Linda Lange turned twelve in 1959, the year Vince Lombardi arrived in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and changed everything. To say that Linda embraced the future kings of football would be an understatement. Her new passion transformed the way she viewed her hometown, the world, and most important, herself. In Incomplete Passes, Linda reflects on her coming-of-age journey as she grows into womanhood, experiences an unusual mid-life crisis, and embraces a friendship that spans fifty years. In 1961, four girls united by their love for the Packers formed a lasting bond that would survive distance, marriage, divorce, careers, and motherhood. In her entertaining and often witty memoir, Linda chronicles the years the infatuated teens followed their heroes around Green Bay and shares an intriguing glimpse into how the Packers helped all of them face their journeys through life with courage and humor-even as Linda dives into a mid-life calamity that somehow results in the creation of a musical comedy. Sometimes nostalgic, often wry, Incomplete Passes will resonate with anyone who fantasizes about romance with a celebrity, questions a life decision, or revels in the joys of reconnecting with old friends.
INCOMPLETE PASSES
REFLECTIONS ON LIFE, LOVE, AND FOOTBALLBy LINDA LANGEiUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 Linda Lange
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4620-3374-4Contents
Incomplete Passes.......................................................1Homecomings.............................................................3The Best Week of the Year...............................................4Partners................................................................9Beginnings..............................................................15Growing Up (Sort of) Jewish in Green Bay................................16How We Got Together.....................................................25Belonging...............................................................29Halcyon.................................................................37Downtown Was Our Playground.............................................38Railbirds...............................................................50Sunday..................................................................56Only in Green Bay.......................................................60Some Tales of Tickets...................................................67The Frozen Tundra.......................................................69What We Learned from the Packers........................................73Times (thanks, Bob!) A-Changin'.........................................77Me and Mr. A............................................................78I Am Woman, Whatever That Means.........................................84We're Getting Too Old for This!.........................................90Mr. Taxi................................................................94"A Drinking Town With a Football Problem"...............................98The End, for a While....................................................105Unfinished Business.....................................................109Cracking Wise...........................................................110A Most Peculiar Mid-Life Crisis.........................................112Creating Third and Long.................................................116Bittersweet.............................................................125I'm Lucky, I Guess......................................................127Quest for Completion....................................................131This Chapter Has a Ten-Year Statute of Limitations!.....................132For the Love of.........................................................134"I Need an Ending for My Story!"........................................137At the End of the Earth.................................................143
Chapter One
INCOMPLETE PASSES
I turned twelve in 1959, the year Vince Lombardi came to town and changed ... well, everything. Pro football was replacing baseball as the national pastime, and the Green Bay Packers were about to become the kings of football.
I embraced the Packers that year—figuratively, of course, although I longed to do so literally. My new passion transformed the way I looked at my hometown, my world, and myself. Through our shared love of the team, I found Pam, Del, and Carla, and we formed a bond that remains strong today. You probably picked up this volume thinking it was a book about football fans, and it is. It's also a coming-of-age story and the chronicle of a musical comedy called Third and Long. But most important, it is a celebration of that bond.
Since my friends and I were in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and not New York or Chicago, the Packers were constantly with us. Under Coach Lombardi, they were heroes, their names known nationwide. Yet, miraculously, they were accessible! In those days before shopping centers, they had to come downtown regularly. If we made the tedious journey on the East De Pere bus, we might run into them shopping at Prange's or lunching at the Northland Hotel. And we made every effort to do so.
We're not proud of everything we did. But we sure had fun.
The Packers were our Elvis, our Beatles—or at least our Ringo Starr. If the drummer's name conjures Jim R. and Bart S., you're first of all a Packer fan.
We pored over their biographies in the game programs, memorizing every detail. For some of us, the players represented our first contact with people from outside the upper Midwest. Just past puberty, we melted when we heard the accent of a dashing Texan or a sweet Alabama boy. (Pammy, who had a quick ear, had to be careful not to be caught imitating them.) Among the players were also the first African Americans we knew.
