In just a few days, the Olympics will return with the opening of the Winter Games in Vancouver.   I am a sports fan anyway, and I have been a fan of the Olympic Games since the 1968 Summer Olympic Games in Mexico City… right after we graduated from high school.  I enjoy the Summer Games much more than the Winter Games, but I like the competition in both.  I just find myself a fan of the United States, and pull for America no matter what the sport is, summer or winter.  Go USA!

I had always dreamed of attending the Olympic Games in person one day, and when Atlanta was awarded  the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, I was very, very excited!  It was a dream come true!  I immediately told Liz that somehow, someway, we were going to be a part of the Atlanta Olympics.  I ordered tickets early in hopes of getting good seats for some of the Track and Field events… my favorite competition.   As the games got closer and closer, the city was more and more excited.  I remember going to a local department store promotion and meeting Bruce Jenner, the Decathlon Gold Medalist from the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal.  I had saved a copy of Sports Illustrated from the 76 games with Bruce on the cover and he autographed it for me.  When the Olympic Torch finally arrived in Metro Atlanta, Liz and I found a spot along the Torch Relay route to cheer on the runners carrying the Olympic Flame.   A few days later, we joined a group of folks from Liz’s business office to spend the day celebrating at Centennial Olympic Park in downtown Atlanta, enjoying  the Olympic fountain, exhibits and live performances.  Souvenir dealers seemed to be everywhere and the city was just so alive and so much fun!  But on a Saturday night just four days later came the Bombing in Centennial Park and the fear that followed.  And Liz and I had tickets for Track and Field events the following Wednesday.  Some of Liz’s family urged us to cancel our plans, but I insisted that we should go.  I argued that if we stayed home out of fear, then the terrorists would win.  We did go, and we had a great time!  The Track and Field events were in Olympic Stadium, the main venue for the Games.  We got to see some of the Decathlon competition with Dan O’Brien (who won the gold medal), 200 meter heats with Michael Johnson (who went on to win two gold medals with his gold shoes), as well as some pole vaulting and women’s track.  It was quite an experience and you can bet I had my camera with me too.

I’ve never been to the Winter Games, although I would jump at the opportunity.  However, I do have a “Winter Olympics” story.  In my early years as a freelance designer, one of my major clients was the Atlanta Dogwood Festival, coordinated by the Women’s Chamber of Commerce of Atlanta.   I designed and produced promotional brochures for the Dogwood Festival for a number of years and also photographed various events during the festival itself.   They would often have special guests and celebrities for some of the activities and ceremonies.  For the 1980 Dogwood Festival, one of those celebrities was Peggy Fleming, who won the Olympic Gold Medal in Women’s Figure Skating at the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble, France… the only gold medal that the U.S. won in the 68 Winter Games.  Peggy was here for the Dogwood Festival to do a special ice skating exhibition at the Omni International Hotel Skating Rink on a Sunday afternoon.  The ladies of the Women’s Chamber asked me to be there prior to the exhibition to take photos of them with Peggy, so I got to meet her.  Then I did some close-ups of Peggy skating on the ice (I was standing on the ice too).  One of those shots I particularly loved and had enlarged to keep for my own personal collection.

The opportunity may never come again to see the Olympic Games as close as Atlanta, but if you ever have the chance to attend the Olympics, even if you are not a sports fan, it is a wonderful experience… and worthy of your Bucket List. 

 Don, I am going to start calling you "Forrest Gump", because you have had so many brushes with history and famous people and events. I enjoyed reading about your experience. You and Liz have had a wonderful life, and many adventures.

Never got to any of the Olympics, and can't say that going is on my bucket list. Still, if I had the opportunity dropped in my lap, I'm sure it would be a thrill. I thoroughly enjoy watching them on TV. This is not a very good reply to your post, is it? I'm sure others can share more.

Diane… thanks for your response.  I have been very blessed to have many wonderful experiences, meet many interesting people and visit many beautiful places in my life thus far.  I have had my share of  tough times thrown in there too, but life is good and God is Great!  I like to think that the best is yet to come!  Who was it that once said, “Life is like a box of chocolates…”  :-) 

I certainly understand that not everyone is a sports fan like myself, and may not be that interested in seeing the Olympics.  As a sports fan I always wanted to see two events… the World Series and the Olympics… and I have been blessed to see both.  And I know you and Dick have lived all over the country and may not have even been around Atlanta when the Olympics were here in 1996.  But surely there must be some other folks out there that did get to see some of the events during the Atlanta Games or participate in some way.  I believe that some events were even scheduled over in Athens and Savannah, among other venues.  If anyone has a story to share, I would love to hear it.   

Don,

You truly have been blessed with many wonderful life's experiences, as most of us have, if we will just stop and think about where we have been.  I've never attended an Olympic Game or a World Series Game, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express one night!

I'll bet I've seen more water than anyone else here!

