About 3 years ago, I had to have surgery on my ACL on the same knee I injured on an Aircraft Carrier while in the Marine Corps (oddly re-injured on that same carrier on a later date playing football in the hangar bay). During the surgery things went wrong and a few days later I almost died as a result of blood clots that occurred in the opposite leg during that surgery. This all has caused a downward spiral in my health, both physically and mentally. I'll cut to the chase and say that after a deep depression that landed me in an in-patient mental health care, I have pushed forward mentally, but still suffer weird effects medically that my doctors are still looking for reasons to. In and out of hospitals and emergency rooms, my doctors are all positively stumped. This summer my health has been touch and go and I'm not so sure my dad isn't worried that one of us is running out of time.
I have been a life long Bengals Fan that has been displaced from Ohio for a very long time. He has lived in Atlanta for a long time and has grown into a Falcons fan... poor guy... I now live in Utah, where professional football just isn't loved like it is in Ohio. Early this summer he said to me, you pick the game and we're going. He flew me in from Utah on Saturday (couple days ago) and he came in from Atlanta. He picked up a Bengals shirt and a hat and said for the weekend, he was going to stop being a Falcons fan and go with my Bengals. If you look at the Bengals/Packers game from the weekend you notice that the Bengals gave the ball away 4 times in 9 minutes and as a result they gave up a 14 point lead to go down 30 to 14. This picture was taken some time in the middle of that time from when it was 14 - 0 and became 14 - 30. If at home, just like any fan, I'd be crying and ready to crawl in a hole until next Sunday. To be totally honest, while I was giving my will to my team to come back and play to a win (which they eventually did!!!!) I didn't actually care because I was with my dad.
Sports, they bring us closer as Father and Son. We go back and forth every year about who has the better team, who loves their team more, and what have you. As a child, my dad didn't live with me and he would come to as many football games of mine as he could. I almost knocked myself out on a particular game because he came from Chicago to Cleveland on HIS birthday just to watch me play so I wanted to make a BIG hit to start the game... I really don't remember what happened immediately after that play, but, you know, gotta play big for Dad!
I'm now 32, but I felt like I was 5 years old again with my Dad. If you look, you can even see that he had a lady outside the stadium put stripped paint in my beard, and that was the topper to a perfect weekend in Cincinnati Ohio with my Bengals, football, and... My Dad!!!
PS - I'm the big guy, he's the old guy.
The photo was taken yesterday by a PACKER FAN (I'm so ashamed) with my Galaxy Note II - Stock camera - default settings - stock everything. Sitting down to do some editing I noticed the picture was good just the way it was. Another perfect topper to a perfect weekend!
WHO DEY
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