I like football. I mostly watch games from the 1970s and early 1980s, on YouTube. Honestly, a game from 1984 seems a little modern, a little trivial.

Hey: 1980 was the NFL’s 60th anniversary. Which was already epic by then, having recorded the “Sneaker Game,” the 1958 “Greatest Game Ever Played,” the advent of the Super Bowl (and Super Bowl III, when the Jets’ quarterback Joe Namath offered his “guarantee” to beat the 18-point favorite Baltimore Colts and did so), the “Immaculate Reception,” the “Sea of Hands” game. We had known Jim Brown, Johnny Unitas, Bart Starr and Y.A. Tittle.

Once you have Norse Mythology, what do you add on top of that?

Now, 45 years after 1980, I struggle to care. (But I do struggle.)

Tonight, we’re watching Jordan Love stand on the shoulders of Curly Lambeau, Don Hutson, Vince Lombardi, Starr, Brett Favre and Aaron Rodgers, in order to play against the ghosts of George Halas, Sid Luckman, Dick Butkus, Gayle Sayers and Walter Payton to play in “the oldest rivalry in the NFL.”

Let’s watch the 105-year anniversary of the first game between these two clubs through the eyes of my 11-year-old self, taking all this in in 1980, sitting in my 1911 house in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village neighborhood, drinking some rye whiskey and beer.

First impressions are: The only way to make this camerawork and picture quality better is to actually put me in the minds of the players. Second impression: Every one of these players, up to the biggest lineman, is as fast as Billy “White Shoes” Johnson was in 1980 (back when “White Shoes” was a legit nickname). Third impression: It’s cold in Chicago. It’s not The Ice Bowl, though. Thanks, global warming.

And now the Pack is driving.

And now the Bears have it back, and are driving.

Neither team scores.

This all loses a little meaning after so many years, does it not? I mean, once a team like the Denver Broncos wins the Super Bowl, honestly—who gives a fuck what happens after that?

The 1980 me doesn’t even understand what the commercials are trying to sell me: What is Amazon, what is “FanDuel,” what is FIFA, what is FOX?

(A question for my old-timey football friends: If all the players wore these puffy padded helmets, would we still watch? Or would we hold onto the mystic chords of memory, on YouTube?)

What is paycom? What’s a Swiffer? (At least I know what Ford is.)

Packers lead three-nothing with 12:45 left in the second quarter. (Did you know the “two-minute warning” started before the time was kept on the stadium clock?)

The color commentator is Tom Brady, who played into his mid-forties and looked like this:

A guy named George Blanda played into his mid-forties in the 1970s and looked like this.

Commercial: “Miller time started in 1975” and looked like this.

And, Packers quarterback Jordan Love is rammed in the head by a charging Bears defender, rendering moot all the helmet engineering from the last half century. The backup quarterback comes in. I don’t know who he is, but he’s no Zeke Bratkowksi. (Though he runs a lot better, I’ll give him that.)

OK, the heat on the Packers bench just went out. That didn’t happen in 1962.

What in tarnation? Bratkowski makes that throw every time. Anyway, Packers lead 6-0. And that’s how the half ends.

At halftime, the analysts include Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Michael Strahan and Rob Gronkowski. If this were 1980, this crew would be approximately: Bronco Nagurski, Steve Van Buren, Dick “Night Train” Lane and John Mackey. Just FYI.

Jordan Love: “Head-Out.”

Bears start with a good drive that ends in a field goal that old Bob Thomas didn’t have in his bag.

Packers and Bears trade slogging, dead-end drives that remind us of 1929. Still 6-3, Packers. (Named after Lambeau’s employer and the team’s original sponsor, a meat packing company.)

Touchdown, Max McGee—I mean the pillow behatted Romeo Doubs. Meat packers lead, 13-3.

Bears kicker hooks it in, 13-6.

Wait, why is there a Bear wearing number 50? I mean, even if the number is not retired, where does the guy get the balls?

Meat packers back up by 10, 16-6. Five minutes left. Which isn’t much, in the course of human history.

Okay: It’s more fun to watch Caleb Williams than Mike Phipps, Bob Avellini, Jim McMahon and two dozen other Bears quarterbacks, combined.

Now 16-9 and we recover an onside kick. A Cleveland-area native who moved to Chicago in 1992, this is the first time I’ve used “we” to refer to the Bears.

Oh fuck. Fourth down.

Oh. Touchdown. Yes, this is what we put on top of Norse Mythology.

Coin toss.

Packers get it first. Get stopped. Wow.

O.

M.

G.

Well, I guess this stuff still compels.

Me, anyway.

How about you?

My old friend, University of Bergen rhetoric professor Jens Kjeldsen, has a new TEDx Talk, about how to actually change a person’s mind. “Changing the minds of others matters. But changing your own mind matters even more,” Kjeldsen says (and demonstrates). “Because if no one is willing to change then surely nothing will change. … Yes, rhetoric is the art of persuasion, but the main lesson I teach now is not to talk. It is to listen. If you do not listen to your audience, if you do not try to see the world as they do, then you will not be able to persuade them. But more importantly, you will miss your chance of being persuaded yourself. You will miss your chance of becoming wiser.”

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