​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

     The two of us were in my Northern Wisconsin cabin getting reading to dig into some red meat. We were sitting at the dinner table having an argument about which celebrity was sexier: his daughter or mine.

     “You can’t seriously think she’s hotter than Miley,” said Country Music legend Billy Ray Cyrus. His passioned response sent electric waves throughout the room as he struck his fist onto the table with each word: “She. Is. The. All. American. Girl. Next. Door!”

     “Sure, If you live next door to a house of ill-repute!” I said.

     “What do you mean by that?” Billy demanded.

     “It means exactly what you think I mean.” I said.

Billy fired back, “Well, I don’t know what you think you mean. So I guess you don’t know what you’re talking about, do ya?”

     “Damn you, Cyrus,” I said, knowing that he got me good. “Still, I don’t care what anyone says, the Wrecking Ball thing was overrated. It did nothing for me.”

     “You take that back!”

     “No. It was trite and uninspired.”

     “I will not hear any more of this,” said Billy, placing two index fingers into his ears. He continued: “I don’t how you can even call your daughter a celebrity anyhow. She’s never even been on MTV.”

     “No,” I replied. “But she’s been on TMZ. They called her a Green Bae Packer, emphasis on the bae.” I whipped out my cellphone and pulled up the website. Then I shoved it in Billy’s face knowing that he couldn’t cover his eyes because his hands were still in his ears. That’s called strategy, and its the main reason why I’m the head coach of the Green Bay Packers.

     Billy took his fingers out of his ears. “Damn you, McCarthy.” he said, knowing that I got him good. At this point in the struggle it felt like the score between us was getting even, so I knew that it was time to take the pressure off. Call it an instinct.

     “How about we just eat?” I said.

     “Yeah, guess so,” Billy said. I picked up the carving knife from the table. A large chunk of ham was plated between us just begging to be slain and so I poked it a little to test its texture. Billy then made this weird cough, sorta nervous-like. Just as I was about to really dig into the ham he reached across the table and wrapped those big ol’ Country pickin’ fingers of his around my wrist.

     “Say, Coach Mike McCarthy” he said verbatim, “If you wouldn’t mind I’d like to say Grace.”

     “Okay… now what?” I said, freeing my wrist from his loose grip.

     “Huh?” Billy replied.

     “Grace. You just said you wanted to say Grace. So now that’s done.”

     “No, no. What I meant was that I’d like to say a little Grace before we eat.”

     “I’m not following,” I said. I found Billy’s mind games confusing especially since I was so hungry. My focus went back towards the ham. I made a quick slice here and a quick slice there. Before I knew it I found myself carving 11 X’s and O’s into the ham and a play started to develop. It seemed okay at first but eventually led to a two-yard loss. “Shucks!” I screamed.

     Billy stood up from the table in protest. “It’s like you just don’t care!”

     “What do you mean I don’t care?” I asked, careful to repeat each word in case he’d forgotten what he’d just said. It happens to me all the time.

     “I have traditions and for once I wish you’d respect them,” Billy said.

     “Traditions?”

     “Yes, traditions. The transmission of customs or beliefs from one generation to another.” Billy said, having picked up a dictionary off of my bookshelf. “And saying Grace is one of them I cherish. In fact, it’s the only tradition I have. Sure, I have a few other traditions which me and the boys made up to pass time on the road, like gluing bottle caps to our feet and kicking someone’s ass to hear that little 'chingy’ sound. Or when we sell calculators to people and tell ’em that they’re old-fashioned cell phones…” Billy continued to yammer for like an hour, taking his sweet time to explore some new ideas which just weren’t as good as listening to his older stuff. He finally got around to his point. “…but not Grace. Grace is Grace. My family has always said Grace and I will not sit down to eat without saying a little Grace. That’s a fact, Jack!”

     “Are you being serious?” I questioned.

     “Yes, Mike, I'm being Billy Ray Serious,” said Billy Ray Cyrus, clever fellow.

     “Yeah, well, my family has traditions too, ok?” I snapped back.

     “Oh really? Like what?”

     “Like eating the food while it’s still hot!” It was a tense moment, like when two people start fighting over whether they should say something honoring their chosen religion before sharing a meal, but completely different.

     Billy took serious offense to my words. He shot his left hand across the table and dug his fat Kentucky fingers deep into the ham.

     “Hands!” I shouted. As a Super Bowl-winning Coach, I’ve found that the simplest observation is often the best when you wanna motivate someone. Usually, all it takes is to name the body part you’d like them to focus on. For instance, whenever my field goal kicker is at practice I’ll stroll over his way and say “foot”. It works pretty much all day.

So when I yelled “hands!” I was hoping that Billy would be persuaded to think twice about digging his fingers into the ham. He didn’t. It seems like most musicians don’t know what their hands are doing. It’s like they‘ve never even thought about it.

     Billy picked up the ham and held onto its hard, ham-filled center. Then he lifted it high above his head. He peeked over his shoulder at an open window and launched the slab of meat outdoors. It thumped the dirt a couple of times and rolled across the unmowed lawn before coming to a complete stop inside of an alligator’s mouth.

