Deer Hunting and Beating the 49ers

I was 15 in 1989 and it was the opening weekend of deer season when the Green Bay Packers went to Candlestick Park to face Joe Montana and the San Francisco 49ers. Our hunting shack is in the middle Lincoln County, northwest of Merrill. We didn’t have electricity, so we listened to the games on a battery powered radio that barely picked up the signal from Wausau. To this day, when I listen to games on the radio, it always brings me back to those times when I was a kid.

No one gave the Packers a chance in that game, mostly because the team was terrible then and we were going up against the mighty 49ers (who would later that season win the Super Bowl over Denver, 55-10).

I remember the game started at 3:00 and was much closer than anyone had predicted. The Packers won that game 21-17, and the thing I remember most clearly was my grandfather, sitting at the kitchen table, listening to Max McGee shouting into his microphone, unable to comprehend the fact that we had just beaten the 49ers — Joe Montana’s 49ers — in San Francisco.

I never thought I would feel like that about my team, but I would have that feeling many times in the future, especially after two Super Bowls and Brett Favre and Aaron Rogers.

That ranks as one of the top five memories of deer hunting as a kid.