STUFF & THINGS 7

By Richard Early

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“I went to use your phone but figured out it was the pop machine.”

VACATION: ALL I EVER WANTED

I know that I have broken the streak. I know some of you will point that out rather mercilessly. But sometimes you just gotta do it. I went on vacation last Thursday and was gone until Monday. I originally intended to post a blog on Monday but that plan never came to fruition. So here we are.

I went to Sioux Falls SD for the weekend. My grandparents live in a retirement home there. My grandmother is a young 93, and my grandfather is 99. His big century mark is coming up in October. He currently holds the undesirable title of oldest living resident.

I went with my two younger brothers. Many of you know them. Alex works here and is distinguishable by the distinct hair. My middle brother Nick is, well, he just is. That’s not a topic for one blog. It would be like a year long series. Anyway, we also met one of our cousins, Adam Mills. Adam and Nick are the same age, 25, and our other cousin, Adam’s sister Katie, is the same age as Alex, 20. They were all very close as kids in part because of their ages. I’m the old guy, 39, with no such matching relative.

4 days is our longest trip to Sioux Falls in at least a decade. Most trips it’s in and out in 2 or a Christmas trip of 3. But we’ve had limited time with everybody so this was a great change of pace. We saw our grandparents every day, which was great. I especially enjoyed my Saturday night where I spent about 3 hours alone with them. They of course want all the dirt on the other brothers. We also saw Adam every day, which was by far the most time we’ve possibly spent with him in forever.

We screwed up one major thing. We tried to go to the zoo on Saturday. Sioux Falls has a great zoo so it’s fun to visit. But the place was packed Saturday. There was not one single parking spot in their fairly large lot. So we gave up and did something else. Well, I found out after getting back to Fargo that there were 3 tiger cubs born there on Saturday. How awesome would that have been? And it explains why the place was packed.

Sioux Falls is pretty much like Fargo only a little larger. The city is laid out kind of poorly with the old part of the city now surrounded by modern expansion. The population is about 150,000, so pretty close to Fargo, Moorhead, and West Fargo combined. But the best feature is the Falls Park area. Sioux Falls was founded in 1883 on the Sioux River and there was an old mill there that has since burned down. But the whole area has been turned into a wonderful park with observation points overlooking the falls themselves. Recently, they’ve added a five story observation tower that overlooks the whole city. You can see the falls on one side and the old stockyard and Morrell’s on the other. It’s pretty cool.

Well, while we were there Friday afternoon, the air show was just starting up. So the Blue Angels were performing. That was pretty cool. They put on quite a show over the whole down, but buzzed the park quite a bit so we got some pretty close up action. The show must have lasted at least an hour.

OK, this is probably really boring. The point is I got out of the store for 4 days which is a pretty major accomplishment for me. I’m a big routine guy. Too big. I like my own bed and my own stuff and get a lot of anxiety about going on trips. As many of you know and have pointed out, I spend way too much time at the shop. Which is true.

BRETT FAVRE

Now that it’s over, I hope I never utter that name again. Don’t get me wrong, I was driving the bandwagon to get him here. But I think you have to realize that it was never about Brett Favre. It was about how awful our current quarterbacks are. I know plenty of people, 2 in particular, who were threatening to boycott the team for the season if Favre was the quarterback. First of all, I don’t believe them, and secondly, that’s just stupid. I don’t believe for one second that given the option to win football games or lose football games, you would choose to lose them. Give me a break.

It is true that Favre’s stats have declined the last quarter of every season for 3-4 years. I was hoping that AP would help with that problem and envisioned Favre throwing 20-25 passes rather than 35-40.

It would have been one of the great sports stories of all time. Probably the biggest here in Minnesota. Even nationally, though, I don’t think any rival teams have had such a swap occur outside of Clemens to the Yankees. And this of course was what had some fans riled up. If Favre had had the exact same career but played for the Kansas City Chiefs or the Houston Texans, Vikings fans would have been unanimous. I understand the Packer hate, I share it, but the Packers rejected Favre. They traded him to the Jets. They had him for 16 years and only won 1 title. Given all that, had he come to the Vikings and had we won a title, it would have been the ultimate in your face to the Pack. Now, unfortunately, Packers fans can mercilessly mock us because we tried so hard to get him and don’t even have the wins to support it. We’re so screwed.

Last thing on the Vikings. My cousin Adam lives in Mankato and took a ton of pictures from last year’s training camp. His favorite moment was when a Viking defensive back fell down and was lying flat on his back when T-Jack threw the ball to him. That’s right, Jackson through an interception to a guy lying on his back. This is your guy, Brad Childress.

We would have beaten the Eagles in the home playoff game last year if our QB didn’t suck so badly. To the day, I have no idea why Gus wasn’t put in that game. Jackson came in against Detroit late in the season and looked good against the worst team in NFL history. The following week, our whole team walked all over the Falcons who couldn’t have cared less because they had the division sewn up. So people were getting on the T-Jack bandwagon. But here’s the truth. He looked absolutely awful the next week against Atlanta, terrible against New York the last week of the season and only managed to win because the Giants pulled their starters at half time (and we still had a last second 50 yard field goal to win a home game against an opponent who didn’t even want to play), and then capped it off by being utterly terrible against the Eagles.

Jackson is one of the 3-4 worst QBs in my Viking watching history, which started around 1980. There was Steve Dills in 1982. There was Rich Gannon’s rookie year in 1992 or 3, whichever year Dennis Green took over. But Gannon went on to be good, something that Jackson will never do. And then there was that joke Spurgen Wynn, whose name I can’t remember how to spell. But that guy was never going to be a starter and was forced into action due to injury at the end of a bad season anyway.

I could go on forever on Viking football so I better stop. My whole point here is that Favre would have been exhilarating for the fans, the team, and the franchise. I have to wonder right now where Childress will be in a year. I have to wonder whether the team will get a stadium with the terrible ticket sales they will probably now endure. And I have to wonder if that long-standing talk of moving the franchise out of here might not be more real than ever. The Wilfes have spent money on players and tried to bring Favre here as the centerpiece of a veteran team. Their stadium efforts have been rebuffed time and time again from their original development plans north of the Twin Cities to refurbishing the Metrodome. Obviously, the economics in Minnesota are awful for this sort of thing right now, despite the Twins and Gophers getting stadiums. In the end, you cannot understate the potential damage to the franchise that this decision to stay retired by Favre has done.

NEXT

We’re back in action and I’ll keep you up to date.