The Packers' influence was felt far beyond sports. The Lombardi philosophy and work ethic could be applied to every facet of life. We were fed a mix of sports coaching, religion, and family values that played well with our Midwestern upbringing.
The upright and mild-mannered Bart Starr is often held up as an example of the era. My friends and I admired Starr, but we reserved our true affections for others. We were sure that Bart would never leave his lovely wife, Cherry, and adorable son, Bart Junior, for the likes of us! With Paul Hornung, the subject of many racy rumors, and his pal Max McGee, who knew? Some day we might have a chance!
But when you're twelve or thirteen and the object of your affections is twenty-five, there's just one problem: You're bound to be throwing ... incomplete passes.
HOMECOMING
"We can talk a bit of baseball, but it's not our fav'rite sport. And basketball's a subject where we always come up short. We'd rather talk about the game that brought us our renown. We love to talk pro football ... it's the only game in town.
For a big-league city, this one's really rather small, And when the season's over, there's not much to do at all. And you can't stay drunk all winter, though it's what you might've liked. And so we talk pro football! It's the sport that keeps us psyched."
— "The Only Game in Town," opening number, Third and Long
THE BEST WEEK OF THE YEAR
I have come full circle, and it feels wonderful. Behind the wheel of my aging Honda, I'm grinning like a fool, and Pammy's sweet, round face beams back from the passenger seat. September has returned, the Packers are playing on Sunday, and we're heading for the place we still call home.
We have been making this pilgrimage since 1997. Pam and I turned fifty that year, and going home was a way to celebrate our birthdays and the freedom of our empty nests. Del and Carla still fuss because we didn't include them that first year. "But you were only forty-nine," we tell them. The truth was, we couldn't quite believe the ads that said we could buy a package—hotel, tailgate party, and a ticket to a sold-out game—for a few hundred bucks. We figured if we got burned, it would be just the two of us, and at least we'd get to Green Bay.
But the trip fulfilled its promise, and Del and Carla accompanied us in '98. Now the four of us make the journey almost every fall, and not without sacrifice. In 2003, I talked my oncologist into stopping chemo one session early so I could complete breast cancer treatment before our chosen game. In '05, Pam was driven out of her home for a month by Hurricane Katrina, returned to an intact house surrounded by two hundred fallen trees, and got on the plane for the North Country a week later with two envelopes of amazing photos. Del, who has the farthest to come, cheerfully pays what the airlines are charging—as long as she can sell just one extra house.
Over the years, we have moved into a set routine. Our time together has expanded from a long weekend into almost a full week. Pam flies into Chicago's Midway Airport on Thursday. I drive from Cincinnati to meet her there, and I always marvel that I can make the three-hundred-mile drive and arrive just in time to rendezvous at the baggage claim. We spend the night in Chicago and head slowly up through Wisconsin on Friday. We stop and search the outlet malls that line I-94, then pick up US 41 out of Milwaukee. That first year, we were so excited to be back in Wisconsin, and together, that we called out the familiar place names on the road signs we passed. "Oconomowoc!" "Winneconne!" "Kaukauna!" It was as if we'd suddenly begun conversing in a long-forgotten language.
Friday's dinner is filet mignon at Vince Lombardi's Steakhouse in Appleton. If you're a Packer fan and can get to the Fox River Valley, this is a stop you have to make at least once. (Del and Carla joined us the one time, and now they beg off, but Carla remarked that the filet cut like butter.) It's a decent steakhouse, pricey for small-town Wisconsin, but a bargain compared to a Morton's or a Ruth's Chris. They know the big-city tricks like showing off the different cuts of meat before you order, and the service is attentive. But the main attraction is the surroundings.
The restaurant has an arrangement with Lombardi's children, Vincent and Susan, and basically its patrons dine in a Lombardi museum. You can see portraits of Vince with his wife Marie, photos with his players, his driver's licenses from New Jersey where he coached at St. Cecilia's High School, framed correspondence, and a replica of the Vince Lombardi Trophy that is given to Super Bowl winners. (Don't forget who won the first two.) I took my son there once, and there was something extra: He looked over my shoulder to a table across the room and said, "Mom, isn't that Paul Hornung?" It was.
