[edit: I was born and raised in Wisconsin. Sorry, I conveniently forgot that part.]
My dad loved to watch football on Sunday. Unfortunately (or fortunately, as the case may be), he was kind of alone in that endeavor until I turned eight. The TV reception was hazy out in the country, where we were lucky to get three of the five available channels clearly. I remember passing the TV in the living room every Sunday on my way to do more interesting things than watch boring sports. And also a little intimidated at how furious and frustrated and disappointed and unhappy my dad got when he was watching "his show".
It was the 80's.
Then one Sunday I stopped and watched from the doorway, curious as to what was so upsetting on the TV. I had absolutely no fricking clue what I was looking at. I remember sitting next to the TV to get a closer look at everything, and thinking there were a lot of guys running around on the grass, and they seemed very unorganized...just kind of all swarming about randomly like a kicked nest of ants. I was confused, therefore I started asking questions. A lot of questions.
Yeah, I was that kid...
Needless to say, my dad's tolerance level for simply enduring a full game of the 80's Packers without dropping every cuss word he knew while also trying to explain IN PRECISE DETAIL (because I was that kid) what was happening on the field and why every player was doing what they were doing didn't typically last through a full quarter unless there were injuries and a lot of time-outs.
No DVR. No pausing the game, or rewinding, or slow-motioning. Seriously, there was no remote for our anvil of a TV.
Eventually I learned enough to know when I was looking at offense or defense, and how points were scored. But I'm pretty sure my dad silently cursed every ref a thousand times whenever they threw a flag simply because he had to explain why they did it to a kid that only had a vague grasp of how the game worked.
My poor father. I'm sure he probably said "Because they're idiots!" many a time...but being that kid, I wasn't going to buy it.
I don't remember the exact date, only that it was a night game I tried to stay up for but ultimately couldn't. Most likely in an effort to distract me from asking too many questions about the game, my dad proposed we make a bet. We drew two playing cards each, one was how much we had to pay the winner and the other had something to do with the score.
My dad had been very serious when explaining the bet, asking me if I was absolutely sure I wanted to make a bet because if I lost I was going to have to pay him what was on the card and I couldn't just decide it wasn't fair at the end of the game.
Naturally I interpreted the entire situation like it was as serious as a mafia contract.
It was probably right after the game ended when my dad woke me up to tell me I won the bet, I never looked at the clock. He folded some money over my winning card and tucked it under my pillow. Being a kid, I went right back to sleep, and then woke up the next morning like Santa had come to the house early.
Whether it was from a distance as I listened to news and games on the radio every once in a while, or whether I was bribing my dad to tape games on the VCR and mail them to me; I've been a Packer fan ever since I was eight.
