My Olympic Experience
| To begin with a balloon twister, contrary to popular belief, does not use helium in balloons being twisted. My flag did not fly on it's own accord...like all flags it required a dislaying device...that was so kindly provided by Central Shop. This 15 minute contribution to my project landed Central a couple of contracts with the Alaska Hockey Association. Thanks to DeeDee Jonrow making it into Nome...all media coverage was converted to "live from Nome." Moving on to the party...a balloon twister should NOT show up at any event before the speeches are delivered...children see that belt and all else except maybe Santa losses their interest. I am surrounded by little people when the DJ begins the party...try telling the children that adults talk too much...so I quietly tried to twist for them while the audience applauded...but her darn Math teacher just went on and on and on....even the kids realized he was saying the same thing over and over again...I believe teachers are trained for this.... Finally after quite a long time Pam Dryer was allowed the podium...she is a petit thing...not what one would expect from a Hockey Chick...and she was human...not what anyone there expected...like somehow she morphed into an Olympic God or something...she recounted her experience going to a foreign country...apparently our apparell over here is considered unappropriate over there...the first thing they had to do was go shopping at a store set up by the Olympic Committee that contained only appropriate clothes...she mentioned that the "city" was built for their lodging purposes...all the countries had their own buildings... appartment style with three to four per room...All the buildings...except our Great Nations...had the countries flag hanging from the side of the building...she mentioned that Canada has an "ego problem" as their flag was the size of the entire wall...and the USA...we did not hang our flag...why? she was asked...She did not have the answer for this question...So tell me...do we think not hanging our flag will protect the Olympians from a terrorist attack...dont think It would be to hard to figure out that all the countries but us had their flags hanging...and everyone knew we were there...or was this because we HAD to be different so the other countries new we have a BIG EGO. Either way it seems we were rather silly not flying our flag off our building. So she went on to say that being there was probably similar to being in jail...they were not allowed to "just hang" with friends and family untill their events were completed...this is to prevent drugs from being passed after the initial drug tests. I think the best story was the one she told about Barbra Bush and her antrage of secret service agents..we were playing Finland...Barbra had finished a "pep" talk just prior to the game..."people who dont know hockey should not pretend they do." as quoted by Pam Dryer....so apparently Barbra was making her rounds around the arena...never once sitting and watching the game....when one of our girls who was not strong on making goals...made a goal one of the secret service agents at the back quietly raised his fist into the air "whooped it around" and dropped it again to his side returning to the proper stance. Pam mentioned, even though this cheer was done silently, it was the loudest one in the arena. So after all the speeches were done and Pam was siging the endless autographs the media moved in on my flag and me twisting. they spent about ten minutes getting footage from different angles of me and the flag. I had a good time...the kids were great...one realy got into it and may be future competion...I blame all pop ages on him..........in my reality |
posted by Shana at 9:57 AM
Comments on "My Olympic Experience"
-
Stan Harrington said ... (8:45 AM) :
post a commentThe Olmpic Experience! Earlier, someone, I believe it was JD made a coment on the games pertaining to the mixture of uniforms and attitude of the athletes in the opening ceremony. All observations that I agreed with! Not taking away from Pam Dryer, they did a great job in the Olympics but we do have a problem here. In this new age of terriorism, we cannot do things the way we use to, I love to see "Old Glory" flying everywhere, but for security reasons, I can understand the need to eliminate targets. Pertaining to the First Lady, again in this day security has to be tight and one cannot expect her to be an authority on every aspect of the sporting events. As an "ambassador", perhaps it was best that she keep a low profile so the emphasis is on the athletes and not herself. I am a very ardent Olympic fan, I watched all the games, including the curling! This year's games were very disappointing, I have never seen a more blatant example of individual egoism, it not only reflected in their attitudes but also in their uniforms. Corporate sponsoship controled the athletes, why would a world class skier be paid a big bankroll to do commercials prior to their winning any events, in this case he won nothing and went as far as to "test" a new set of skiis, which he had never used before in one of his medal attempts - corporate sponship! The Olympics is a amateur sporting event, since when did they start allowing the athletes to accept endorsements prior to the games? We started to see the decline of the Olympics when they started allowing the professional athletes (hockey and basketball in summer games) make up the teams. Well, we saw how the well the professionals played hockey, they might as well as billed it as the National Hockey League all star games, every team was comprised of players from the the NHL. Return the games back to the non-professinals, if you have ever played professional or recieved endorsements from a company, you are not eligible to participate. Everyone wears the same uniform, Red White and Blue and they realize that they are ambassadors of the U.S., they represent us not themselves. Fly the Flag with pride and don't use it as shawl around your shoulders! I will get off my soap box!