     “You bastard. You horrible, horrible-horrible bastard!” I said as my emotions took over. I stood up from the table and wrapped my inner-elbow across my eyes which, of course, were now flowing with tears. Not tears of laughter from one of Billy’s great jokes. No, these were different tears altogether. Tears from a different part of my head.

     I ran into the cabin’s bathroom and slammed the door shut, locking it behind me. It’d been days since I’d last cried on the toilet, but once you’ve done it once or twice you can always pick it up again pretty easily. It‘s like riding a bicycle or losing a big game by playing the defense in a soft zone.

     Billy pounded his fists against the bathroom door, pleading with me to open it up. I was having none of it. We went back and forth for a while arguing about this and that. About ham. About things other than the ham. Every now and again we’d talk about ham some more. It was nice to talk about the ham. But then I’d remember how hungry I was and get upset all over again.

     Billy pleaded with me: “Just let me in and we can talk about this.”

     “No.”

     “Please, Mike.”

     “No.”

     “I’m really, really sorry.”

     “You always say that.” I said, like I always do.

     “I really really mean it this time. Do you think I’d be standing here talking to you through this door if I wasn’t Billy Ray Serious right now?”

     “Well… maybe…” As much as I wanted to stay upset with Billy, I just couldn’t. His words cut straight to the heart of me. I found myself liking him more and more. He’s every bit of an Ameican treasure as you’d expect him to be. Truly.

     “Listen Mike,” Billy said. “Keeping this door closed off to my face feels a lot like you’re keeping your heart closed off to my face. Please open up your heart and this door. Please. My face needs it.”

     Without another word, I unlatched the rubber band from its thumbtack. The door swung open by itself. Billy stood there with a look that said far more than his words ever could. It was this weird combination of a smile, a frown, and no expression whatsoever. I asked him to explain the look on his face but he couldn’t. I asked him to try finding a few words. He still couldn’t. So then both of us thumbed through the dictionary for a while trying to find a couple of real good words. But none good words did we found.

     An impatient Billy slammed the book shut and put his arm around my shoulder. We stepped outside of the cabin and took a seat on a pair of tree trunks next to the cabin door. Trunks that each of us had chopped earlier just to see who could do it faster. Billy won of course because he remembered to do it with an axe.

     “I’m sorry we had to fight like that,” I said to Billy, as we sat there staring at an alligator crawl across the lawn.

     “We shouldn’t have to do this all the time,” Billy replied, as the alligator stopped moving and rolled over onto its back.

     “Let’s forget about this whole thing,” I said, as an easterly wind blew through the area.

     “That sounds okay with me,” said Billy, as the alligator let out a hefty belch.

     “I can’t even remember how this got started,” I said, as the wafting scent of ham crept up my nose.

     “Me neither,” said Billy, picking his fingernails clean of what appeared to be some type of pinkish-red meat. We sat there for a few minutes just enjoying nature. Really taking it in. It was the first time I’d been able to relax since what felt like 1992.

     “Hey Mike,” I said.

     “My name’s Billy. Your name’s Mike,” he said.

     “Oh that’s right. Nevermind then,” I said. We sat there for a few minutes just staring into the wilderness. Into the dense array of brown trees with their browning leaves scattered upon the brown ground. It all looked so orange.

     “Say Mike,” Billy said.

     “My name’s Mike.” I said.

     “Yeah, I know,” said Billy “Do you remember when we first met?”

     “You mean back in Pittsburgh?”

     “Was it Pittsburgh? You probably remember it better than me.”

     “Thank you,” I said, not entirely sure if he was giving me a compliment.

     “Do you remember what we were doing?” Billy asked.

     I said that I did, and was about to get into telling that story when the alligator rolled onto its belly and darted straight for us! It was moving faster than anything I’d ever seen, and I’ve seen trains. The alligator already had a taste of meat and now it was on the hunt for more. I can’t know for sure but to the alligator, Billy and I must’ve looked like a couple of two hams.

     Billy’s jaw dropped and I think I pee’d my pants a little. Then Billy pee’d my pants a little which was weird but still okay.

     We jumped from our stumps and ran a few circles around the cabin hoping that it’d be enough to wear the alligator out. It wasn’t. The beast just kept on trailing us and even made a few fat jokes at my expense.

     I got the idea that one of us should devise a small trap to catch the alligator. The way I saw it (in my mind) was that one of us would draw the beast’s attention away by continuing to circle around the cabin while the other went into the cabin and gathered supplies to build a trap. Inside the cabin, there were a few 2x4’s and an old tarp that could probably do some good. Also, above the stove were a few pots and pans that —

     WHAP!

— could be used to —

     WHAP!

— trip the alligator by its —

     WHAP!

— teeny toes…

     “ — See that, Mike?!” a breathless Billy said, cutting off my train of thought which I found to be a bit rude. I quit jogging and saw that while I was busy devising my Scooby-Doo-like plot to catch the beast, Billy had picked up a shovel and beat the alligator into a pair of crocs. So that was that.

     “Now where were we?” I said, again taking a seat on my tree stump.

     “Pittsburgh,” Billy said, taking his seat on the alligator.

     “Ah yes, Pittsburgh…”

​