A mere 4,650 miles distant from Toronto, in Honolulu, my oldest son, Jim — a retired lieutenant colonel from the USMC — waited until game’s end to make his concession.
I recall viewing the Vikings’ second Super Bowl loss (a 24-7 mismatch vs. Miami on Jan. 13, 1974) and Jim suffering greatly in comparison to his kid brother, Chris. We were watching at Mike Augustin’s apartment in Kellogg Square in St. Paul.
If only Uncle Augie had taken Jim to a quiet place and said, “Careful, kid. They’ll break your heart,” perhaps much suffering could have been spared.
Alas, once the 27-9 beatdown from the Rams was complete, this message arrived from Jim the Jarhead:
“I no longer have hope when they are going into the playoffs — and last week’s whooping didn’t hurt as an indicator of what would happen. There is always a sense of relief when it is over, whether sitting in my barracks in Cherry Point [N.C.] in 1989, or sitting on my couch in Hawaii tonight, or everything in between.”
My choice of taking in Monday’s no-contest was the Lookout Bar and Grill in Maple Grove, which has one of the most surprising locations for a metro area saloon you’re going to encounter. I was there for a Vikings’ regular-season game a few years back and it was jammed in the front room, the back room and the screened-in big porch — filled with Purple hardcores.