Walt Loves the Bearcat excerpt
NOTE: Some excerpts have been altered for logistical purposes.
Chicago is like the big Macho Dad.
“What’s the commish’s email addy?” asked Bear, typing away on his
laptop in the luxury box at Soldier Field. “I’m changing
the name of their team to the Chicago Zephyrs. I’m not feeling their Bears. I don’t think Chicago truly feels
their Bears either."
Chicago is like the big Macho Dad who puts up a tough front, but underneath lies a hidden and most sensitive
heart. Macho Dad can support the Cubs because they’re the Cubbies, forever cute and lovable, even as losers in that
chewing gum field of dreams. But the Bears—are they tough and vicious? Vicious enough to eat Eagles? Conquer Vikings?
Slay Giants? Not get fed to the Lions? Stuff the always-hearty meat Packers? In modern times, the answer is more
often ... no ... so Chicago, the Macho Dad with the hidden sensitive heart, is all over the map about its Bears—doesn’t
know how to feel about them, the same way Macho Dad is ambiguous about all the newfangled psychological changes of our times.
The last half of the last American century was toughest on the American Father, who saw his
role shredded like wheat and sold off to Siberia. Along the way to a newfangled society, nobody gave Dad a newfangled purpose,
or way to be a true hero and save his world, a world that didn’t seem to need the American Father as much as America
needed bandstand, rock stars, new math, cold wars, family shrinks, television sitcom dads, GI Joe dolls, and male grooming
products and the sports heroes who hawked them. And twins!
Dad got resentful. No wonder Dad doesn’t want the Bearcats invading the last American
bastion of himself, the battlefields he dreamed up.
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