I added a Chicago Bears widget this morning. I'm not sure I'm going to like it...it seems a little invasive. Sort of like a grand piano in your bathroom. It's nice to have, but it seems a little too much for the location. So for today the widget is there. Tomorrow? Who knows.
It makes me nostalgic. I used to be a huge Bears fan. Not so much anymore, but I'd like to be one again. I miss getting that whipped up about something that matters not one whit in my life. But part of the problem is that I'd have to allocate an entire Sunday afternoon to sitting in front of the TV, and that seems like an awfully big commitment.
Rob and I used to be rabid Bears fans when we were young. So much so, in fact, that when we miraculously found ourselves with tickets to the Bears-Giants playoff game during the Greatest Football Season of My Lifetime, we were willing to sacrifice pretty much anything to go.
During the Hallelujah 1985 Bears Championship season, we ate, drank, and slept Bears. 15-1 (fucking Dolphins!), Walter Payton, Refrigerator Perry...what's not to love?
Also during the 1985 season, I happened to be pregnant with my first child, who would eventually become Carrie. I believe the due date for said baby was around January 10. I admit to being a little concerned that the birth of the baby was going to interfere with watching the Bears playoff games, but I was still young enough to avoid saying it out loud, which was probably better...it would have been a bad early indicator of what kind of parent I was going to be.
Right around the due date two things happened. One was that a pair of tickets for the NFC Championship game fell into our laps from heaven...or from Matthew, who probably just got the only reference ever linking him with divinity he'll ever see in his life.
The other thing is that Carrie's due date came and went, with nary a peep nor a contraction to indicate she was ready to egress the womb and face the world.
The closer we got to game day, the more we dithered about it. Should we go? Could we go? The forecast was for temperatures around 20 degrees that day, which in Soldier Field equals approximately -270 degrees, or absolute zero, the temperature at which molecules stop moving. Soldier Field is the coldest place on earth. Even when it's reasonably warm in the rest of the city, Soldier Field is like it's own little mini-Arctic, helping protect Chicago from global warming.
Finally, the day before the game, we had to decide. It was now one week past my due date. Was it worth the risk of going into labor in the stands of Soldier Field? How much would it be an inconvenience to lie down in the aisle, bare-ass naked, and deliver a baby during the Jesse White Tumblers part of the halftime show? Would we still be able to stay for the second half? Hadn't women been giving birth in the fields since the dawn of time? Would this be so different from that??
And as an added incentive, maybe if she was born in the stands the Bears would befriend the little tot and give her Bears Championship paraphernalia. And if we named her "Walter" or "Refrigerator" I'll bet the Bears loot would pour in. Probably a Bears throw rug and a Chicago Bears receiving blanket maybe, or a Chicago Bears pacifier. Or maybe Walter Payton would autograph her forehead or something.
The downside, of course, was that we ran the risk of having our firstborn delivered by half-naked drunks with torsos painted either blue or orange, wearing 4 foot wide inflatable Bears helmet and breathing their boozy breath into her impressionable little face.
That didn't seem like an auspicious start to any young life. And anyway, that's what uncles are for.
Eventually, good sense prevailed and we stayed home and watched the game on TV. Rob asked me several times during the game if maybe the baby was coming yet, in the hopes of validating our decision to pass up the opportunity of a lifetime. No such luck...it wasn't until more than a week later that she finally showed up, two weeks past her due date. I'd like to say that in the intervening 22 years I've forgiven her for ruining the only chance I would ever have to see the only Championship Bears team ever in my lifetime...
I'd like to say that. But instead I'll put hand to forehead and say that a mother's life is all about making sacrifices for our children...
3 comments:
i'd have gone to the game, beery drunks & the cold be damned. i've yet to have the opportunity to see the Patriots (my boys) live in any of their championship runs. i'd sell pat to make it happen, and she knows it.
LOL...that seems to be the consensus. Even Carrie says we should have gone, and she's the one that would have been born there.
Maybe if it had been baby #2 or 3, but it was more excitement than I could handle on the first one.
And who knew the Bears would suck for the rest of eternity? I was sort of hoping that it was the beginning of a dynasty.
What a great story. I remember the 1985 season so well, and once in a while find myself bursting into "The Superbowl Shuffle." Man, those were good times.
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