Thursday, August 12, 2010

Second Grade Journal: I tend to lie about my interests.

I’ve always hated sports. When I look back to all my days of being in sports—football, basketball, baseball—I always hated it. I went through probably two years of confusion, though, in second grade when my family moved to La Crosse. Everyone cared about football, especially the Packers, who my family told me I should probably hate because we’re from Minnesota and we have our loyalties already.

(A note on the Packer loyalty/a-little-more-than-loyalty/obsession: You have not seen team obsession until you’ve come to Wisconsin. Packer mailboxes? Yes. Packer license plates? Yes. Kids’ rooms with green and yellow walls, packer bedspreads, and memorabilia on the walls, including a cup of dirt from Lambeau field, which they treat like something more than a cup of dirt? Yes. THIS IS WISCONSIN.)

So when I came to school, I had to face daily the question: Do Vikings rule and Packers drool, or is it the other way around? For many of my classmates, that was their only argument; when asked to give a logical explanation, they would only be able to repeatedly quote that rhyming worldview and look satisfied, as if they had actually said something. My feelings towards football and team loyalties were much more about this argument than even about the sport. However, my dad told me to stand firm—as if I really cared—so stand firm I did.

Proof from my second grade class journal that I made it look like I cared about football.

Transcript/Translation: 
November 18th, 1996: 
Dear Journal, 
Tonight the big game is on. Packers vs Cowboys. I hope that the Cowboys win. 
Last night I went to Kyle's birthday party. We saw SPACE JAM. 

I didn't watch that game. However, I did receive the update from my dad in the morning. And I wrote...

Transcript/Translation:
November 19th, 1996:
Dear Journal, 
COWBOYS WON! You're probably wondering why I'm making 
football helmets on all the O's. It's because COWBOYS WON.

Notice my teacher left no comment on these two entries. This will be important knowledge later in this post. 

The Packers made it to the Super Bowl that year. To celebrate, my teacher cut out a bunch of green and yellow construction paper footballs, and told us all to write to our favorite Packer player. After sitting at my desk for a while and deliberating over what I should be doing about this, I walked up to my teacher and the student teacher.

Me: Uh, Teacher? [I didn’t know her name.]

Teacher: Yes, dear? [Smiling.]

Me: I don’t like the Packers.

Teacher: [Silence. Her smile leaves. Looks at the student teacher. They look back at me.] Um, well, just write to one anyway. Write one to Antonio Butler. He’s my favorite.

Me: [defeated] Okay.

If you think this story isn’t true, I have more proof.

Transcript/Translation:
January 7th, 1997:
Dear Journal,  
This morning it was 0 degrees outside! We had to write to the "Green Bay Packers." 
I hate the Packers! I had to lie, because we had to say "Your Fan," so I feel kind of stupid. 
Your friend, Brian.

Notice my teacher put a star on this one, right after I said that I felt stupid. 

Bitch. 

It’s actually a little horrible. Not “call-the-superintendent” horrible, but still kind of horrible. 

8 comments:

  1. My favorite part is the journal entry where all of the O's are Cowboy helmets, but I enjoyed the part where you called your teacher a bitch as well.

    p.s. I've been clicking on your ads every once in a while.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Glad you liked it.

    There's actually some pretty relevant stuff they're putting in the ads! Kite stores, popcorn, it's awesome. What's not cool is that because of this post, they put a bunch of Packer ads down there. Hehe.

    ReplyDelete
  3. "Bitch" was my favorite part of this entry too. :-)

    I'm glad you translated the 2nd grade hand-writing...especially on the fancy 'o's that had Cowboy logos in them! :-)

    You give a very accurate description of the Packer obsession here in Wisconsin. You forgot to mention the numerous gravesites that are decorated with Packer paraphenalia.

    So, what's up with the ads? Do they automatically put in ads from the words on your blog?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dad here. Yepper, football is huge.

    Good job standing tall against all odds. Remember you had a cool 49ers Starter jacket, a big deal at the time, and Lindsay proudly wore a Vikings one?! Proud days in Dad-land, sniff.

    Oh boy... now with Favre playing for the Vikes the rivalry, from the Peeker standpoint anyway, has gotten even more bitter.

    Last year when the Vikes (with Favre) beat the Peekers at the Dome all I heard was "just wait til we get Favre in Lambutt!"

    So off to Green Bay we go and ooops, ANOTHER Viking victory... a double digit defeat fer da Peekers. Go Pack, go?

    Sad a teacher has to respond like that. A teacher who is a VIKING FAN wouldn't do that to a little kid.

    GO VIKES!!!!! :-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Okay, there's way too much football talk going on here. Just because I posted something with the word "football" in it does not mean we have to talk stats. What you typed sounded like clicks and squeaks to me.

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. HEHEHEHE I just reread this, and it is still hilarious, PLUS I love your dad's comment.

    ReplyDelete
  7. LOL! OMG I'm sitting at starbucks laughing out loud ppl think I'm weird! hahaha

    ReplyDelete