Arrowhead Memories

It’s been a good weekend for my favorite professsional American football team, as we won yesterday (with room to spare, a two-score lead at the end, which we haven’t done a lot of this year).

Making smart ass comments to the family (as I am wont to do occasionally, like, on days that end in “y”) I noted the weather for Arrowhead Stadium for next Sunday night, just in case anyone was making plans to attend the game in person. My son asked if I was (I am not) and I was a bit set aback and slightly depressed to realize that it’s not money that’s the deal killer here, it’s the time and critical deadlines. (Not that the money would be insignificant, and we’ve got a house to buy this year, but it wouldn’t be a deal killer.)

Nope, the only way I could go, even with a winning Lottery ticket and fundage to incinerate at will, would be to fly out on Saturday, spend Sunday in KC for the game, then fly back. Even if I had the hypothetical “wealth of Midas” and could take a private jet to minimize time screwing around with TSA, the airlines, and the usual cross-country travel fandango, we’re still talking 24-36 hours, and with the commitments at work and the annual Board Meeting at the end of next week, I simply couldn’t take that 24-36 hours off without failing on those tasks and letting a whole lot of folks down (folks who I like and admire and enjoy working with).

So if those six magical tumblers align and the bank has to hire new staff just to keep adding zeroes to my bank balance, I can go to NOLA for the Superb Owl in three weeks, I guess. By that time, win or lose, succeed or fail, the deadlines will be in the rearview mirror and I’ll have some time.

Unless something else comes up then…

Meanwhile, I got to thinking about past trips to Arrowhead, a holy place, sacred ground, for folks like me.

My first visit was Thanksgiving, 2006, a surprise plotted by my wonderful wife and kids. It was the first time there was a third, Thanksgiving night game in the NFL, and the Chiefs were hosting. We already had a trip planned to the St. Louis area to have Thanksgiving with my son, who was in the Air Force and stationed at Scott AFB in southern Illinois, so they got tickets, surprised me, and we drove across Missouri to see the game. Ausgetzeichnet!!

For the holidays in 2018 we had an opportunity to go to Seattle to watch the Chiefs play the Seahawks on Christmas, then fly to KC for a week to see them finish the season against the Raiders. Given the season and the fact that both stadiums are open and roofless, it was appropriately freezing cold for both. We stomped on the Raiders and had excellent seats, so that was a wonderful experience.

In September of this year, of course, you’ll remember that I flew in to meet my son for this year’s Week Two game. We won a close one (we’ve had a ton of close ones this year!!) and it was another great experience.

When I was a kid growing up in the metro KC area (on the Kansas side, over by Wyandotte County Lake, very near where the huge race track is now) and learning to love the Chiefs and A’s, both of them played at Municipal Stadium near downtown and that’s where I saw my first Chiefs game (with Lenny Dawson at QB) in 1966. Now we have Arrowhead, and while I’ve seen the Chiefs at a handful of other stadiums (San Diego, the LA Coliseum, the LA Galaxy’s soccer stadium that the Chargers used for a couple of years, Seattle), nothing compares to Arrowhead.