November 30, 2025

Today I begin a new series of blogs about the ways I have influenced my son. Since there can be an element of negativity to all of them, I am calling the series, "The Sins of His Father." Mostly these sins are being held up tongue in cheek (now that's an image), but nevertheless I want to try to capture my sorrow in passing these burdens onto my child.

First off, lest readers think this series will turn bawdy confessing my mortal sins (and the few loyal readers of this website probably already know them and threaten me daily with public revelation), I am not talking about the kind of behaviors passed down from a Willy Loman to a Happy Loman. No, these examinations will be of interests, passions, obsessions passed from me to Lincoln, almost without his ability to stop them. In other words, be ready to be immersed in a lot of popular culture.

We might as well start with the Green Bay Packers, if for no other reason than the fact that I can identify this as The Sin of His (Grand)father, not even on the paternal side. When I met my wife in the late-1980s, I quickly realized that I better become a Green Bay Packers' fan if I wanted to fit in, let alone be accepted. A number of factors helped play into this. My father had been a long-time Pittsburgh Steelers' fan, and while they alternated with the Miami Dolphins as my favorite team through my childhood and early adulthood, their four Super Bowl championships by the 1980s had made them a little boring. The Dolphins had drafted my most hated college player, Dan Marino, and then proceeded to consistently underachieve, either in the playoffs or the regular season. They were tough on a young man's loyalty.

And then in the early 1990s the Packers pick up Brett Favre and the franchise was immediately transformed, providing me with a bonding opportunity with my in-laws, especially as the team competed and made Super Bowls. And such is the environment Lincoln was born into by the late 1990s.

More than the Dolphins, at least for those of us living thousands of miles away, and even the Steelers, the mythology around the Green Bay Packers was mesmerizing. A team owned by its fans, playing in the smallest market in the National Football League, still using a historic stadium. Bart Starr, Vince Lombardi, the Ice Bowl . . . what was there to not fall in love with? My brother-in-law even bought Lincoln a single share of team ownership (and I thought the guy loved us!).

So Lincoln has enjoyed a pretty good franchise for his entire football-watching life, but not without pain. Losses in the playoffs in the most excruciating ways, whether to the Eagles, the Cardinals, the Giants, or the Seahawks. Absolutely being robbed by the replacement refs on a Monday night game. #1 seedings that required teams to go through the frozen tundra to make the Super Bowl, and even with arguably two of the greatest quarterbacks of their time, Favre and then Aaron Rodgers, the Packers still managing to lose. The one Super Bowl victory of his lifetime, the Packers' victory over the Steelers, was so difficult to watch that I sent him to his room to cool down and even I, so frazzled by the tension in the house, let alone in the game, missed a lot of the key plays leading to the victory.

That was 2011 and the Packers have not been back to the Super Bowl since. We have now been conditioned to expect the worst (as an aside, I am not here to say our experience merits any more empathy or sympathy than fans of most other franchises; Bears' fans, Lions' fans, Browns' fans, Bills' fans all have their own stories. The Packers' one is no better nor worse; it's merely our story). In fact, we often don't even watch the games as we know how we might react. It is better to not see a victory than to watch a loss. Sure, a depressing mantra, but one many sports' fans understand.

But the Packstards (see what I did there) tease us, as they are doing this year. 8-3-1 with losses to Philadelphia (understandable) Carolina (huh?), and Cleveland (you gotta be kidding me), an inconsistent offense, and play-calling that causes us to pull our hair out. Still, we went into a Thanksgiving day game against the Lions, knowing we had already beaten our arch-rivals once, and if we could secure another win, we'd be sitting in good shape, even if still behind da Bears.

So, the Fleming family ate our turkey and stuffing and settled down on the couch to watch. As is usual in the NFL these days, there were lots of questionable calls, going against both teams. After a second potentially egregious one that went the Packers' way, I leaned over to Lincoln and joked that all my Lions' friends (seeing we live in Michigan) will be all over social media complaining about that call. Sure enough, on Facebook, I immediately saw three such posts. Not exactly reveling in my best role model behavior, I did troll one of those friends. As I saw more and more such "woe is us" posts, I became snarkier and snarkier, not responding to their posts, but just baiting the whole Facebook Metaverse with stand-alone posts, filled with typos, as a drunk-with-indignation jerk is liable to post. I even got one of Lincoln's friends to respond to me. Lincoln himself had appeared, as far as I know, to avoid publicly commenting on the many complaints he saw at the time (and since then).

Anyway, I'm not proud of that response. Discretion is the better part of valor. That adage was easier to live up to when I was working, as my face would have to follow every potential indiscretion down every hallway. Now that I am retired, when I am unlikely to see anybody I know most days of the week, I have discovered some new bad habits.

Since I can't blame such indiscretions on my father-in-law (or any of the other in-laws), I hope that this is one fatherly sin Lincoln can reject. I believe he can, mostly because he knows all too well how the other cleat may fall at any moment, probably in Green Bay in January against the same damn Lions. At that point, all I can do is hug him, tell him I'm sorry and to blame his mother.