Chiefs Chronicles: The Shortest Week of All- 2024 Season Week 17
I'm Back... Kind Of, A Winter's Chiefs/Steelers Tale, Time For A Blowout, (& More!!!)?
I'm Back... Kind Of
(Quick Note: There’s plenty of good Chiefs stuff this week, but next week’s column should be much more football focused- you’ll see what I mean in a second. Unless, that is, some other crazy nonsense happens to me in the meantime…)
Let me start this very short week’s column (the column probably won’t be short, but we shall see) by saying that not publishing three weeks in a row was definitely not in the Official Chiefs Chronicles December Gameplan. (Note: Anyone who’s been here for any length of time is most likely ROFL at the idea that there is ANY kind of plan involved in any aspect of this column’s creation.)
To paraphrase Mike Tyson: “I had a plan until Life punched me in the face.”
Let me be clear: I’m not referring to Life cereal (which I love and now feel the urge to buy) but to that capital “L” monster that so many of us struggle with every day. Yeah, that Life. It has been straight-up kicking my butt the past few months (read: years).
Note: If you’re not interested in hearing a more detailed account of where I’ve been AKA you don’t feel like “listening to all of my problems” (and I don’t blame you one bit), please skip past this next section and pick it back up at the next subheading “A Winter's Chiefs/Steelers Tale”.
As some of you already know, my Granny Patsy passed away in October after a long decline (the 13-page obit I wrote will be submitted any day now, I swear!) and I’m still processing that. At the same time, my ongoing health and financial issues seem to be racing each other to see which one can take me out first. In case you’re curious, my money (if I had any) would be on financial for the win, but it’s gonna be close.
All of that has been pretty tough to handle, but I thought I could just put my head down and work my way through it. I had a plan (of sorts). On December 5th, as I was thinking about what to write about in the new Chiefs Chronicles, Life (again, actual Life, not the cereal) rolled up on my house and said, “You think your so-called ‘plan’ can handle what I’ve got for you? Here. Hold my beer.”
At 10:44 AM, a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, with an epicenter about 40 miles off the Northern California coastal town of Eureka (where I live), shook my house for nearly a minute and a half. It was a HUGE earthquake but one that was surprisingly gentle. Kind of like Groot from the Guardians of the Galaxy (unless you attack him or any of his friends, that is).
Some cabinets had popped open and the cats’ water spilled a little, but there was no damage to the house. It scared them (Gracie and Indy) a little, but they seemed to recover quickly. Other than being in the bathroom when the earthquake hit (yes, I was sitting at the time) it seemed to me that we’d gotten off light for the day, all things considered.
Unfortunately, the day wasn’t over yet.
Around 11:30 that night, Indy and I were watching tv on the couch when we heard a strange noise from the bedroom. We went to check it out and, without getting into too much detail, my baby kitty Gracie passed away as I held her in her favorite bed. Indy knew by how I reacted that something had happened, but I don’t think he figured out that his big sister had just died. Thankfully, Gracie was the smart member of their feline duo.
It was very sudden and completely unexpected- I thought she had a good four years left at the very least. Things have been… difficult, in the days since.
A little background. We bought our house (my wife Kelly said: “It could be so cute fixed up!” when she saw it) sometime in late 2011 or early 2012 and adopted Gracie (she was sitting all alone in a huge cage because the other kittens had already been adopted) soon after. She decided, almost immediately, that I was her person. That never changed- from that day until her last day.
In July of 2014, we welcomed a crazy ginger kitten that Kelly named Indy (because he raced around the house like an Indy car) into our household. Gracie, who had already been with us for two years, disliked him immediately (I may be sugarcoating that a bit). Over time, her strongly negative feelings towards him softened into mild to moderate irritation- depending on the day and how much personality he was projecting. As a ginger cat, he has been blessed with an excess of personality.
He, on the other hand, was obsessed with Gracie from day one. Every time she walked out of the bedroom, he would go straight for her like a fuzzy orange projectile, meowing excitedly. She would stop and he’d run headlong into her to smell or kiss or bite her- I’m not sure even he knew exactly what it was he wanted. His charge was inevitably greeted with hissing and fishhook sized claws swinging at him. He would always make a hasty retreat, but he never stopped trying to get close to her.
The last few months of her life, I did notice she was a little more tolerant of his aggressive brand of affection- except for the time he pushed his luck and tried to bite her neck (this was about two months ago) and she retaliated by body-slamming him. He’s a little knucklehead.
