MNF

A week from tonight the Packers are back on Monday Night Football.  As I write this blog - the current week's edition of the Monday Night touchstone is less than an hour from kickoff.

It mentally put me into the cabin of the way-back-machine to the early days of Monday (pronounced Mon dee) Night Football on ABC.

Back then, I needed mom and dad's permission to watch the game - and if I was real fortunate - to be able to stay up through half-time and experience Howard Cosell and the weekly NFL highlights.

If you are younger than 25, you may not know this, but ESPN has not always been around.  (It started in 1989.)  So to see more than 'your' team's highlights and maybe that of the bitter rival required Howard and a few magical minutes each Monday Night intermission.

Before the game, it was an hour of Marshall Dillon, Festus, Doc, and Miss Kitty in the weekly installment of another long-standing program that successfully moved from radio to television.

Gunsmoke.  Monday Night Football.

It was really all a 8 year old boy could ask for.... literally... I wouldn't likely be able to get anything else anyway, especially after 8pm on a school night. 

Sitting alone in my parent's bedroom, watching the flickering images on the black and white set, it was great.  

Howard, Dandy Don, and Frank.

Thanks for the memories and that extra 90 minutes I was allowed to stay up.

(Now that we've moved back to the Central Time Zone, I can actually stay awake until the end of the game.)