>You might be a Green Bay Packer fan if you know that training camp starts today.
You might be a Green Bay Packer fan if you have Packer Beans growing in your garden.
Say, Brett? Stay retired. Please. We love you, but really. Retirement is right. Right now, that is.
>Dear Brett:
I’ve posted about you in the past. On your retirement, on your un-retirement, on the rumors that you traded information with the Detroit Lions, and more. I’m one of many who have watched you grow from young cocky kid to mature team leader.
The fans who made sure Lambeau Field remained sold out with a waiting list longer than the list of ticketholders. The fans who supported you through your treatment for drug addiction. The fans who bought the pink hats (see above) to support breast cancer research – because your wife announced her diagnosis in public.
>From the school secretary: “There is a package of peas in the ice pack freezer that has been there since Christmas, I am taking them home today if no one claims them and I’m going to cook them and I’m going to eat them – so there.”
Reply to all from the 4th grade teacher: “Ah, yes – visualize whirled peas. Peas on Earth.”
Reply to all from the ever-practical 6th grade teacher: “You can use that bag of peas when you run out of ice packs.”
This would have gotten way out of hand at my last school. Remember Mr. Thrifty the skeleton and the lost banana from the bulletin board? The emails went wild. I’m not sure if I miss that or if I’m relieved things are calmer here. I think I’ll reserve judgment.
Today is a school spirit day: Decades Day. We are to dress in our “favorite” duds from the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s. Help? I did what I had to do: I reached into Husband’s closet. Deep into Husband’s closet. I found a wrinkled but classic polo shirt with the logo from an old (old!) Packer show, complete with the logo from Husband’s old employer before they changed network affiliations. I am dressing from the 80s (1989, to be specific) in a shirt announcing The Majik Show, starring quarterback Don Majkowski. Anyone remember him? No, don’t answer that. Unless you’re a Bears fan still complaining about the instant replay loss that coined the phrase, “After further review….” Never mind.
>Green Bay Packer fans are proud people. We spend our Sundays (and some Monday nights) wearing green and gold, sporting hats that resemble wedges of cheese, and simply cheering on our team. Win or lose, playoffs or no playoffs, we still identify ourselves with the guys doing the Lambeau Leap.
Green Bay Packer fans take pride in other contests, too. Campbell’s Soup’s Click for Cans is going on right now. Here’s how it works.
Click on “Vote Now” and then choose the contest that includes the desired team. Click on the appropriate helmet (yellow, with a big G), enter the code to prove you’re not a robot, and voila! You’ve voted.
Fans can vote once a day.
The highest scoring teams will receive donations of soup for local food pantries. I drive past the Salvation Army headquarters on my way to work, and the lines and crowds there have grown noticably. Our local food pantry is getting fewer donations even as the requests for assistance increase. My own school’s Adopt-a-Family program is serving fewer families while we’d rather be serving more.
I hope you’ll help the Packers once again win the Click for Cans. But most of all, bloggy friends and acquaintances, I hope you’ll take the time to make a difference. Soup can be a meal for a hungry family. Help those cans get where they’re needed.
For more details on the contest procedure, look here.
>Part of Husband’s job involves working at Lambeau Field on game days. He was on the field a few weeks ago along with a team from (ahem) the Southern realm of the NFL. He was dressed for what we called Moderate Cold Weather, but the guys from down south had a hard time dealing with the change in temperature from the blue skies of home.
In a case like this, we Northerners take pride in our toughness, our knowledge of how to dress, our attitudes in dealing with extreme weather.
One of the Southern Staffers caught a glimpse of a thermometer and threw (in my teen’s words) a total fit. “It’s so cold there’s no temperature!”
It was Zero Degrees Fahrenheit.
I hesitate to imagine how he would deal with the concept of wind chills below zero.
>Over supper we talked about expanding garden again. If we do, we could take in another 10 feet by 8 feet. What would we (I) plant there?
I’m talking about adding asparagus to the garden, but the area may not be wet enough. I’ll look into it. Peas will do better if I place them better. Beans, well, if I get the right seeds, we’ll be in luck. I picked up herb seeds already; hope they last through the winter! I have a new planter that will hang on the deck so the fresh herbs are easily accessible for cooking.
Then there’s my desire for a rain barrel and a second compost bin…
But why? That’s the question. There’s an election coming up in two days, a Packer game today, and Major Test Season starts in school on Tuesday, too. I don’t need to deal with the garden until spring. Well….
The outcome of the election will have a huge impact on our economy. Before the new president even takes office, I predict wild fluctuations on Wall Street and major losses in retirement accounts. No, it’s not what I want, but what I want doesn’t matter. Reality is what matters.
If the economy goes (ever farther) in the dunk tank, my job will become harder and my salary will lag. We in the public sector sometimes enjoy job security; not this time. Our salaries, our workloads, and our benefits are all up for negotiation in times like these. Producing a little more of our own food, improving our diet, and saving a few bucks are all important.
