into Allison, the teacher from near St. Louis, not San Antonio, who just happened to be standing there.

Three Guesses

As to where I spent the last thirty-six to forty-eight hours, though one of those clues is kind of a trick. I mean, by rights shouldn't Bud Weiser have a car dealership here? I'm sure it's pronounced with a long E, too, but I really don't care. He sells cars with with a nickname and I desperately try to pass the time between Beloit and Bloomington until they finally fix that thumpa-thumpa-thumpa highway. We all do what we can.

Even if that involves going North during Spring Break, or at least part of it, if that's where the E Street Band is playing. Yes, dear readers, it is a theme. The mr. and I spent a freezing cold St. Patrick's Day in M'waukee with Bruce, and despite the smelly drunks, the idiots who asked if he'd play Jack and Diane, and the hour late start, we had a hell of a time. Why did we never do this before? No accounting. But I will say there are tickets left for Indianapolis, and it's two hours closer, and school doesn't start until Monday. And the forecast is for a balmy 51!

Coverboy

Does any media on the planet do a better job covering old news than Sports Illustrated? Having just finished reading the cover story on the latest issue, I think not.

Making his third cover since December (!!!), Brett Favre's retirement received the kind of coverage I've come to expect from SI -- emotional, passionate, generous, raw, real. In my lifetime, Favre's retirement press conference only compares with Magic Johnson's, only this time I cried. I'm not ashamed to admit it.

SI: Favre's farewell was the last in a long series of memorable performances. Emotional, passionate, generous, raw, real -- Favre said goodbye the same way he played the game.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Better than anyone, Alan Shipnuck summarized the self-fulfilling prophecy that led to the exit of the longtime face of the Green Bay Packers, if not the NFL.

SI: There is plenty left in Favre's rocket right arm, but the expectations of the sport's most passionate fan base exhausted him, and he was weary of the preparation required to summon his best.

A masseuse table in the basement of the Favre home was evidence of his burden. There, Deanna regularly tried to rub away her husband's stress.

SI: Why not hire a pro? "Brett is a little weird about strangers touching his body," Deanna said with a laugh.

He wouldn't cut it as a politician, not that it would ever be a consideration.

SI: While the Mississippi twang and aw-shucks charm conjured comparisons to Huck Finn, last week Favre felt more like Tom Sawyer attending his own funeral.

And: Favre's detachment from his own celebrity has always been his most winning trait.

Shipnuck's concluding paragraph summed it up perfectly while helping this Packer fan come to grips with it all.

SI: In fact, Favre has always had an unerring sense of timing. So many athletes stick around too long, displaying diminished skills and a depressing mortality, but he is leaving at exactly the right moment. How can we be sure? Because it hurts to say goodbye.

Something special

I recognized it early. I’m not sure exactly when, but soon into his career as a Green Bay Packer I realized that we were witnessing something special. While I’ve always been pretty hardcore about the Packers, it became an obsession. Family gatherings, holidays, weddings, even my daughter’s cesarean birth had to be coordinated around Packer games.

I was blessed to see several of his games in person, including some unpleasant memories from Minneapolis, and have made a point of attending at least one game a year at Lambeau Field since today’s inevitability first appeared on the radar.

Initially, pre-Favre, I was with my genuine cheesehead step-brother; our fanship strengthening our tenuous familial bond. We participated together in a Don Majkowski poster-burning ritual after Favre arrived on the scene. We were side by side in the Metrodome when T.J. Rubley came in to spoil the day. He didn’t even notice I had puked under the table before our hasty departure from a Green Bay strip club.

I cherish these and countless other memories with Scott. But it all changed in June 1993, within a year of Favre’s first of what would eventually reach 275 consecutive starts at quarterback for the Packers. That’s when my first child, a son, was born.

Before he was old enough to object, his name was on the waiting list for Packer season tickets. I tolerated the Tennessee Titan dalliance as an early effort to assert his independence, knowing full well that a trip to Green Bay would set things straight. The Packers – and Favre – soon became a string that bound our relationship.

We shared many a Sunday afternoon with the Packers – often at home, at a sports bar if need be, and sometimes within the football Mecca that is Lambeau Field. I’m typically not one to take time to smell the roses, except when it involves my kids. I smelled them when we toured the Packer Hall of Fame; she saddling the bicycle display – which I’m pretty sure we weren’t supposed to do – and he reflecting in the shadows of three Super Bowl trophies. I smelled them that memorable Monday night after Favre’s own dad died. I smelled them when we chanted “one more year” in attendance at the season finale three years ago. I smelled them two years ago as we watched, from a hotel bar, Favre’s emotional New Year’s Eve exit from Soldier Field.

Last year, somehow, I was oblivious that the end was near when an unexpected victory over San Diego gave the hint of a special season. Or when Favre stole victories at Denver and Kansas City. Or when we desperately searched for a place to watch the Washington game. Or when connections with the manager enabled the 14-year-old to remain at the sports bar late on a school night at Dallas. Or when Thanksgiving dinner was delayed at Detroit. Or when a trip to St. Louis became punishment for bad grades.

Did I mention the snow globe playoff game against Seattle? Or the playoff dance I unveiled against the Giants? I didn’t think there would be an equal to our collective sadness after the Giants snatched a return to the Super Bowl from our mitts.

Until today.

Once I knew it wasn’t some Internet snafu, I texted “Favre is done” to Zach. By then, he had already heard the news from his Packer-fan science teacher. “I would have cried if I wasn’t at school,” he revealed later. After dinner, we settled in for the ESPN coverage.

“He’s the only Packer quarterback I’ve ever known,” he said.

“I know.”

Five years from now, I fully expect we’ll travel to Canton for Favre’s Hall of Fame enshrinement. How the Packers will fare in the meantime is anyone’s guess. All I know for sure is this was a special time. Thanks Brett.