Watching the First Super Bowl
It seems like a million years ago in more ways than one
I used to love watching and playing sports. As a kid, you could probably say I was a sports nut. I watched the Milwaukee Braves religiously with Hank Aaron, Eddie Matthews, Denis Menke, Joe Torre, and Warren Spahn. I collected baseball and football cards and could tell you the stats on almost any player. I think my first real heartbreak was not over a girl. It was over the Milwaukee Braves moving to Atlanta in 1966.
How could they do that to me?
Just as baseball was my summer love, football consumed my attention and affection in the fall. Every week when I received my allowance, I rode my bike down to Max Hufschmidt’s store and bought as many packs of football cards as my budget allowed. Once they were purchased, I eagerly opened each pack as soon as I left the store and segregated the cards into the cards I didn’t have and the ones that were “doubles.” The doubles and triples would be used later for trading with other kids.
As a kid growing up in northern Wisconsin, I ate, drank, and breathed green and gold, the colors of the Green Bay Packers. As with the Milwaukee Braves, I could tell you the name of every player, their number, where they went to college, their age, position, and just about any other statistic pertaining…
