TheBanyanTree: What it Means to be a Vikings Fan

[Margaret R. Kramer]

The Vikings won this afternoon in the division championship game.  All of us
in Minnesota who are football fans never trust the Vikings to do anything
right.  Our hearts have been broken too many times by them.  They make us
fall in love with them and then they let us down, and have the audacity to
say, “Wait until next year.”

Even my son remembers the game 100 years ago when the Vikings’ running back
Darrin Nelson fumbled the ball at the goal line in a game against Washington
that prevented the Vikings from going to the Super Bowl.

Well, this year, we have Brett Favre.  I often talk about that with Ray when
I visit him at the cemetery.

Ray was a Green Bay Packers fan when he came to Minnesota to live with me.
His hometown was Milwaukee, which is bathed in green and gold, Packers
colors.  Wisconsinites never talk about anything unless they slip in a
reference to the Packers.  Good or bad, win or lose, they love their
Packers.

That’s how Ray was when he came here.  Whenever the Vikings were playing the
Packers, he’s slip in a note or a picture of Brett Favre in my lunch bag.
One time, he put his Brett Favre mug in my purse, so I could display it
proudly on my desk at work.

I still have that mug.  My older grandson wanted to smash it.  He hasn’t
been burned the Vikings enough yet to truly understand.  But I keep that mug
in my office, because it was Ray’s, and it was a joke between us.

But slowly, ever so slowly, Ray became a Vikings fan.  That first fall Ray
lived with me, the Vikings were like 16-1 or whatever.  Then they lost in
the NFC Championship game to Atlanta, because the couch Denny Green took the
knee to go into overtime instead of kicking the winning field goal.  And
that’s when Ray began to understand the heartache of Vikings fans.

Maybe he felt sorry for us.  Maybe he saw the tears in the eyes of the
horned purple people.  Whatever motivated him to don purple instead of
green, I’ll never know.

The last year he was alive, when his daughters came to visit us, he handed
over a Green Bay Packers shirt they had given him some years before.  At
that moment, he severed all ties with Wisconsin and became a true
Minnesotan.

And he didn’t like Brett Favre.  He called him Bart Starr and said he’d
sling the ball and hoped someone would catch it.

And now Favre is a Viking.  And helping the Vikings win.  Last fall, when
the Vikings signed Favre, I thought it was just a stunt to sell tickets,
because the interest in the Vikings was waning.  I thought Favre would play
a few games, get hurt, and that would be it.

But Favre has had a career year with this motley crew.  And he dissected
Dallas’ defense today like a surgeon.  And even ran up the score a bit, just
for good measure.

So, I often wonder how Ray would have reacted to Brett being a Viking.  I
think it’s kind of funny whenever I bring up football when I’m talking to
him.  He would have enjoyed it, no matter who was quarterback, but the
Vikings acquiring Favre gives this team a special zest.  Ray was now and
ever shall be a Vikings fan.

But he knew . . he knew how the Vikings could tear out our hearts, too.

I haven’t paid much attention to the Vikings since they lost 41-0 to the New
York Giants in a playoff game a few years ago.  I don’t wear purple.  I
don’t wear beads.  I rarely even watch the games.

But today, I made a special effort to get a machine at the gym so I could
see the TV while I was working out.  I listened to the game on the radio
while driving the flower van, with its new thermostat and it’s so nice and
toasty warm in the van now, to the cemetery.  I even watched the game when I
got home.
I remembered so many times when Ray and I would sit on the couch and watch
football, Vikings or any other team, especially that last fall.  I must have
known subconsciously that was his last year, because I didn’t usually watch
that much football.

But today the Vikings beat Dallas.  And now the worrying begins anew.
They’re playing New Orleans next week in the Super Dome.  New Orleans has
been a powerhouse this season.

Will Favre get another chance at a Super Bowl with the cursed Vikings?  Will
the Vikings’ fans hearts be broken once again?  Did Ray ever wish that he
kept his Green Bay Packers shirt?

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
margaret.kramer at polarispublications.com
www.polarispublications.com
www.linkedin.com/in/margaretkramer

Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a
friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire:  it is the time for home. 
-Edith Sitwell