After 44 years of fandom, I attended my first in-person Bears game In 2018, purchasing tickets for the Rams-Bears tilt I knew would be both meaningful and cold, after learning of the Khalil Mack trade, a sure sign that these Bears with their visored offensive egghead would climb to the mountaintop once again, while shedding the preposterousness of the recent Trestman and Fox regimes.  I had gambled correctly, and the four tickets I got for my son and his Rams-loving friend (and me and his step-mother) climbed steeply on Stubhub as the season moved from autumn to winter and the Rams and Bears appeared on a collision course for Conference supremacy.  The week running up to the game, it was flexed to Sunday night, and the forecast called for a brutally cold Chicago December night, prompting whispers from my wife that the $75 dollar tickets could be offloaded for triple their face, and we discussed the possibility of watching from the comfort of our family room in Skokie, warm beneath the throws with cheap(er) drinks in our hands and chili on the stove.  The experience was too strong to wave away with comfort. My son commented that this could really be a new Bears team and this game could be a dynasty harbinger; it cemented our resolve to brave the elements and watch the Beloved live and in person beneath the sharp, crisp lights of a winter’s night.

On game day we snowmobile bundled in thickly lined boots and snow pants, layering undershirts and wool sweaters beneath mountain parkas stuffed with “hot hands”, wearing hats that clung to the ears.  Driving to the millennium lot beneath Grant Park, we were stuffed in like a bag of cotton balls, shoulders pushing out, cushioned against the doors.  Spilling out of the car, we took the long walk through Grant Park sidling along the unshirted yahoos, hatted and gloved and drunk, and as we approached the stadium beneath the tunnel at Roosevelt, the brightly lit Soldier Field rose into the starred sky.  I was not regretting the trek nor the cold. The energy for this Bears team felt like 2006 again. I thought back on taking my 4 year old son to the Candlelite on the North side to watch them dispose of the Payton Saints, a clash of offensive creativity and defensive stability, while he ate pizza and became a Bears fan at the same age I became one, wearing the Hester t-shirt jersey I had bought him for the occasion.  

I have a few regrets in the 12 years between that game and this, and the situation had shifted from mom to step-mom, but the bond between us felt strong that night.  We sat in the South end zone with a view of the action that allowed us to see plays develop across the field, watching Mack stalk Goff with a predator’s rage and hunger, seeing our cagey veteran DC dismantle the boy genius McVay.  A deep playoff run was certain; the curtain had risen for this cast of young offensive and defensive stars and a coach who pumped the blood of the new NFL, what Mad Hatter Trestman was supposed to be, and a foil to the checked-out and somnambulistic Fox.  The wail of the third down siren and the panicked Goff papered over Trubisky’s 3 interception night; these Bears were real, we thought,  and the marching faithful returning to their vehicles chanted “Green Bay Sucks” with the fervor of an armed mob looking to draw, quarter and put to rest any thought that Aaron Rodgers would continue to reign over the NFC North.   They ran out that season with defining wins over the Pack, the Niners, and the Vikings, a three game parade over our most hated rivals until coming to a halt in a most Bears way with the belt of history pulling strongly around our coach’s neck, visor unable to hide his incredulous gape, as Staley toppled sideways to the Soldier Field turf.

The next couple of years saw missteps and finger pointing, with Nagy unable to rekindle the pilot light of his vision, and my son, getting older, piled more resentment and anger onto his stepmom and myself, eventually coming back from his first year of college during the autumn of COVID, and deciding to live exclusively with his mother.  The strings of that relationship snapped over the next year as did the Bears and Nagy,  and more incompetence emerged through 2 ½ years of Eberflus. Eventually the communication between my son and I ceased.  I have not spoken with him for 3 and a half years.

With the optimistic hire of a new messiah, and the passing of another Easter without reconciliation and redemption, my hope for the seeds of another draft to sprout and flourish moves lockstep with that same hope for my son and me.  Maybe this year we will build something with a rock mantle foundation, with the base to support the winds and storms of passion.  All I wish for is a hot bowl of chili, a cold Old Fashioned, and the warmth of an afternoon game next to him and beside my wife, as the Bears march forcefully down the field.