Big Dan
Cheesehead
After reading 98Redbird's post about taking his dad to Lambeau for his dad's first time ever, which is completely awesome, I thought it might be fun to have a thread about people's first time to Lambeau. I'll start:
It was December 1994 or 1995, and I lived in West Allis at the time. Early Sunday morning, my phone rings, and it's my old buddy Tim. He says "How'd ya like to go see the Packers play the Bears today at Lambeau?" I said "Who's *** do I gotta kiss, and how many times?" He just laughed, and said "None. My father-in-law is on his way here from Indiana to pick me up and take me to the game and I don't really want to go." Inexplicably, Tim is a Vikings fan, even though he was born and raised in Kenosha. He continued with "Packers-Bears is about the last thing I care to see, but I don't want to let the father-in-law down. I figured you might want to go."
I was actually hesitant, as I'd never even met his father-in-law before then, but he assured me that I'd love the guy and we'd have a blast together. How right he was. I went over to Tim's, and when "Moose" arrived, we indeed hit it off right away. Moose was also what my dad called me for my entire life... maybe it was a sign. We didn't have a lot of time to hang out, as we needed to get on the road, so off we went.
It turned out that Moose was fairly well off, although you'd never know it by the way he acted, and had gotten the tickets from his bank's president. 45 yard-line, 30 rows back, right behind the Packer's bench. Wow. You hear a lot about "the Lambeau mystique" and what-not, and I'm here to tell ya, it's absolutely true. When we hit the parking lot, I had tears in my eyes, and I'm not at all ashamed to admit it. As we walked to the gate I could actually feel the electricity in the air. I had goose-bumps, and every hair on my body was standing straight up on end.
As I said, it was December. This was the second Bears game of the year, and it was damnably cold. It even started to snow, which made it even that much better. This was when Favre had a broken foot. When the team came out to warm up, Favre had no pads on, a big "boot" on his foot, and was limping noticeably. He was only on the field for a short time and headed back to the locker room. Everybody in the stands thought for sure that he wouldn't play that day. We were, of course, wrong. When the team came back out to start the game, there he was. The place went absolutely nuts. As much as I hate Favre's douchebaggery of recent years, I still have to admire the guy's toughness.
Favre had a huge day, and we hammered the **** out of the Bears. I don't even remember the final score, but it was big. This was as close to football nirvana as there is likely to ever be. December... Lambeau... cold... snow... Bears... ***-stomping. How could this get any better? It got better, alright.
After the game, we went over to "Fuzzy's," the bar owned by Packers legend Fuzzy Thurston. Fuzzy was a great old guy and we stayed there for hours, celebrating the big win and listening to Fuzzy's stories. Fuzzy signed a bunch of stuff for anybody that wanted something signed. This was especially cool for me, as I'm old enough to have watched Fuzzy play under Lombardi. I highly recommend a trip to Fuzzy's to anyone that's ever going to Lambeau.
I haven't been up to Green Bay in a number of years now; I think the last time I was up there was in 2000 or 2001, and I haven't seen Moose since Tim divorced his daughter... but it was a day I'll never forget.
It was December 1994 or 1995, and I lived in West Allis at the time. Early Sunday morning, my phone rings, and it's my old buddy Tim. He says "How'd ya like to go see the Packers play the Bears today at Lambeau?" I said "Who's *** do I gotta kiss, and how many times?" He just laughed, and said "None. My father-in-law is on his way here from Indiana to pick me up and take me to the game and I don't really want to go." Inexplicably, Tim is a Vikings fan, even though he was born and raised in Kenosha. He continued with "Packers-Bears is about the last thing I care to see, but I don't want to let the father-in-law down. I figured you might want to go."
I was actually hesitant, as I'd never even met his father-in-law before then, but he assured me that I'd love the guy and we'd have a blast together. How right he was. I went over to Tim's, and when "Moose" arrived, we indeed hit it off right away. Moose was also what my dad called me for my entire life... maybe it was a sign. We didn't have a lot of time to hang out, as we needed to get on the road, so off we went.
It turned out that Moose was fairly well off, although you'd never know it by the way he acted, and had gotten the tickets from his bank's president. 45 yard-line, 30 rows back, right behind the Packer's bench. Wow. You hear a lot about "the Lambeau mystique" and what-not, and I'm here to tell ya, it's absolutely true. When we hit the parking lot, I had tears in my eyes, and I'm not at all ashamed to admit it. As we walked to the gate I could actually feel the electricity in the air. I had goose-bumps, and every hair on my body was standing straight up on end.
As I said, it was December. This was the second Bears game of the year, and it was damnably cold. It even started to snow, which made it even that much better. This was when Favre had a broken foot. When the team came out to warm up, Favre had no pads on, a big "boot" on his foot, and was limping noticeably. He was only on the field for a short time and headed back to the locker room. Everybody in the stands thought for sure that he wouldn't play that day. We were, of course, wrong. When the team came back out to start the game, there he was. The place went absolutely nuts. As much as I hate Favre's douchebaggery of recent years, I still have to admire the guy's toughness.
Favre had a huge day, and we hammered the **** out of the Bears. I don't even remember the final score, but it was big. This was as close to football nirvana as there is likely to ever be. December... Lambeau... cold... snow... Bears... ***-stomping. How could this get any better? It got better, alright.
After the game, we went over to "Fuzzy's," the bar owned by Packers legend Fuzzy Thurston. Fuzzy was a great old guy and we stayed there for hours, celebrating the big win and listening to Fuzzy's stories. Fuzzy signed a bunch of stuff for anybody that wanted something signed. This was especially cool for me, as I'm old enough to have watched Fuzzy play under Lombardi. I highly recommend a trip to Fuzzy's to anyone that's ever going to Lambeau.
I haven't been up to Green Bay in a number of years now; I think the last time I was up there was in 2000 or 2001, and I haven't seen Moose since Tim divorced his daughter... but it was a day I'll never forget.