On November 14, 2011, Alan and I sat in Wisconsins's Lambeau field, five seats above the 40 yard line, watching the Green Bay Packers play Minnesota. On the short flight out from Chicago we got a taste of just how internationally popular the Packers are...there was one woman from Australia who'd been following them since she was twelve and two men from Ontario. In our tour group on Sunday (they run tours every fifteen minutes) we had people from Brazil as well as from Texas, California, Arkansas, Oregon and Alaska.
We bought long silk underwear from the Olympia REI but told each other we'd resist buying anything obviously "Packers". We're just not "that way". Not us. We're grown ups, after all. We love the team, not the team's packaging. So,God. Give us a break.
On Sunday we hit Lambeau's gift shop and looked around. We pretended for awhile, then spent two hundred dollars on the green and gold. And that was just inside. The next day, before the game, we bought the really gauche stuff. Beads. Fluffy ropey neck things. A shirt for Alan that read .......I can't remember exactly what it read. Ask him. He'll tell you. Alan had a heck of a time figuring out which player's jersey to buy...should he buy a jersey with Woodsman's name on it? Or Donald Driver's? He thought, he thought. Finally, after airing his innermost confusion to one of the elderly men working in the gift shop, he decided on Driver, because Driver writes children's books. If any of you out there want Alan to buy your shirt, start writing for the little one's. Melts his heart.
Our tour took us through the tunnel (accompanied by loud music and taped roars of the fans) which the Packer's actually come out onto the field through. Big moment. We were taken above the field to one of the luxurious box seats where we could look down over everything. Another big moment. It was Veteran's Day Weekend and, during the game's intermission, we were asked to lean over, grab the plastic bag fastened onto every seat, grab the big red, white or blue cardboard mask and put it over our faces when signalled to by the sideline TV people. When we completed our paper trick, the entire stadium turned into a red, white and blue flag-like sign that read "Thank You, Military!" So THAT'S how they do that. After tail-gaiting with open trunks full of nearly every kind of liquor and beer on the market, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds (there were something like 78,000 people in the stadium that evening) of significantly drunk people trying to get the eye holes in those masks to slide on up to meet their eyes.....major parts of the stadium's words were not only nearly unreadable but pre-tt-y darn swervy ..... but hey - - there were no fights, no accidents, no police were called, and Packers sat next to Vikings in relative harmony. I myself (don't you hate it when somebody says "I, myself" - - like, who else would "I" be? And yet I feel compelled to say it:) - I, myself, sat next to a Viking. And it was fun. It made things particularly fun, when the game ended and we won, 45-7. We smashed that Minnesota team right into the next hemosphere.
Yeah.
And the food. Oh,the food. Yes. Where the only green vegetable we saw for three days was a chunk of iceberg lettuce. Where they even butter the butter. Where they fry the cheese. Where they serve up something called cheese curdles. Where the burger, the brat and the cheeseburger are the only offerings on the menu even at the Hyatt Hotel, where we stayed. Where the women are as large as the men and you'd be too. Where we filled up on eggs, bacon, sausages, sweet rolls, sweet cakes and sweet cream in the morning. Where we ate burgers for dinner every night. Where even Alan (Alan!) ordered a quesadilla just to get to the iceberg lettuce. I never thought I would see him eat iceberg, and yet he did; wolfed it right down. Good God almighty. Shows what deprivation can do to a man. Makes 'em run for the iceberg. My only regret? That I never had me a brat. Damn. I was THERE. It's very sad to look at yourself in the mirror once you're back on the island and know you've just come from Wisconsin and you didn't eat a brat. Brings on a feeling kind of like a mix between shame and regret. Shoulda had a brat.
And the Packers, whom we went to see play? Oh yeah. There are a whole bunch of things I thought I'd rather see...the New York ballet, The Met opera, even Oregon's Shakespeare festival....but this team, these Packers....are really something. They are part machine and part ballet. They ARE a team. They are beautiful. They are beautiful to watch. Everyone who knows me said something like, "YOU? YOU? Are going to see a team play......FOOTBALL? Do you.....KNOW? Anything ABOUT....FOOTBALL? .....KAY?" And the answer to all these questions is yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. And it was worth it all. And I DO happen to know at least...SOME...about football. And when Alan walked into the room where Lambeau keeps the Lombardi trophies...and when I watched his face as we walked out on the field....and when I watched the Packer's fans and the Packer's themselves, the community pride for this team they OWN.... you know, it's just one of those things. It was beautiful to behold. HE was beautiful to behold. And my heart was full.
So here we are back home and it's hard to believe we were ever there. "Human kind," said T.S. Eliot," can not bear too much reality." I suppose three days was about all we could bear and about all we really could take in, realistically, of Wisconsin, brat or no brat. The Packers have played two or three more games since we were there and they've won each game and Alan is now hoping they will lose one before the play-offs. I've been trained to listen to the worst of childhood trauma, but I haven't been trained to go through the psychological distress of my favorite team losing. I know it comes with sports, it comes with the game, but I'm new to all this, but I'm a baby, I'm a novice and I don't have my big girl boots on yet. I don't want them to lose, ever.
Meanwhile, life goes on. Angela called to say that Aleister is now up to class level in all his classes. His English instructor did complain to Aleister about his latest paper, though. He told Aleister that he needs to know "his audience". The assignment was to "write about your worst day". The first of Aleister's sentence for that paper went like this, "The worst day of my life, Oh, let me tell you about it...." and the instructor didn't enjoy the "looseness", he said it needed to be more "academic". So. I know about all of this. I know about "voice" and "audience" and "academic" writing and technical writing. I also know I used to be hired to teach English instructors to "write with a voice," at Centrum in Port Townsend. And I know it took every trick in the book to loosen those teachers up. l know you have to know the rules but I don't know which comes first, the voice and then the rules or the rules and then the voice. I think whichever comes first naturally, needs to be well validated. Anyway, I love that, "Oh, let me tell you about it!" and so I am going to title this blog with those words. I love the looseness and the vibrancy and the enthusiasm, especially for something awful, like the "worst day of my life". If that voice and that vibrancy is what he's using to describe the worst day of his life, I sure do want to know what the kiddo is going to say about his best.
