Rivers And Bridges 5: Right At Dusk

 

Once, when I was a kid, I read a book about an old, retired quarterback named Bart Starr.  The 5 in the number 15 caught my eyes, Speed Racer was my thing, "Go Speed Racer, Go!"  Among other topics, the book explained the Ice Bowl and how my team, the Dallas Cowboys, had lost, and Bart's team, the Green Bay Packers, had won, allowing them to move on and win Super Bowl 2 against the Kansas City Chiefs.  The frozen tundra, Vince Lombardi, -15 degrees, -48 wind chill, one critical offsides no call, and what could have been, what should have been, that day in 1967.

It was the coldest New Year's Eve in recorded history at Lambeau Field, the game began at 1 p.m. and finished right at dusk.  Several players suffered frost bite, seven members of the pregame marching band were transported to local hospitals due to hypothermia, and one elderly fan died at the game due to exposure (she froze to death).  The contest was full of slips and calls and fumbles and weirdness; before the game, the heated coils under the field malfunctioned, dooming the high flying Cowboys in the end.  "The better team lost", said Tom Landry years later, he credited Lombardi with instilling belief in his players, and belief was the difference he concluded.  Maybe, but sour grapes are sour grapes, I wasn't even alive and I tasted those grapes reading about Bart Starr.

And here I was decades later, in another century, browsing around the huge souvenir shop at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin considering purchasing a vintage Bart Starr #15.  I had just driven Hwy 2 across the Upper Pennisula, down the western, sandy coast of Lake Michigan, and took the exit to see the famous field of frozen tundra.  It was a Thursday, right at dusk, I was on my way to Tigerton, Wisconsin to visit my dad 60 miles west, I had to hit the road, I came to my senses.  Screw Bart Starr and his bullshit Ice Bowl quarterback sneak!  I settled on an official Lambeau Field pancho for my neighbor, a gawdy long sleeve t-shirt, and a green cap with the famous "G" on the front, they were closing up, I took a piss, and then I stuck a Jankee Roots Bike Gang sticker on the western side of the stadium on the ceiling of an old turnstile entrance, then I bolted.