Doug “pkrdug” Nelson shares his recollection of the most iconic game in Packers history.
For those of you who know me, you’ve heard bits of my experience, so I asked the two guys who were with me; my cousin Steve, and my good friend Tom Bautch, what they remembered. We were all home from college on Christmas break. Steve was a sophomore at UW-Madison, Tom was a freshman at UW-Whitewater, and I was a freshman at Iowa State. My Dad had some extra tickets, and he asked me if I wanted to go. I jumped at the chance to go to an NFL championship game. Considering the capacity of the stadium, I think that the 50 some people from Union Grove that made the trip was a pretty big number.
As you might expect, most of the details have faded from our memories after more than 50 years. We remember this, it was freaking cold. We tried to prepare for it, but to sit outside for 3+ hours in -13° F weather, with a -52°F wind chill, was a losing battle. Still, we did our best. Each of us dressed in layers…lots of them, and full-faced stocking caps. Tom recalls wearing a “bench warmer” coat that went down past his knees and had a nice hood. Steve took a different approach; he brought a sleeping bag and he crawled into it to preserve as much heat as possible. I remember dressing warm with a lot of layers (à la Ralphie in A Christmas Story). I applied a more high-tech approach to keeping my feet warm, electric socks. A friend of ours, Charlie Francis, loaned them to me. He used them for hunting, and said they were perfect…except for the car battery that you had to wear. He was right, they were perfect, my feet were warm and toasty…until the battery went dead halfway through the 3rd quarter. I spent a good part of the 4th quarter running up and down the stadium steps, trying to maintain circulation in my feet. Luckily, I was 18, and in pretty good shape, or I would’ve been in more serious trouble.
For the 2-hour ride up there, Charlie also loaned us his brand new 1968 Plymouth Satellite convertible. It had studded snow tires on it, and he said we’d love that if we got into any snow. I don’t believe there was any snow, so the a decision to accept his offer was regretted almost immediately and for the entire time we were in it. 1968 convertible technology wasn’t what it is today. The top didn’t seal well and because the car didn’t have rear heat, the guy in back might as well have been riding with the top down. Our shared memory of day only differs on one main point, who rode in back. They both claim to have ridden there, and they both had the same response. It was awful. My only thought is that one rode in back on the way up, and the other on the way home. None of us remembers for sure.
We all agree we were drinking some type of booze at the game to keep warm, which was pretty standard back then. We don’t remember what it was, whether it was brandy, or Southern Comfort, or if we brought it, or, if the people around us shared with us. I’m guessing we brought it, because we had a friend whose Dad owned the local liquor store. Regardless, it had the necessary, if only temporary, warming effect.
Our seats were on the west side of the bowl, on about the 10-yard line, at the “historic south end zone,” as Wayne Larrivee would say. More specifically, our seats were section 26, row 50, seats 22, 23, and 24. These are located just down from where my season ticket seats are today. Incidentally, this is about the same time my Dad got on the list for season tickets, tickets which we didn’t get until the 2004 season, after the renovation/expansion. Tickets he never lived to use. Seat 24 was an aisle seat, and thankfully for me, this made the aisle readily accessible for my stair climbing. Fortunately, Tom saved his ticket, which he says has made him a legend with his Packer friends in San Diego and has earned him a lot of drinks over the years.
We don’t remember much about the game itself. As the score and weather would indicate, it wasn’t the greatest game to be at, or so we thought at the time. We do remember the final drive because it was do or die. We had a perfect view of the winning touchdown, as it was right below us. After that, it’s a bit of a blur. We did go down on the field, where there were mostly young people, like us. The old folks were smart and headed for their cars. We watched the goal posts come down and that was about it. There are other thoughts, like fading details of a dream, but we’re not sure if the memories are ours, or if the years of watching the stories on TV have planted them there. We do remember the cold, cold, cold ride home. My folks, and most of Union Grove, spent the night in Green Bay. My Dad offered to get us a room, but who wanted to stay with old people? Hindsight being 20/20, I wish we had, but hey, we were young enough to still know everything. As the legend grew over the years and we talk to people, and they ask us how great it was to be there, all we can say that it was great to be part of history, but after that, being at the game itself was just cold and miserable. Of course, all three of us would do it again.
Oh yeah, one more thing. The price of the ticket…$12.00.
