Ring the Bell You Pansy!!

The previously inconceivable, the dream NFC title match; Bears vs. Packers, is still 4 days away!! Does the anonymous woman on the sidewalk, who gives me a hearty, "Go Bears!!" sense my antsyness? Or is she just as excited as I am? I know at some point, like all weeks, time will go into hyperdrive and the end of the week will be here. Until then I'll pore over every article in the Chicago Tribune, The Sun Times, as well as numerous online sources absorbing every angle, opinion, prediction and stat I can find. I'll go about my routine at home all weekend long unable to pull my thoughts away from Sunday at 2 p.m. It seems ridiculous to be so emotionally attached to the heart of a team I have no effect over. I cannot or will not try to lessen the hold the Bears have on me. I blame Walter Payton and his loveable loser teammates I started watching as an 8 year old Pop Warner football player in 1975. Dreaming of one day donning a Bears uniform myself and trotting out to call 'tails' during the pregame coinflip. That one, like many other childhood dreams never materialized, so here I am, a rabid Bears fan watching the clock tick by oh so slowly . Not your average Bears fan this week, but one with a stable of Packer fan inlaws added by choice when I married my wife, a Packer fan! For the most part that has been the source of alot of fun over the years as we have gathered to watch or attend Bears-Packer matchups. Initially, the Bears held the upper hand, annually trouncing the hapless Packers twice a season en route to a landslide victory in Superbowl XX. Then Brett Favre, (pronounced Fah vruh ala Ben Stiller in Something About Mary), came along, running and throwing circles around Bear defenders as we struggled to find a quarterback who could string two sentences together let alone lead a team to victory.

One memory encapsulates the bulk of the experience over the years; The pain was palpable as I stood in my kitchen with the 9 other people, all Packer fans, who I attended the game with at Soldier Field that day. The weather was atrocious; intermittent snow and rain turning into tiny ice missiles that stung my face each time I lifted my head to see another play go horribly wrong for the Bears. Meanwhile I had given up my rainpants before the game so my wife could stay dry. By the end of the day I was soaked to the bone and frozen not to mention disgusted with the outcome. The Packers had thrashed the Bears that day by 30 points behind 'Fah vruh's' flawless play. I did my best to be a good sport and smile, but as they were all turning to leave for the drive back to Wisconsin, I thundered. "Get The Hell Out Of My State!!" I was mostly kidding but there was enough emotion in my spew that my nephew, who was 16 at the time still recalls it to this day.

Of course, over time, Brett Favre's skills slipped a little, the Bears hired a new coach who made priority one 'beat the Packers,' and the rivalry evened out. The Bears have had better luck with their quarterback talent, (o.k. Grossman was a flash in the pan, but he did help us get to Superbowl XLI) finally netting Jay Cutler as they traded away Kyle Orton. Meanwhile, the Packers drafted another phenom in Aaron Rodgers. That brings us to now; on the 'eve', albeit 4 days out, of the biggest game ever staged in Soldier Field . Yes, the other playoff games over the years and NFC title games were big, but this supercedes every one of them. Quite simply knock off the biggest rival in your storied history and advance to Superbowl XLI!! Images of 'Blue' from Old School (rest his soul) pop into my brain, maybe because he was old enough to have been around the last time the Bears and Packers squared off in the playoffs, (1941) if not for the entire history of the rivalry! I feel like I'll go nuts waiting for Sunday at 2 o'clock, I'm ready for the game now!! In the immortal words of Blue, "Ring The Bell, You Pansy!!!"