The county has already cut garbage pickup to small businesses. Small companies who used to get garbage and recycling picked up by the local govt. now have to contract privately for this service. When will our residential pickup be cut back? Compost cuts back significantly on the amount of garbage we put on the curb. If service gets cut to biweekly or if we need to pay extra for it, the additional compost bin might pay for itself, not to mention provide me with material for many blog posts.
Our local water treatment plant has expensive repairs due, all out of warranty. This will cost big $$$ that will be reflected in our quarterly water bills and our annual property taxes. a rain barrel (or two!) will cut back on our use of water for the garden and lawn, and contribute to keeping that bill down.
Facing reality isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Planning ahead to make the garden a significant factor in our lives, not just a fun hobby, could be a very good move.
Oh, yes. I mentioned the Packer game today. There’s always a Packer connection. I’m not making my own cheese, but I do grow Packer Beans. 🙂 Aaron Rodgers, get out there and earn that new contract extension!!
>
Dear Brett:
When you announced your retirement, you must have wondered how you’d fill the hole left empty without the NFL, without the Green Bay Packers. You ended up back on the field in a different shade of green, no gold. Tough interviews in public, statements that hurt from both sides. The trade happened, and the saga was over.
Or was it?
Turning your back on your former organization and burning a few bridges caused pain on both sides. But intentionally assisting the opposition? Sleeping with, er, text-messaging the enemy? I hope the rumors are just that — rumors. I sincerely hope the unprofessional phone calls and lengthy tutorials didn’t happen, that they were blown out of proportion or, better yet, are completely untrue.
Brett, you are a valuable person, win or lose, playing or not. If your old team wins, it’s still to your credit. Remember, Aaron Rodgers learned from the best.
>In my part of the Midwest, it’s considered acceptable to wear green and gold to work if it’s a Packer game day.
In my neighborhood, people dress in their team colors from head to toe, whether the team is winning or losing.
We cheer for hot dogs and bratwurst running around the warning track of a baseball field, and grab for a camera if they wander through our line of sight before a game.
The saying, “If you don’t like Wisconsin weather, wait a day” reminds visitors that we Northerners take pride in our abilities to tough it out in almost any amount of snow and cold. Teachers teach metaphor through the use of the term Frozen Tundra to describe Lambeau Field.
But does this really tell who we are, what we’re like, the personality of our distinctive locale? Maybe it would it be more effective to tell you about making a homemade pizza with fresh mozzarella cheese from the farmers’ market, walking out to the garden on a beautiful fall day to pick a green onion and green pepper for toppings, and then serving it as we watch the noon kickoff.
Either way, Sunday afternoon football is an important part of our lives. So is weather. Gardening, farming, and buying the local products and produce are important, too.
When I talked with author Nicholas Sparks, I asked about setting for his novels. As he responded I felt like I could see and feel the images of the places he described. I asked him about the research involved in successfully placing a novel in a particular setting, and he told me that in general he doesn’t have to do much research because “…in every novel that I’ve written I have been to the town that I’ve described. And of course as a novelist I feel free to take certain liberties when I need to because I’m a novelist and I can do such things.” I call it literary license or creative freedom, Nicholas, so I’m with you there.
He reminded his listeners and readers that “it’s just part of…living in the south and writing about the south. And it’s the way people tell stories, it’s just the way it is down here. It’s a very different world in some places. I live in a small town that I swear hasn’t changed much in 30 years. I mean it is, people walk places, it’s very hot and muggy, you’ve got the Spanish moss hanging from trees, kids running around barefoot. It’s very much like it, it’s like a place stuck in time. And whenever you’re in rural areas of the south it is, of the south, it’s often like that. It’s just, yeah it’s moved up, it’s got the, we’ve got cell phones and the whole bit but the core of the place has not changed. And it is a unique and wonderful place….”
A unique and wonderful place. I feel the same way about my lovely town and neighborhood. It’s changed with the times, it has the old homes, the big trees, and kids on bikes and skateboards side by side with the teens on mopeds; the foam wedge headgear we call cheeseheads side by side with the baseball caps sporting farm advertising; the #4 jerseys in green or gold or pink…let’s not mention the new hue, but I digress. Packer football is as much a part of this unique and wonderful home as the weather.
Absolutely. Real life or novel, this setting has its own character, its own part to play in the story of our lives.
>We were on our way into Miller Park to watch the Milwaukee Brewers play (and CC Sabathia pitch!) when this drove past us.
It’s not really going uphill; I just grabbed my cell phone camera as quickly as I can and aimed out the window. It was a lucky shot.
I think the Hot Dog won the Sausage Race that night. He’s the one with the big smile facing backwards. Cute, huh?
The Brewers? They won, too.
>You might live in Green Bay Packers country if your local sporting goods store has an entire section marked “Cheese.”
Is that Super Bowl I or the Ice Bowl? I’ll let you decide.
In my part of the country, football season and Back to School go together. Click over to MidCentury Modern Moms for Back to School Week. Don’t look for adorable kindergarteners there; we’re dealing with teens, college kids, IEPs, ACTs, SATs, GPAs, and more!