1985 chicago bears roster

The following is an excerpt from Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football, (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $26), on sale October 29.

For me, Chicago will always be as it was in the mid-1980s.

That was the city as I loved it, the world at noon. It was Greektown and Wrigley Field and beers at the Checkerboard Lounge.

It was days at the beach and nights on the toboggan and house parties in Winnetka. It was Howlin’ Wolf and red-hots at Big Al’s and frosty malts and denim jackets and girls in penny loafers and stone-washed jeans.

1985 chicago bears retirement

Every other place is measured against the city when the world was whole. That’s when I was young and my parents were young and my brother and sister were home and we huddled together when the big snows came.

Chicago was the center of everything.

It’s where John Hughes set all those movies, where the Belushis lived like shambling comedic saints in Wheaton, where Big Twist and the Mellow Fellows played at Biddy