Tuesday, December 14, 2010


Showing Your (?) Colors

Those with a sharp eye will recognize a Bucky Badger and University of Wisconsin “W” adorning son Lee’s apron pocket as he and fiancée Karen took a photo op break from preparing this year’s Thanksgiving dinner.

With Wisconsin on a football roll toward the Rose Bowl, the UW emblem was only fitting. What didn’t fit is that Lee is a University of Minnesota grad. I gave him the apron a few years back.

It was a retaliation gift. Lee had presented me with two Golden Gopher golf sweaters and a cap. The cap had a big Minnesota rhomboid emblem. I tried, not very successfully, to make the cap work to my advantage.

My golfing partners in Utah had no idea what the block “M” represented, and when they asked I informed them it stood for “Money,” and that’s what I intended to win during that day’s round. The theory was my brazen statement might rattle opponents and negatively affect their games. Of course, once they saw me play a few holes any edge I had acquired evaporated.

When Lee was a Minnesota student, Sandy and I would journey to the Twin Cities for U of M-UW football games. Lee visited Madison with us when the games were played there. He went one up in the family rivalry one year when he lulled me into trusting him to buy the Madison tickets. Our seats were right next to the Minnesota band. The proximity to the loud “Here’s to the U or M” guys had the desired effect of drowning out my feeble “U rah rahs” for Wisconsin.

Karen is a Purdue University grad. She’s not big on football rivalries, and thus takes a more adult approach by wearing an apron devoid of school colors. However, if she decides to pull some sort of sophomoric stunt on the geezer, she may qualify for her very own Bucky Badger apron, or perhaps a nice chef’s hat with a cardinal “W.”

3 comments:

schmidleysscribblins.wordpress.com said...

What you need is a big G on your apron. G could be for Geezer or my alma mata.

Dick Klade said...

Have a big G on my pajama tops. We Packer always thought it stood for our quarterback (or maybe, Vince Lombardi). Cheers.

Dick Klade said...

Packer. . . fans. . .always


sorry about that