Carolina Defeats Minnesota: Dinner with an EX

My Dad first proposed the idea over the phone--the day Favre signed with the Vikings. He said, "You know the Vikings will be at Carolina in December. We could go. We could use your Uncle Sport's tickets."

I was silent.

"It would be neat to see Favre before he retires." Favre will retire.

I was still silent. Then, "I don't want to see that f*cker." My anger and rage resounded as much from what my Dad suggested--that we actually drive five hours to see the man who treated our entire fanbase like an immature high school girlfriend--as they did from the fact that he seemed so willing to rush back into the man's arms, as if the last two years never happened. He didn't even acknowledge that we would be seeing Favre in the wrong uniform. While my friends sent me mocking texts and left incindiary voicemails, wondering aloud whether I would draft Favre for my fantasy team, my father should have been there commiserating with me, not suggesting we make a pilgrimage to view a purple and gold number four.

The call was made at halftime. My father spoke in a voice that was both tired and sad: "It hit me tonight, seeing him in that uniform. I lost it at the start of the game. I was calling him traitor and other things." The Packers trailed the Vikings by a touchdown. My Dad and I were both coming to terms that Favre was not just gone now, but he was a Viking, raiding our shores and raping our memories. Not long into the season we knew that the Vikings would win the NFC North, and, at the midway point, our own team stood at 4-4. Students, specifically Ricky Darson, wearing a Jets Favre jersey, would come into my classroom and yell through the door, "I bet you wish you had Favre back now!"

Me: "No. Not really."

Ricky: "Why Mr. Harvey? He's awesome. He's the best. Greatest all-time."

Me: "Right now, he's not better than Rodgers. We got the best quarterback out of this."

Ricky: "Who's got the better record though, Mr. Harvey? Who's going to the Hall of Fame? What's Rodgers done?"

Me: "We got the better quarterback."

Ricky would leave, and I would ponder 4-4, 5-4, 6-4, 7-4, 8-4, 9-4. Week by week, Aaron Rodgers, Donald Driver, Charles Woodson, and Clay Matthews played with a poise that put the pain of the Favre fiasco on deep ice. We couldn't feel it; it was out of sight and out of mind, locked away in a freezer, out in the garage. When Minnesota was embarrassed by Arizona on Sunday night a few weeks ago, we started rubbing our hands together over the fireplace, thinking maybe it's time to thaw out that slab of beef, cook it, chew it, and swallow it. I made the call.

"Dad, we should go to the game."

The Saturday before we were to travel from Virginia to Charlotte, the east coast was buried in a foot and a half of snow, and my Dad and I wondered if the weather would allow us to travel south for the game. The freezer in the garage where all the hurt from betrayal and foolish hero worship had been stored exploded in a blizzard, scattering snow and ice like ash out of a volcanic crater. People stocked up on canned goods, bread, and milk, barracading themselves in their homes to battle with Jack Frost and the elements. My father and I were left with a choice, to stay put exactly where we were and had been for two years, having never taken an active role in watching our Savior abandon us, or we could travel South, moving forward, saying good bye, carrying a torch.

The dire weather and the journey of a father and son south made the trip to see number four feel like the plot of a Cormac McCarthy book. While the fact that a forty yeard old quarterback made us feel the urgency of the apocalypse, made us as shallow as a Nick Hornby protagonist. This journey was both world changing and easily dismissed. When we got south of Richmond, the snow grew more and more sparse. The apocalypse was melting.

With Julius Peppers constantly in his face and the temperatures hovering below or around freezing, the Vikings looked like warriors from a bygone era, while Steve Smith and Jonathan Stewart looked like weapons of modern warfare. Even the fallout from the supposed Favre-Childress fiasco makes it appear that the bezerker broke loose from his chains and sacked his own king. With Panthers fans taunting the Minnesota supporters with questions like, "Ain't you from Minnesota? Why's it too cold for you in Carolina? Oh, that's right, you play in a dome. GO HOME TO YOUR DOME!!!" it became clear that Brett Favre was not Superman. No one was in awe. Peope talked of Favre in the past tense, turning to their sons and describing plays he'd made a decade ago.

After the game, after the Vikings had been humiliated by a team whose fans taunted the defeated with self-deprecation disguised as cockiness, "Ya'll must not be that good cause we ain't sh!t," my Dad and I walked down the winding gyre that is the ramp from the nosebleed section to the ground at Bank of America Stadium. Before us, two Viking fans wore jerseys: a Brett Favre one and a Fran Tarkleton one. And with the two side by side, it was difficult to state which one was the throwback. Favre is as much a part of yesterday as he is today, and my Dad and I can live with that. Afterall, we have the quarterback of tomorrow, in Aaron Rodgers, and, as of Sunday, it makes much more sense to invest our Packer hate in Ben Roethlisberger and onside kicks that leave too much time on the clock than a legend whose grip on us is as fleeting as a snowstorm.