Go, Pack, Go

In follow-up to Sunday’s blog as well as a certain football game Sunday afternoon, I found a story which I have yet to share.

I went to my first Green Bay Packers game sometime in the mid-seventies, with my mom, dad and sister Pat. I don’t remember much about the game except that it had to be early in the season – maybe even preseason – because it was warm and sunny and Mom was worried we would get sun-burned. I think we played the L.A. Rams.

I returned to Green Bay on December 22, 1990, for the tenth coldest game in NFL history. When the Packers were trailing the Lions at the start of the fourth quarter, we called it a day and headed to the warmth of our car.

Sometime before that frigid day, we took my son Nick to his first Packer game. Or my cousin did. Here’s how it went down.

I don’t know where we got four tickets from, but we offered one to my cousin Dick who wasn’t living too far from Green Bay at the time. He had come home for the weekend and offered to drive Nick, who couldn’t have been more than five at the time, to the game. My husband and I would drive our car down and meet them at the stadium.

We were driving a Ford Tempo at the time, which had been a lemon from day one, so we were starting to look for something different. On the way to the game we stopped at a dealership between here and there to see what they had. We thought the little Honda Civic looked pretty good, so we thought we would come back the following week to check it out when the dealership was open.

Didn’t turn out quite that way. See, the Tempo died in the parking lot. From somewhere, because this was way before cell phones, we called my sister and then another cousin who lived in that town, to see if either had a vehicle we could borrow for the day. My cousin loaned us their beast of a sedan which had a ridiculous oil leak. I think we added two quarts on the way there and two on the way home again.

We would have skipped the game altogether, but my five year old son was already there, with no ride home.  I don’t remember a thing about the game. Though Nick says he remembers that day, I wonder how much he really does.  

Oh, and we did buy that Honda Civic.

Glad Nick has made it to a few more recent games. And good luck, Packers, this Sunday.