If you were to start counting from that summer day in 2014 when we brought Indy home, our family of four only had around three years together in our “cute” little house. Three years isn’t much. Not nearly enough.
In July of 2017, my wife Kelly passed away suddenly and our family was reduced from four to three- her loss the cruelest form of subtraction imaginable. We three who remained took care of each other, as best we could, and somehow survived something that felt unsurvivable.
Now, it’s seven years later and almost three weeks have passed since we lost Gracie. Our group of three is down to two. It’s just us guys in the house now and it feels pretty weird. We’re each dealing with this new reality in our own ways. Indy keeps looking around expectantly for Gracie every time he hears a noise in another part of the house, and I find myself going to check on her before remembering she isn’t there. Indy has also been sleeping more and eating less, while I’m eating more and sleeping less. I guess that kind of balances it all out, right?
Right?!?
We’ll make it, though. All we have to do is keep moving forward a little at a time. Any progress is good, no matter how small. A couple of tough guys like us shouldn’t have any problem doing that.
We got this.
(Note: This is the first thing I thought of when I realized that it was going to be just me and Indy moving forward.)
A Winter's Chiefs/Steelers Tale
Young and looking for some adventure in our lives, Kelly and I (along with our first cat, Danté) decided to move to Anchorage, Alaska in 1997. My brother Mark and his wife Nina lived there already, as did my stepbrother Johnny and his wife Amy.
We had no idea what we were doing but that didn’t stop us from jumping in headfirst. With our brand new truck packed full, we drove up the West Coast before finally hitting the ALCAN Highway. That is a long, rough stretch of road, but it’s lonely and wild and unbelievably beautiful.
We saw all kinds of wildlife on our way North including (but not limited to): moose, bears, caribou, and… something that we couldn’t identify, spotted at dusk our second day in. It was climbing diagonally up a fallen tree and it was ENORMOUS. It was very dark in color and looked to have large claws and (I kid you not) large spiny spikes of some sort on its back. We agreed that we were running way behind schedule and drove faster for the rest of the evening.
Anchorage in the late 90s was quite the party scene and, while partying or driving around or doing pretty much anything, we all listened to THE Alternative Rock radio station in Alaska: KWHL (K-WHaLe). For some reason, huge Rock & Alt Rock bands from the lower forty-eight would often come to Anchorage to play at the Sullivan Arena and KWHL always had them in-studio for interviews and to play some live songs.
On November 3rd, 1997, the Chiefs were going to play the Steelers at Arrowhead on Monday Night Football. One of KWHL’s top DJs at the time was a hilarious guy who went by the name of “Black Mike” (I tried to figure out who he was but it seems his identity has been lost to history). We found out he was going to be at the bar (I believe the bar had its own name, but I can’t recall it and an internet search found nothing) of the famous Sea Galley restaurant (the one in flames in the video below⬇️) broadcasting live, drinking, rooting for his Steelers, and handing out raffle tickets & prizes.
(Note: In Alaska, bars are in a separate area of restaurants and liquor can’t be sold directly in supermarkets or warehouse stores like Costco- only from separate, affiliated liquor stores that are usually housed in a connected building.)
Since Mark and I were Chiefs fans we decided to go represent the team and maybe pick up some of the sweet prizes that were being given away. Kelly volunteered to be our designated driver since she wasn’t old enough to legally drink yet (she was 20 years 9.5 months old).
We got there early, met Black Mike (very nice guy), engaged in some mild trash talking with him, found out that extra raffle tickets came with every pitcher of beer, ordered some food and a couple pitchers of beer (they were pretty small), and got ready to watch the game.
Despite the fact that Kelly had ordered a Diet Coke, the waitress demanded to see her ID. When she saw that Kelly hadn’t turned 21 yet, the waitress told us that she had to either sit by herself in the restaurant area or leave entirely.
Thinking quickly, I told the waitress that:
1) Kelly was my wife and our designated driver (true and true)
2) And, since she was my wife and designated driver, she was legally allowed to be there with me as long as she didn’t order or drink alcohol (possibly true, but I may have just been bluffing)
The waitress looked at me skeptically and said, “How do I know that she’s actually your wife?” In unison, Kelly and I held up our left hands, wiggling our fingers so that the waitress could see our rings.
Looking at our rings, she said halfheartedly: “Yeah, but you could just be wearing random rings. That doesn’t prove anything.”
