Editor's Notes

Achieving Lambeau

Nick Meyer |

It’s official: After well more than three decades in this state, I’m finally a full-blooded Wisconsinite. Just last weekend, I attended my very first Packers game at the legendary Lambeau Field. And it wasn’t just any game. It was the December 11 post-blizzard, cold-weather smackdown of the Seattle Seahawks, final score 38-10. It was a most satisfying display of quality Packers football, to say the least. Like many, I’ve been watching the green-n-gold on TV for years, but I’d never attended any professional football games before, let alone one upon the real-life frozen tundra. I’ve witnessed a handful of high-profile sporting events in my time. I’ve been to Camp Randall (where I also saw the Badgers deliver their own 58-0 smackdown), saw a Twins game in the old Metrodome when I was a kid, and I randomly attended an NBA game when I was in Oklahoma City a few years ago. But watching the Packers emerge right before your eyes from that Titletown tunnel and onto the hallowed home turf in front of nearly 80,000 screaming fans is another experience entirely. My friends joked, “One’s life is divided in two – there’s before you visit Lambeau field on game day, and after.” But of course if you’ve been there, you know the game itself is only part of the action. The sea of green and gold (and blaze orange) outside the stadium is its own massive cultural mecca of all things Wisconsin – meat, cheese, music, and of course, beer. There were vehicles and tents and tailgates packed with Packers fans as far as the eye could see, with nary an unfriendly face in the crowd. Because that day, we were all at Lambeau Field. Everyone was just happy to be there. Happy to be … from Wisconsin.