It’s around 7 p.m. on Monday and I’m sitting in the airport in Indianapolis waiting to board my flight back home from one of the greatest weekends of my life. Other than the day my daughter Jill was born and getting married in Aruba, I can’t think of anything else that tops this.
Just relaxed on arrival day (Friday). My brother Larry got into town around midnight. On Saturday, I knew we were leaving the hotel around 9 a.m. and would not be back to our rooms until later that night, so I had a shake for breakfast. Our first stop in town was the NFL experience. That is a gigantic space that has everything anyone that loves football could possibly want to see. There is a museum, including a history of every team in the league. There is a spot where workers actually show how footballs are made. That was pretty cool. There is also a number of different activities that you can participate in where you basically try and perform things that players do. The lines to those activities were enormous, so Larry and I decided to just do 1 event...field goal kicking. You only get 1 kick and you can choose to try anything from an extra point, all the way up to a 40 yard field goal. Larry and I chose the 40 yard field goal. You will see in the attached video how we both disgraced the family name.
We left the NFL experience around 2 p.m. and headed for Ruth's Chris Steakhouse for a late lunch/early dinner. No reservations were available for usual dinner hours. We ate around 3 p.m. Again, it was so important for me to really pace myself with food and drink. I was pretty good with food, not so good with drink. Steak is really difficult for me to process, so I decided to have a pork chop and baked potato for dinner. I also had 3 vodka’s with dinner.
After dinner, we headed over to Nicky Blaine’s, which is a great cigar bar located in Indy. We ended up staying there until around 10 p.m.. Not sure but I think I had 5 or 6 cigars and at least a half dozen glasses of port (1 glass for each cigar). Met a bunch of people that were going to the game and had one great conversation after another all night...even with the Patriot fans. After the early dinner, I didn’t eat anything else the rest of the day. Got back to the hotel around 11:30 p.m. and got a pretty good night of sleep.
There was no pacing myself on Super Bowl Sunday. It was fast out of the gate and continued to be a sprint the entire day. A motor coach picked up our entire hotel of Giant fans at 10 a.m. The ride into town was a blast.
When we got to town, there was a private party at a place called “The Huddle” for about 1000 of us Giant fans with an open bar and food all day. If that wasn’t enough, the travel group arranged to have about a dozen retired Giants at the party. Everyone of them signed the jersey that I was wearing. I’m guessing that along with the food (some chicken, some pasta and a burger), I probably had a half dozen or so vodka’s. The game started at 6:30 p.m., but we left the party around 4 for the stadium. The walk to the stadium was one of the more memorable parts of the weekend. They had all 1000 of us leave at the exact same time with the front group of about 50 people holding up “Giant “ballons so the rest of us wouldn’t lose them. We were all pretty drunk and were going crazy on the way to the stadium. News cameras were following us, it was spectacular!
This picture is Otis Anderson (retired Giant running back), Larry and I. Take note, he is showing off his RINGS.
Everyone following this blog knows how superstitious Larry and I are. When we got to the game, I made a beeline for, you guessed it, the pizza stand. For anyone that saw the game, there is no need for me to write anything about it. Here is a video of what it looked and sounded like just after the game ended ( apologize for how shaky it is, I did my best).
One bonus of the trip was that I found out, through facebook, a good friend I went to high school with, that now lives in Boston, was also going. I hadn’t seen him in 30 years. We met up in the stadium. I got to meet his twin sons. They were all Patriot fans. Sorry guys.
Once the game ended we headed back to “The Huddle” for the post game celebration. Twenty cases of champagne were waiting for us. It was like 1000 family members, celebrating together. Grown men hugging, jumping up and down, crying tears of joy, high fiving, chest bumping, head butting, you name it, we were doing it. With every one of those embraces came a glass of champagne. I'm guessing I probably drank 2 bottles worth. The motor coach got us back to the room around 2:30 a.m. Larry and I watched Sportscenter talking about the game for about an hour and finally went to sleep a little before 4 a.m.
This morning, I woke up feeling like an elephant was stepping on my face. Hangover is way too gentle a word to use to describe what I felt like. But, I was still smiling. I think I probably slept with a smile on my face.
My stomach was really not too bad when I woke up, but I decided that today would be an all shake day. As I wait to board my plane for the flight home, my head is feeling better, but my stomach is not very happy. My daughter Jill wants me to meet her in New York for the victory parade tomorrow (Tuesday). I think I’ll make the decision of whether or not to push things while on my flight home.
I am now on the flight and am crashing pretty badly. Been in the bathroom 4 times already and my voice and energy are completely gone. More than anything in this world, I hate disappointing Jill. Unfortunately, there is no way I can go to the parade. I still have a 1 hour drive home ahead of me and after that, I think I will sleep for 2 days.
The plane just landed and I called Jill. As soon as she heard my voice she basically told me not to even think about coming into the city tomorrow. Like I said, I hate disappointing her, but I knew she would understand.
Just got home. It's midnight and everyone is asleep, everyone except Lulu. You would think I was gone for a year because it was a lick attack from one happy animal. Emily got up and gave me a sleepy hug and kiss. I'm feeling better already.
What a weekend !!!
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