Around the Block Jan. 15, 2026
My first column in the inaugural issue of this newspaper, some 8 months ago, was completely forgettable—as nearly all my columns are—and was met with a sharp rebuke from a reader who felt it did not fit, or rise, to the occasion. That this criticism has stuck with me since then is confounding and inexplicable considering—despite my occasional claims otherwise in front of exasperated friends—I am a professional writer, not just by occupation, but by education, in respect to my master’s in philosophy. A graduate degree in Philosophy consists of lectures and papers, but mostly an endless stream of papers. If I can face my memorable philosophy professor as an undergrad who taught me about Baruch Spinoza, a man who extolled the virtues of taking acid above the tree line in the mountains of Colorado, who would carefully examine each paper and say, with utter seriousness: “This is very good. I have a problem with every sentence,” I can face an angry reader’s opinion.
Yet that stuck with me, and I come back to it often. I want to write about it, in fact.
This is not that column.
Not at all.
This, in fact, is a completely inappropriate column that does not fit the occasion in the least. This column stands in the face of meeting the occasion.
It does so because I am a Bear fan.
In Packer Country.
And we know what happened.
But the fact is I have not come here to bury the Packers. The Bears did that. Conclusively.
I want to talk about the best Bear fan I know. Not the biggest. Not the loudest. Not the craziest by a long shot.
Just the best, who simply deserves whatever the Bears have in store this year.
My father has cheered for the Bears as far as I can tell since birth. He is not the most obvious fan, despite the occasional Bear baseball cap. But I have watched him love the Chicago Bears my whole life. And with the exception of one season, my life has been filled with Bear failures. 50 years of them. He has faithfully followed them through it all.
He is not just as a fan. He paid for season tickets, up until the new stadium and “seat licenses.” He faithfully paid for an went to games during the lean years (did they ever end). I was there with him.
We saw Walter Payton break Jim Brown’s rushing record. My dad was at the Fog Bowl. We saw countless hysterical displays by that dominant defense in the 80’s. Don Majkowski, Brett Farvre, Aaron Rodgers, haunt my dreams. The Packers owning the Bears is a seared-in memory of my childhood.
Back in the day tickets were cheap and my Sundays in the fall usually included a Bear game. Then came, as I said, the seat licenses, and the fans who stuck with the Bears for so long were priced out. He wasn’t too bitter, understanding that it’s a business. But he still watched.
Did he turn off games at halftime sometimes? I think that’s self-preservation more than anything else, and sure he did (and almost did again this weekend!). I remember a game we attended where he left early and the Bears—this was the old Bears—amazingly came back and won and we heard the cheering from the parking lot. Oh well.
Despite all of that he is a Bears fan through and through, and I want this season for him. He deserves it.
I’ve fallen away, having not followed the Bears or football for several years. I have completely jumped on the Bears Bandwagon this year, only having watched the last few games. I am the bad fan to my father’s angelic one. He deserves this.
My role, really, is to provide whatever Karmic magic I can to keep the Bears winning. And cheer him and them on. During games the “Family Chat” on Facebook Messenger lights up with everyone chiming but, but I always look for my dad’s messages. My memes and AI photos of dad leading the Bears to victory in front of a huge crowd just serve as fodder for the gods and fates, may they shine upon the Bears.
The Bears beat the Packers in spectacular fashion at home in the playoffs and I want to type that several times over. To type that sentence, and then make that claim, in a newspaper in Wisconsin just days after the game is astoundingly inappropriate. It is ill-timed. It fails to rise to the occasion.
That is what I can promise you going forward. I am a Bear fan in enemy territory prone to philosophizing who is here to cheer on his Chicago Bear-loving dad.
Go Bears.
Joe Block is co-editor of the Independent Star News. Contact him at spseditor@fingerpub.com.
