Bear fans are hugging in the streets!

- CHICAGO, IL, January 31, 2007 - by Marc Paez (The guy in the Bear suit)
The Chicago Bears are NFC Champions! We"re going to the Super Bowl! Now what? I partied hard. I re-capped the St. Louis game at the office watercooler. I bought a t-shirt. Still, something was missing.

Then, I happened upon a video by a guy from Australia named Juan Mann — about this Free Hugs Campaign he had started. Juan"s project is great and I couldn"t help but think that"s exactly the feeling I had when the Bears won. I"m man enough to say it, I wanted to hug someone. I wanted to hug everyone! Just like how the team was celebrating. Why not? It"s been 21 years!

But that"s crazy. One can"t just go around hugging random strangers just cuz your team is in the Super Bowl. You could get beat up. Arrested. Killed. Even worse! Then I thought, what if everyone else has this same excitement bottled up inside them as well? They totally did!!!

I hope the team sees this video and knows that we"re keeping the momentum going in Chicago! GO BEARS!

Thanks to all of the great people I"ve met and everyone that helped! I got a ton of hugs, handshakes, some knuckles-to-knuckles, even a squeeze on the butt! One guy just looked at me and said "thanks man, you just made my day". How cool is that? If you ran into me and took pictures, please send them to me at freeBEARhugscomcast.net

Thanks to Silver Atlas for writing such an inspiring song and allowing me to use it. http://silveratlas.com />http://myspace.com/silveratlas

To see the video, go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9HsnpF1UAQ