Give Me A Break

The company I work for has season tickets to the Vikings and I am the go-to-person to handle payment and distribution. I received an email about voting for the top 50 Vikings to celebrate their 50th anniversary. When I was a kid my dad use to build apartment complexes, many of them that are now on the Bloomington 494 strip, and a number of his investors were Vikings including Fran Tarkenton. In fact Mr. Tarkenton (see I'm still 8 years old) use to come over to the house. So when I saw this opportunity to vote I thought what the heck, I'll see how many names I recognize. Well to my surprise they had a long list of present and former Vikings to chose from but I couldn't believe Brett Farve is one of them. Now he did a phenomenal job last season but they had to beg him to come back this season and he's been with the team for 1-1/4 years!!!! Give me a break.

Now for one of my best memories of all time that involved Mr. Tarkenton. When I was about 12 my family went up to Bemidji for a vacation and to watch the Purple vs. White game at Bemidji State, where the Vikings use to have their training camp. The day after the game about 6 or 7 of the players came to the resort to have dinner with us. Now besides having the entire resort starring at our table in envy what I remember was at one point when I came back to the table (I have no idea where I'd been), Mr. Tarkenton stood up and held out my chair for me. At 12 years old I felt like the queen of the world. He showed me what a gentleman is.

It was such a small gesture but, as you can see, I've never forgotten it. Makes you wonder how many small gestures we do in this world that people remember. I hope the ones I do are good ones.