Chicago Bears and Walter Payton, YEAH! Memoir Excerpt:

An agency phoned several weeks later, “Sheila Cull, can we schedule you for a national Doritos commercial audition?”

“Yes!” I yelled.

After that audition, I lifted the pay phone receiver, “Mom, I got the main part! All the other actors are in the background.”

“I knew it.” She said. I pictured her weary body at the kitchen sink, after popping out nine kids, devising ways to feed eleven people.

“Where's the camera?” I asked the day of the filming. I lip sang, “Da, da, Doritos they come in a canister, isn’t that neat o? Da, Doritos! Da, Doritos!”

By 18 I was too busy to tolerate a mundane high school graduation.

“Sheila, will you go to the ceremony with me?” My freckle faced twin brother Shawn asked.

I looked over at my mom stirring a vat of something with her entire upper body and asked her, “Am I like, going to graduate?”

“Your diploma was already mailed.” My mom answered.

“No Shawn.” I said.

Chicago Honey Bears professional cheerleader practice, before I became a Chicago Bulls cheerleader, held my short attention span that evening instead. I’m on the 1984 poster and I stand out because my face foundation is bronze and I appear quite ethnic until you see my lily white hand skin, indicating the number one.

“Sheila, you know you look like you could be one of us.” A large, dark Chicago Bears football player said.

“Oh yes. I’m half black!” I cheered. He signaled thumbs up.

Lie to enough people and I promise lying to your self is easier. I believed my Irish Catholic and German Jewish grandparents were really African, from way back. In Park Forest, it’s too cool to be black.

“Go girl! You got rhythm!” A person watched and said as I whipped my head in circles.

“Because I’m black! Thanks!” I replied.

As a Honey Bear, Walter Payton chose me to appear in a United Way commercial with him. I knew he likely played for the Chicago Bears because he arrived at the commercial shoot in a football uniform.