So a woman and her 11-year-old son took a train downtown from the Chicago suburbs a couple of weeks back to check out the Christmas decorations. They were waiting to cross the street when the 11-year-old told his mother that he thought Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, whose team was in town to play the Bears, was standing near them.
We're only going to give you a taste here because Kendra Meinert of the Green Bay Press-Gazette tells the tale so well.
Mom to 11-year-old: "I don't think Aaron Rodgers is standing right next to us on the corner on a Saturday evening."
Mom reconsiders: "I never in my life can talk to celebrities. If I go to a book signing, I don't even talk to them, because I don't want to bother people, but somehow I had it in me to say, 'Are you ...?' really quietly. I didn't even finish the sentence, because I didn't want the other people at the corner to bug him if he just wanted to be alone, which I totally get, so I kind of stopped myself. He looked right at me and said, 'I am.'"
Then it gets even better. Rodgers was stopped by other fans, but then caught up with the mother and son on Chicago's Michigan Ave. They hung out for the next few minutes.
The mom: "The thing for me that really stood out as so awesome was he asked us questions. I would say he asked us more questions than I asked him, because I didn't want to be nosy and because I didn't want to invade his privacy."
One more cool thing: Meinert wrote that Rodgers asked the 11-year-old boy "all kinds of sports-related questions. When Peter apologized for being a Bears fan, Rodgers told him no need. He should be. He lives in Chicago."
And another: Later, the mom and son were in a department store and saw a woman decked out in Green Bay apparel and told her what had happened. "She kind of patted my arm in a sweet, sweet way and she goes, 'Oh, my son plays for the Packers.' "