Dinner concluded, we're back on 41 heading into Green Bay. We get off at Lombardi Avenue. When the handsome, brick façade of Lambeau Field looms before us, we're home. Carla has met Del's plane at Austin Straubel Airport, and they're waiting for us at a motel near the stadium. Amid squeals and hugs, we enter the room, and the best week of the year has begun.
Tomorrow we'll shop for Packer gear, hook up with old friends, and visit favorite restaurants. Kroll's, where we've been eating "butterburgers" since the sixties, is a perennial lunch spot. If we have the time, we'll hit Sammy's for pizza, double kosher salami for Pam and me. Or Titletown Brewery, located in the old Chicago & Northwestern railroad station where we started so many adventures and said so many tearful good-byes. Often we spend Saturday night at Eve's Supper Club on Riverside Drive in Allouez, with its beautiful view and adventurous menu. Jarreth, my classmate and another lifelong Packer fan, grew up to marry Jerry Haltaufderheid, son of the eponymous Eve. Today they run the restaurant together.
I'm not trying to write a food tour of Wisconsin here. But you see, I was born Jewish, and that automatically means I'm into food. My family was like that, and so is my husband's. I'm reminded of a visit to my sister-in-law that my husband, our son, and I made some years ago. Mady, her husband Leon, and the three of us piled into the car for a tour of Chicago's ethnic neighborhoods. Mady pointed out the best places to buy Polish sausage, Italian deli, Greek pastries. My son was about fifteen at the time and undoubtedly would rather have been anywhere else. Finally he groused from the back seat, "Doesn't this family ever think about anything except food?" Four voices answered in immediate unison, "NO!"
One night at Eve's, we were dining late enough that Jarreth was able to leave her post and sit with us. A group of men at the next table, intrigued by the idea of a women's football weekend, invited us to compete in a trivia game. One of them must have just finished reading a book about the Ice Bowl, because all of the questions were from that era—our era, when we still lived in Green Bay. To the men's amazement, we answered question after question correctly. Finally, Jarrie, Pam, and I capped our achievement by singing all the lyrics of the old fight song, "Go You Packers." Of course, we remember when it used to be played live, by the Packer Lumberjack Band, during every kickoff at Lambeau.
Sunday is game day, what else? We'll dress in green and gold, load on the beads and temporary tattoos, and act as foolish as everyone else out there. It strikes me every year that there is nothing in the world I'd rather be doing than to be in that place with those people.
Pam always exclaims at vendors' selling beads for a dollar a string. We got ours free, courtesy of Pam, whose daughter attended Mardi Gras parades for years. As was the custom, Reesie would remove her shirt and folks on the floats would throw her the beads—green, gold, and purple. Pam took out the purple strands (Vikings' color, yuk) and carried the rest to Green Bay. Now if we need new ones, we'll have to buy them. These days, Reesie goes by her full name, Theresa. She's a lawyer and a mom, and she doesn't flash her breasts in public anymore.
One year at our tour company's tailgate party, I asked the DJ if I might read a poem I had written. We were playing the Dallas Cowboys, and my verse affirmed that the Packers, not the 'Boys, are America's Team. I recited it and basked momentarily in the applause. But I didn't even get my proverbial fifteen minutes of fame, because the DJ called for a scavenger hunt, and Pam was chosen to compete. Her mission was to produce a bra. She was wearing one, of course, but could not extract it from under several layers of clothing. She struggled bravely for several minutes as the crowd looked on, and they loved her when she finally released the undergarment and waved it high in the air. For the rest of our stay, everyone we met recognized us, but that had nothing to do with my poem. "Hey," they greeted Pam, "you're the bra lady!"
If time permits, we'll visit some other remembered haunts before we leave. The first year we came, Pam and I drove by my old house and spotted the current owner, Mary, in the yard. She allowed us to go inside. Mary's teenage son asked about the Packer sticker on his bedroom closet door. The room had been mine, and I was amazed to see the sticker still in place after thirty-five years. Even more surprising was the new archway between the living room and the dining room. My mother had often said an archway would be ideal in that location. But the dining room had been turned into a bedroom for our housekeeper, so we never did the remodeling. The people who bought the house from me and sold it to Mary had visualized the same thing, and years after my mother's death they had cut the archway exactly where she'd wanted it.