Sensing victory was near, I smiled at her and said, “You can look at our IDs again but you’re just going to see that we have the same last name. We’re married, I promise you.”
“Ok, she can stay,” the waitress said, “but you’d better not be lying to me.” She looked at Kelly for a second longer, then turned towards Mark and I. “You two need another pitcher of beer?” More beer meant more chances to win that mini-tv with a built in DVD player (not to mention we got to drink more beer!), so we answered in the affirmative.
The game started and we watched the Steelers jump out to an early lead with a 44-yard Kordell Stewart TD pass to Courtney Hawkins and a FG to make it 10-0 Steelers after 1 quarter. Black Mike had been circulating around the bar the whole time, talking to as many people as possible and handing out raffle tickets, but each time there was a big play by Pittsburgh he would turn towards our table to yell, “What do you think of that Chiefs fans?!?” or something similar. His alcohol intake seemed to be pacing ours, so his jeers became steadily louder.
We were frustrated by the Chiefs lack of offense, but there were still 3 quarters to go, our wings had just arrived, and our third pitcher of beer (did I mention they were tiny?) was on its way. Black Mike was laughing at us and said something about how “the Chiefs offense would be better if they dug up the real Elvis and started him at QB instead of that Grbac character.”
We shouted back that at least Grbac was an actual functioning QB and not just a wide receiver who occasionally threw a semi-catchable pass like Kordell Stewart. Passing by our table he patted our backs and said, “Ok, that was a pretty good one. But wide receiver or not, he’s still going to beat the Chiefs.”
The second quarter started and suddenly the Steelers couldn’t do anything on offense. The Chiefs, on the other hand, were moving the ball up and down the field. Two Pete Stoyanovich FGs got the score to 10-6 and Black Mike, tired of missing the game and wanting to defend his team against those no good Chiefs fans who were suddenly mocking him, had decided to stop circulating and just hang out at our table. That way we could drink beer and verbally spar for the rest of the game.
It was then that the Chiefs faked a Marcus Allen run, which turned into a Marcus Allen pass for a TD to Danan Hughes. Mark and I went nuts and heaped insults on Black Mike and his lousy team. To his credit, he took it like a champ.
From that point of the game on all I really remember is Elvis Grbac breaking his collarbone (which brought in the QB who should have been starting- Rich Gannon) and no more points being scored for the rest of the game. Mark, Black Mike, and I had talked a bunch of trash and put away a lot of of food and beer together. We all decided that it had been a pretty fun night and both sides shook hands and left.
Kelly found our antics semi-amusing for much of the evening but she was tired and ready to go home. So we went home.
The Chiefs, with rookie TE Tony Gonzalez (oh man, do I feel old), finished the season 13-3 and looked to have a good shot at making a serious Super Bowl run- especially since Rich Gannon had taken over as the starting QB.
Alas, it wasn’t to be. Grbac healed up in time for the Chiefs divisional playoff game against the Broncos and Marty Schottenheimer benched a red hot (in more ways than one, apparently😂) Rich Gannon to put Grbac back in. The Chiefs promptly lost and the Broncos went on to win the Super Bowl.
Chiefs Kingdom would only have to wait another 22 seasons for the team to win a Super Bowl.
It felt like forever, but all of this was worth the wait.
Time For A Blowout
Legend has it that the band Focus was told right before the above performance that there were only 5-minutes left in the show for them to perform their over 7-minute song Hocus Pocus. They responded by performing it insanely fast.
Likewise, I need to wrap this up because I haven’t slept and the Chiefs play the Steelers in 6 hours. Even when I wasn’t writing these columns, I still predicted a blowout every week. That trend continues.
My prediction: the Chiefs will wallop the Steelers by a score of 42-14
(& More!!!)?
First off, I want to say a quick “Hello, up there!” to my friends Dakota (who is a big Steelers fan) and Camille. They are in Alaska right now on their wintery honeymoon. Congratulations! And don’t worry about the game today- we don’t want anything (like a resounding Chiefs victory) spoiling your mood.😘
Well, there just wasn’t enough time to do everything else that I wanted to do this week (including a read-through and an edit- please let me know where I messed up). I’m going to try to use the extra days I’ll have after our Wednesday game to get some things I had to leave out today written. There were like four sections that I had to cut at the last second because I really do need at least a little sleep. Like the fantasy football updates I know you’ve all been waiting for! I’ll do my best to get y’all some more Chiefs Chronicles ASAP.
All that’s left for me to say is…
GO CHIEFS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
