As a long-suffering Bear fan, it’s become a semi-tradition to dust this gem off every September as kick-off nears.

Maybe it’s to try to hype myself up like a haka dance – maybe it’s to steel myself  – maybe it’s so I just don’t check out entirely in order to do something more “productive”, or at least, far less infuriating, than watching yet another Bears’ season.

I glance at IG stories with a hint of envy. There’s my buddy on top of a Malibu hiking trail overlooking the Pacific; there’s my other friend training for a marathon and MMA; another smoking a blunt at a BBQ or open air festival; there’s that chick I’m trying to bang sipping mimosas poolside.

And here I am in my mancave screaming at pirated-pixelated Bears while venting online to some internet Fight Club support group.

Yet, I keep doing it…week after week, month after month, season after season, year after year, decade after decade…

My step-dad, a hard working earnest man, always asks me every September with a shit-eating grin, “You ready for a new season?” It’s a question tinged with a mixture of pity and admiration; then he simply drawls off, “I dunno how you do it” before returning to work on his ’57 Studebaker truck which will likely never run.

Honestly, I never used to think about it. It just became habit – like being stuck in a bad marriage. Aristotle once observed that most don’t even recognize the best times of their lives until much later; well, the same can apply to the worst times.

Or as a proverb goes, “Habit is greater than love.”

Ironically, it wasn’t even until the Cubs FINALLY won the World Series that emotions I never even knew existed stirred up. See, I was jubilant like many, but my elation was infused with a languid sorrow. I thought about my uncle, who loved the Cubs since Ernie Banks, not being able to rejoice in their once in a century triumph because he died some years ago. Sadly, he was not alone.

I thought about how passionate Doug Buffone expressed all our outrage, contempt and frustration after every post-game; I envisioned the spittle flying as his face reddened with righteous indignation.

Then he died.

Trestman was the last Bears’ incarnation he witnessed before leaving this earth. Imagine that.

Do I want to be like that? Like my uncle, Buffone, and countless others, expending my psychic energy on a team that has been incompetent since “The Breakfast Club,” “The Goonies,” and “Commando” played in theaters, since “Sussidio,” “View to a Kill,” and “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” blasted from radios?

Remember radio?

Moses Christ that’s like a tragic Cohen Bros’ vignette.

MB retreating to surfing and a jacuzzi becomes more and more appealing.

“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

Then I cast myself as a 1940’s Brit stoically shuffling to the underground both resigned and rebellious, both acknowledging reality nevertheless not entirely accepting nor submitting, both cautious yet optimistic in that strange netherealm of foggy uncertainty.

The act itself is a reaffirmation of belief, a defiance to not surrender to the dark cynicism that rattles in every heart –

As such, out of some ridicules sense of loyalty, Pavlovian conditioning or sheer stupid stubbornness, I will once more march into another September with all the bitching, yelling, bemoaning, rooting, cheering, whooping, booing, throwing of random objects, scaring of pets, all the ecstasy and agony which another Bears’ season entails.

Maybe one Sunday my circle will catch me on an IG story on top of a hill overlooking the Pacific, smiling and basking beneath a breeze, sunburnt forehead and shimmering beard….

But not this season.

If this shitty year has taught us one thing and one thing only – it’s this:

Never take anything for granted.

Not a concert, not a haircut – not a seemingly trivial sport. NOTHING.

I’m throwing on my Sweetness, Jimmy Mac, Butkus, Peanut gear, cracking open a beer, flipping over a brawtz… prepping for Bears’ ball.

Gentlemen, once more into the breach.

Let’s roll. Bear Down! 🐻👇