I envy you, Gary.  I've never stayed at a Holiday Inn Express... and never seen much water either.  I can't swim.  I know that in your years in the Navy you saw more countries than I will ever dream of seeing. 

Today is the 30th Anniversary of one of the greatest sports moments in history.  It is interesting how we remember certain national events by where we were and what we were doing when they happened.  Such was the case for me during the 1980 Winter Olympic Games.  In February 1980 my Dad was dying of pancreatic cancer.  He lost his appetite three months earlier and stopped eating.  He lost weight rapidly and by late February was down to less than 100 pounds.  My older sister Helen had some nursing experience and was his main caregiver, and for a number of weeks I would work hard all week in Atlanta on my freelance work and take off on Thursday or Friday to go to Oglethorpe County for long weekends to help take care of him.  I would take some of my jobs with me to work on when we weren’t taking care of Daddy’s needs.  In his last days, he was just skin and bones, and I remember having to lift him up out of the bed and carry him to the bathroom in my arms like he was a child.  Our father/son roles were somewhat reversed and that really was tough to handle.  When we weren’t tending to him, Helen and I spent hours putting together jigsaw puzzles on the kitchen table, and I would follow the Lake Placid Winter Olympic Games on TV and radio. 

In 1980, Jimmy Carter was President and the country was really down, and America needed something of a boost.  It came at the Winter Games in the form of a hockey game between the United States and Russia, our Cold War enemy at the time.  I was not a hockey fan but was a USA fan.  The American Hockey Team was a group of young amateurs and college kids with a lot of heart, led by Coach Herb Brooks.  The Russian Hockey Team was the best team in the world, fierce professionals who had dominated international hockey for decades.  Everyone expected Russia to blow the US team off the ice.  On Friday night February 22, 1980, I followed the broadcast of the game while we took care of Daddy.  As the game went on, it got more and more tense and exciting.  It was apparent the young Americans believed in themselves and were not intimidated by the Russians.  I remember getting goose bumps as the clock ran out and the USA won 4-3.  Broadcaster Al Michaels screamed, “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”… and the game came to be known as the “Miracle on Ice.”  However, that game was not the Gold Medal game which came two days later when the USA beat Finland.  But Americans celebrated the earlier win over Russia and the whole country got a tremendous boost of national pride!  I bought and kept the next issue of Sports Illustrated which carried a cover photo of the Americans celebrating the victory, the only cover in the magazine’s history with no caption or headline to accompany it.  None was necessary.  In a poll taken in 2000, the “Miracle on Ice” was voted the greatest sports moment of the 20th century!

Daddy’s 66th birthday came just five days after that miracle game, but we did not celebrate.  He died two days after his birthday, on a beautiful warm sunny Friday, February 29th (Leap Day).  Then on Sunday, the day of daddy’s funeral, there was 4 inches of snow on the ground in Oglethorpe County.  One final note… on the Sunday of my last weekend visit to see Daddy alive, I remember going out into the back yard late in the afternoon with my camera to see and photograph a “parhelion” (or sundog) low in the western sky, the first I ever remember seeing.  For me it was a message from God, giving me a sense of peace about what was sure to come.

 Don, that's a poignant story about your February back in 1980. I've enjoyed all the talk on the tube about that remarkable hockey game. I still haven't seen the movie that was made about it. I think it was called "Miracle on Ice", and was supposed to be real good.

My most memorable Olympic memories come in vignettes. I can vividly recall the awful stand off between the Palestinians and the Israeli team they held hostage, and its ultimate tragic ending. On happier notes, I can still see a young, bouncy Olga Korbutt from 1972, and then Nadjia Comaneche in 1976. (I know I'm spelling these wrong, by the way). I always loved summer gymnastics. Then there was Marc Spitz, who was our age, and who I thought was a cutie pie at the time. Naturally, Mary Lou Retton was a favorite, and of course Dorothy Hamill. I remember she won in 1976 while we were living in Tucson, and our Chuck was 2 and a half at the time. He loved to see her skate, and called her "Dorofee E. Camel". My sister, Vivian, got her hair cut like Dorothy's and hasn't changed the style since.

Anyway, the Olympics have marked the timeline of our lives, haven't they? I'm sorry the ones in 1980 coincided with your daddy's death. That's how so many things are though. We were living in Missouri at the time of those Lake Placid games. It was such a busy time in our lives. There's something sad about thinking that while I was doing "my thing", you were back taking care of your daddy in his final hours. That's how life is. At any given moment, life is being celebrated somewhere while someone is mourning  elsewhere. I'm glad you could be with your daddy, and I wish I could see the picture you captured of the "sun dog". Whether it was sent by God for you to see or not, the fact that you paused and made such a connection is in itself God-sent. There are so many messages to be interpreted through God's beautiful creations, if we just pause long enough to look for them. At least that's how I look at it.