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GP thoroughly and meticulously dissected Bears possibly moving to Hammond, IN. I specifically wanted his angle since he’s a native Bears’ fan with a finance background; he did not disappoint. Fantastic piece.

Now, I offer a somewhat more micro-take from what I coin “The Bears’ Diaspora.”

All my life I’ve always been an outsider. This is not atypical for a person who moves around a lot. Being the new kid in the city, in the classroom, where you can almost feel the murmurs and looks…let’s just say it leaves a lasting impression.

But it wasn’t just the moving. Even as a kid I never really felt comfortable around other kids. My inner voice would often say, “Well, that’s a bad idea” as my body would follow the stupidity regardless. I felt much more comfortable around old people. Not adults – ELDERS. I felt equally awkward around ‘grown ups’ especially if they were bleary-eyed high/drunk; I can still smell the bourbon off the mustaches. Maybe it was because an elderly african-american used to walk me to my school bus stop every morning. That routine may have been my most consistent non-familial interaction in childhood. Much more reliable than my hungover mom.

His name was “Sly”. He wore creased slacks, members’ only jacket, Kangol hat with thick-brimmed frames. He volunteered to escort me every morning at 6AM because he occupied the same ghetto hotel my mom lived and worked in. Needless to say, the neighborhood wasn’t “Full House.” I always joke that I’m cool, wise and jazzy because of Sly.

Well, boarding the bus may as well have been boarding Apollo 11, transporting me to another world an hour away [depending on traffic].

Us yellow school-busers used to play a game. We would look out into the fwy, and call out cars. First to name the car [correctly], ‘got’ the car. The fancier the better. Well, the journey would begin with a trickle, maybe a suped up Mazda, ’64 Impala or convertible 5.0..by the end a flood of Jags, Porches and Ferraris. The high prize was a Lambo.

The elementary I attended was wealthy. Not middle-class. Not upper-middle class. WEALTHY. The Jackson Family [yes, that one] used to literally live down the street [eerie, thinking back.]

My best friend? A Japanese kid who barely spoke English. Yoshi just moved to L.A., and if I was an outsider, he was an alien. This was the “Bladerunner” era where red-bow-tied Americans fear-mongered that the Japanese would own the country by 2019, and we’d all be speaking “Jap”.

Well, his dad was part of that Japanese business “invasion”. Needless to say, many ‘mericans were hostile. As a child, you don’t exactly sit and analyze much from a psychological, sociological or geopolitical lens. – like how a “thug” from the inner city befriends an “FOB” [fresh off the boat]; however, in retrospect, it makes absolute sense. Gender, nationality, language, class, race, ethnicity…didn’t matter.

We were both Martians exiled to the Valley.