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Kern: About that 'Dallas Sucks' pin from 1980 that's still in my drawer

So how 'bout them Cowpokes?

I never went to many Eagles games, but I was at the NFC championship game in January 1981 against dreaded Dallas, the one in which Randy White said the Boys were going to burn their blue jerseys at midfield after they took care of business. Of course, it didn't go down that way. I was sitting with a friend in the 700 level behind the end zone that Wilbert Montgomery ran into for a 42-yard touchdown on the Birds' second play from scrimmage. Did the Vet ever get louder than that for a football moment?

We were actually sitting next to a Dallas fan, but everything was pretty cordial as I recall. That might have had something to do with the fact that it was one of the coldest days I've experienced. Not that it bothered us too much. We were going to the Super Bowl, which of course wouldn't go nearly as well for our guys.

But that conquest of Dallas remains perhaps the best freeze-frame in franchise history since the 1960 title game. Turns out that was really our Super Bowl. Anyway, my souvenir was a "Dallas Sucks" pin that I still have tucked away in a drawer. Every now and then when I'm looking for something else, I come across it. Brings back memories. But I try not to let it be a defining symbol after all this time. That's not always easy. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the rest of the NFC East has a dozen Super Bowl rings to our two appearances separated by a quarter-century. Oh well. You can develop a complex.

Which brings me to last Sunday. Obviously I was rooting for Green Bay on the road, just because. Not that my life was going to come apart if the top-seeded Jerry Joneses won. Or even kept winning. Some things never change. I'm a Philly person, so I never want to see the Boys do better than us. It's what's helped get us through the down times during these last two decades. But reality doesn't fib, either. Dallas can always throw the past in our face, like it or not. And there's really nothing we can do to properly answer them. Until maybe we at least have something close to their handful of trophies.

The funny thing is, I don't think people in Dallas give one hoot about how we feel. Their biggest rival is probably Washington. Sorry. But Dallas has always been the team to beat here, so in turn we revel in any misery they might be suffering through. Like Sunday. The back page of Monday's Daily News said as much. Which, when you think about it, is a little sad. Or honestly even borderline pathetic. How's that for reality?

But that's where we are right now, and maybe even a little bit of who we are. We haven't had much to celebrate since 1983, and sometimes it shows. So we have to look somewhere for our visceral satisfaction. And that's OK, as long as we don't get too carried away with it. That's why the emergence of Joel Embiid and Carson Wentz can't get here soon enough. All I want is an opening to glimpse the promised land once again, instead of relying on my hater instincts to fill the void.

Until then, of course, I'll still have my "Dallas Sucks" memento to remind me of where I live. Not that there's anything too wrong with that. I mean, have we had many other choices?

So how 'bout those Packers?