Are you ready for some football?

It's the opening game of professional football tonight. Even though Pablo isn't here (he should be home from his hunting trip at O dark thirty Saturday), I've got the Denver/Baltimore game on. It's raining in Denver - where they have no corn planted. Send some our way Rocky Mountain State!

I'll be sick of pro football soon - especially my husband's obsessive need to plan our lives around and watch every Packers game. But tonight, I'm on another little walk down memory lane. Mom and I used to watch Monday night football together in the family room at our home at 202 Crombie. She'd be in her spot on the couch. I'd usually be sprawled on the floor in front of the color screen.

Mom would usually pop some corn on top of the stove - in a metal pan with oil. That method of popping left good old maids! I loved pouring a nice Coca-Cola to go with that - hot over ice. The other things Mom liked to munch on at night were dill pickles and chewy candy fish. Holy crap was she a loud chewer for a high society Cedar Rapids gal!

Ed Podolak - Chief!

The Kansas City Chiefs were our fave team of course - since they were close by, and featured Atlantic's own former Hawkeye Eddie Podolak. His brother Charlie dated my sis Susi way back in the day. Of course I didn't know back then that there was another more worthy university in our state...I had the black and gold glasses on. I also had the good taste to like the Washington Redskins - hmm visions of the colors I'd love later in life? My cousin Richard and I used to argue about who was better - the Chiefs or the Broncos. Rich lives in Denver. My Grandma loved Fran Tarkenton (Vikings) and Roger Staubach (Cowboys). We're a football family. But we were never huge on the Packers like my husband is!

Dad would get home from a hard week selling lingerie (it just doesn't sound right, does it?) on Friday and stop at the insurance company Tom Clithero worked at for "the sheet". He was in DTAC - the Down Town Athletic Club (DTAC) - a group of guys who got together for a football pool. He'd bring it home and sometimes we'd all take a shot at picking the games. He'd turn the sheet in and the winner each week would win X$ and the winner at the end won the big pot of cash. At the end of the season, DTAC held a big banquet with prizes and everything - and oh the prizes! I remember seeing a girlie magazine he brought home one year. But the best was the cat. Perhaps my sisters or Ted Simpson can help fill in this story...

It was a sailcat (probably hit by a car - dead for quite some time. So you could probably hurl it like a Frisbie if you wanted to). Someone took the time to paint it fluorescent pink and put it in a cardboard box that was just the right size for it's little body. It would go well with the Waxing business that I took a photo of yesterday because I believe they called it the Pink Pussy Award. Of course I didn't know what that meant back then... I don't know what Dad won it for. I do remember parading my friends into see the thing!

Mom and Dad used to have a framed photo of Dad from a DTAC banquet - 8x10. He was leaning up against a support beam - and needed support if you know what I mean. He was looking mighty disheveled. That group of friends sure did know how to have a good time!

I don't think any of these groups playing fantasy football have anything over the Atlantic DTAC.