Give Em Hell Mel
/A fun memory from my childhood.
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I woke up excited on the morning of December 1, 1963. America was still reeling from the assassination of President Kennedy just nine days earlier. The nation’s spirit had been shaken, and like many others, I welcomed any distraction from the somber mood that hung over the country.
That distraction came in the form of my first NFL game.
Burlington, Iowa’s Mel Gustafson, owner of the largest dairy in town, had invited Franklin Sleeter, my dad, and me to attend the Chicago Bears VS Minnesota Vikings game at Wrigley Field.
We boarded the Santa Fe Zephyr early that Sunday morning for the trip to Chicago’s Union Station. My brother Larry, stationed at Glenview Naval Air Station, picked us up and drove us to the corner of Sheffield and Waveland Avenue.
Our seats were directly behind home plate, an excellent location for baseball, but not nearly as ideal for football.
The 13-degree wind chill didn’t help matters, either.
Still, I was thrilled to see my favorite player, Billy Wade, lead the Bears’ offense. Chicago scored 17 points, which normally would have been enough to win. After all, their defense was allowing only about 10 points per game. But the Vikings also scored 17, and the game ended in a tie.
The Bears weren’t discouraged. A few weeks later, they went on to win the NFL Championship.
Cold and somewhat disappointed, we headed back to Union Station for the train ride home to Burlington.
Our railcar was packed with Knox College students returning to Galesburg after the Thanksgiving break. As the train pulled out of a scheduled stop in Aurora, the conductor announced that the train would only go as far as Galesburg.
From there, the Santa Fe Railroad would pay for a taxi to take the remaining four us the rest of the way home to Burlington
Mel Gustafson was not pleased.
The normally mild mannered milkman stood up and argued with the conductor.
“We bought round-trip train tickets,” he sharply stated. “Not train-and-taxi tickets.”
The conductor stood his ground.
So did Mel.
Then Mel delivered his trump card.
He reminded the conductor that he shipped all of his milk by train, and if they didn’t honor their ticket commitment that business would disappear.
Then in the true spirit of the sixties the Knox College students joined the fight.
“TAKE THEM HOME!
TAKE THEM HOME!”
Faced with an angry dairyman and a railcar full of fired up college protesters the railroad relented.
After the students disembarked in Galesburg, the train continued west.
The full crew, locomotive, our passenger car and the caboose carried just four passengers the rest of the way to Burlington.
As we rolled across the Mississippi River bridge that night, I looked out the window at the lights of Burlington. I was tired, cold, and still a little disappointed that the Bears had tied.
But none of that mattered anymore.
I had started the day by watching my first NFL game at Wrigley Field.
I was ending it riding a train all to ourselves, crossing the Mississippi River and heading home because one stubborn Iowa dairyman refused to take no for an answer.
Mel Gustafson had fought for our train ride home.
And in doing so, he gave a 12-year-old boy a story I would remember for the rest of my life.
Some days you remember because of what you planned.
Others you remember because somebody like Mel decided to give ’em hell.
By Don Gardiner
From: United States