And the bears still suck

I went to my counselor's appt an hour early by mistake. Which gave me 45 min to walk around down town. I ran into a bar that served lovingly made microbrews. I would've loved to squat there, have a pint and be on my way. But smelling of hops before a counseling appt is well, gauche. 

Then there was the hipster barbershop. The workers resplendent with full sleeve tattoos. There was laughing and kitchy decor. I longed to get a good hair wash, deep conditioning treatment or maybe a new funkaliscious cut. Go a bit wild and embrace my own heavily tattooedness. But no. I go to the salon at walmart. Where my  roots are well cared for and the price is just right.

I walked in the sun and being popped by chilly autumn air.

Then I saw 4 gigantic black tour buses. Not the old people on tour buses but high end buses. The Chicago Bears were in town for the game. DAAAAAHHHH BEARS! There were folks with white binders milling about. At first I thought they were survey takers or political 'sign my petition' people. But no, just folks with baseball cards, except with football people on them. They were autograph seekers.

I live in a town where Da Bears are much maligned. When I told folks I had seen the tour buses I was asked, with no sense of irony and with the straightest of faces, "Did you slash their tires?"

Meanwhile my milling about continued because Da Bears were long since in their hotel and the crowd was dribbling away. There was a man, holding a specially made street sign, emblazoned with orange lettering. He donned a baseball cap with the teams logo. His boy and girl, both school aged, wore identical hats. I thought to myself, that's a lot of special ordering. And for what? Their team isn't that good. And their home field faces one of the great lakes, making games unrelenting with the beer freezing gusts of tear your lips off wind. Why would you take pride in this? 

Which leads me to my greater point. The Packers is a religion around here. I'm not kidding. At my old church, we had a guest speaker who was a humanitarian of the highest order, feeding starving children in Mexico, building schools and digging wells to sustain entire villages.He made an ice breaking about the Packers and us Christian folk, usually so friendly and welcoming with coffee and cookies, we booed him. Subtly and quietly, but his face went white and he made a quick apology.

So yeah, Go Pack Go!

and.... the bears still suck!