Several times we've gone to Bay Beach to walk along the waterfront, but one year we also went to the small amusement park there. There have been rides and concessions at Bay Beach since the early 1900s, and during our childhood the park was the place to go for Fourth of July fireworks. The miniature train—once driven by my friend Judy's father—still makes its rounds at the perimeter. With no grandchildren in tow, we passed up the tiny train, and Pam and I were leery of the Ferris wheel. But we couldn't resist the carousel. It was shiny with a new coat of paint, but looked very familiar as we made our circuit. The young attendant assured us that it was the same one we rode as little girls in the fifties.
Sometime during the weekend, we may catch a drink at Fuzzy Thurston's bar out on West Mason Street, especially if it's Packer Alumni Weekend. The beautiful old men who used to be our gods will be congregating there.
PARTNERS
As I get reacquainted with my partners-in-crime, I'll introduce them to you as well. Since I'm getting personal, I've changed their names and the names of their family members. Here's what I do throughout this book: If I give out personal information or say something that might embarrass the person, I change the names. For brief mentions, or for general statements about well-known figures—Hornung, Starr, the Green Bay Press-Gazette sportswriters—I use the real names. As for my three partners, I told them, "I'd better give you deniability."
Pam has been my best friend for so long that despite our different lifestyles, we slip easily back into synch. To me, though, she is a study in contradictions. She'll start my eyes rolling by repeating something racist that she's obviously heard from some redneck Louisiana neighbor, yet she'll speak lovingly of an African American student who worked hard in her class. When Barack Obama was running for the presidency, she forwarded us derogatory e-mails about him. But she then purchased his books, read them, and pronounced him a good man—although not one who'd get her vote.
Pam majored in music education and taught music for several years. One class of inner-city Milwaukee students may still remember the day their young teacher stood before them and asked, "Who knows what mf stands for?" (Of course, she meant mezzo forte, medium-loud, not that other word.) After following her first husband to Louisiana, where he attended law school at Tulane, she taught mainly fifth and sixth grade in small-town schools; she retired a couple of years ago. I never saw her in the classroom, but I think she was a good teacher. I know she was one who cared.
The rest of us worry about Pam because she has type 2 diabetes that's not well controlled. She hates exercise, which is imperative for type 2 patients, and as a result, she sometimes can't keep up with us on our outings. She's a good sport about this, as she is about almost everything. She's a good sport about having to wear hearing aids that don't quite do the job. She is a good sport rooming with me on these trips. When I get tired, I become bitchy and sometimes patronizing toward her, but she always handles it with grace.
A more telling example of her sportsmanship: When her mother-in- law became ill, Pam and her husband moved into the elderly lady's house, and Pam had to assume much of her daily care. Instead of resenting this, Pam expresses fondness for Nathalie and tells us how much she misses her now that she's gone.
Pam and I were always more infatuated with the Packers than either Del or Carla, and that is apparent today. I'm the one who follows the schedule, makes our trip arrangements, and basically carries the torch throughout the year—although Carla will sometimes call me at a "Packer moment," such as Brett Favre's plane landing at Austin Straubel Field the first time he un-retired. Pam clings to the past in other ways. She still determines that she has fully recovered from a cold by trying to articulate the name of the great linebacker "Nitschke." (Try it with a stuffy nose!) And we both use the players' uniform numbers as memory aids for phone numbers, zip codes, and the like. In fact, if anything happens to me on our trip, Pam will remember whose jersey numbers comprise the combination of my suitcase lock and help my husband to access my belongings.
Pam is a devout Catholic who had to get permission to stand up for me at my wedding and who never misses Mass on our Packer weekends. She wonders—literally—if she will qualify to enter heaven. Pammy, if the vote of a Jew-turned-atheist counts, you have mine.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from INCOMPLETE PASSESby LINDA LANGE Copyright © 2011 by Linda Lange. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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