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 LANGE

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2011 Linda Lange
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4620-3374-4

Contents

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...