Bear Memories

Posted by Jayme Joers on September 20, 2010   Jump To Comments

The Bears/Packers rivalry is an interesting one.  If you grew up in southern Wisconsin, you generally know a couple Bears fans, and if you grew up in northern Illinois, you probably know about couple Packers fans.  They could even be your neighbors!  The closeness of the two teams and their fan bases made for an interesteing rivalry.  Both teams have a solid history. with some legendary players.  Both teams also have years in the gutter, which fans and players alike would like to forget.  Growing up, I knew few things for certain.  One, I was supposed to like cheese.  Two, the Packers were my religion.  And three, no matter what, The Bears Still Suck (which is the current theme of my week).  So as I sit ready to spend my week reliving great Bear/Packers moments and laughing at the Super Bowl shuffle, here are some of my top Bears vs Packers memories.

1.  Halloween 1994.  To be honestly I don’t remember the game all that well.  Feels like every Bears/Packers game back then was played in the rain on a dismal day.  What I do remember about that day is the Halloween aspect.  My father loved Halloween.  He loved decorating for the holiday, dressing up and handing out candy.  But 1994 presented quite the dilemma in our household.  Halloween colors = black and orange.  Bears colors = dark blue and orange.  My mother lived in fear that the football gods would believe we were supporting the Bears if we decorated with too much orange.  So now every year when the schedule is released I check to see when “we” play the Bears, and hope its not around Halloween.

2.  My mother’s oldest sister is a bears fan.  I’m not sure how this happened.  I knew my Grandparents pretty well and I know they raised her well, but somehow she went down a dark path.  (note, occasionally my Aunt Debbie reads my writing and she is a lovely person despite having lived in Rockford and liking the Bears).  Anyways, the familial rivalry was generally a kind hearted and joking one.  I remember one year for my mother’s birthday she was given a Green Bay Packers shirt from my aunt.  Surprised and ecstatic at the kind gesture, my mother was beaming.  She went to hold up the shirt and found a picture of Mike Ditka taped to the neck opening of the shirt.  Her smile immediately turned to a look of disgust.  And my only regret is that somehow I lost the picture that was snapped at that exact moment; it is priceless.

3.  Last season the Packers opened at home versus the Bears on Saturday night.  I have never missed a game.  Ever.  If I couldn’t be in front of a tv, I have always found it on the radio, a live stream, or game cast to follow a long.  That is until this Bears/Packers game.  Two months prior to the season, I bought tickets to an MMW show in Columbus as a surprise for SB’s (my boyfriend) birthday/our anniversary for the same night.  I made the decision to, for once, choose family/relationships over football and went to the show, turned off my phone and ignored all tvs.  I still was decked out in green and gold though, figured that would help.  We arrived back from Columbus at about one in the morning.  I planned ahead; DVR’d the game and called off of work for that Monday and stayed up to watch the game.  Let me just say, while I don’t think I will ever watch a football game this way again, it does go amazingly fast.  So there I was three in the morning, tired, but willing the Packers to victory in anyway I could.  If they lost, I wasn’t sure how I’d forgive myself.  The DVR cut out on the Packers last drive.  I missed the big go ahead TD.  The joke was on me.  No matter how well you plan, technology will win.

4.  The New Years Eve game from 2006.  What a depressing year 2006 was.  I was in Cincinnati for the game, this was before I moved there, visiting my then boyfriend, meeting most of his friends for the first time.  Everyone was over at a guy’s house to celebrate the New Year and there I sat unable to tear myself away from the TV.  There was B Favre, crying, and I was sure we’d never see him again (again, jokes on me!) and all the people around me had no idea the gravity of the moment.  It was one of the many times in my life when I have become very aware that as Packer fans, we are different from the rest of the world.

5. When I was younger this is one of the first jokes I ever learned to tell.  I thought it was the funniest thing I had ever heard.

The three bears had been having some trouble recently and ended up in family court. Momma and Poppa bear were splitting up, and baby bear had to decide who he was going to live with.

So, the judge wanted to talk to baby bear to see what he thought about living with either of his parents.

When he asked baby bear about living with his father, baby bear said “No, I can’t live with Poppa bear, he beats me terribly.”

“Okay,” said the judge, “Then you want to live with your mother, right?”
“No way!” replied baby bear, “She beats me worse than Poppa bear does.”

The judge was a bit confused by this, and didn’t quite know what to do. “Well, you have to live with someone.”

The baby bear answered, “How about, the Chicago Bears.  They don’t beat anybody.”

6. And Lastly.  My First Regular Season Game at Lambeau.  October 16, 2008.  I was driving into town for a friend’s birthday and another friend surprised me with Edgar Bennett’s tickets to the game.  I had been to Lambeau once before for a preseason game and once for a tour, but never for an actual real live game.  In an up and down year, the Chicago game turned out to be a glimmer of the great 2009 team that was to come.  Trouncing the bears 37-3 was the best outcome I could have hoped for.  I drove back to Ohio the next day, and was further entertained with daytime Chicago sports radio bemoaning their team.

Happy Bears Still Suck Week everyone!

Have your own Bears memories to share?  You can email Jayme at Jayme@brentfavre.com or find her on twitter @jaymelee1 or at Random Musings on the world of sports.