Olympics

I have a long history with the Olympics. For instance, I have watched them for many years. :) I remember watching Mary Lou Retton get her perfect 10s. I remember hearing about Bruce Jenner way back before he became a reality star - not really understanding why i was hearing about him, but my dad would talk about him, and then there were those speed skaters who weren't they brother and sister or something? and then didn't they become cyclists?
and then after college i went to atlanta and was supposed to have a job at the olympics there. i even went and had my hand scanned and had my totally high tech id and access badge created but then i didn't actually take the job i was supposed to. we arrived in atlanta when they told us to, but once we were there they said they didn't need us for another month. so i got a temp job at AT&T. my bf at the time got a job "jogging" checks. his temp job blew, so he wound up taking the job at the Olympics while I stayed at AT&T since i figured it would be better for my "career". not sure i was missing out too much since he wound up in food service, cooking in the olympic village, which was walking distance away. he got to wear a fancy olympic's chef coat and terrible cooks pants and had to work the night shift. he didn't know how to cook so it was hard for him but he got the hang of it. all the while i was working at AT&T. we had a few visitors while we were there and i was lucky enough to see a few gold medal races at the velodrome, the cycling road races with both Lance Armstrong and Alison Dunlap (not at the same time of course and too bad i didn't know who there were back then) and also the women's soccer match where the USA beat China for the gold medal. i also was able to see olympic basketball and olympic baseball - both terribly not exciting at all. because we were so close to the olympic village we would see the athletes just walking around, buying snacks at the gas station and doing whatever which was pretty cool, and actually, the olympic marathon went right by our apartment building.
also one night when we had some friends in town, bf was working so i took the peeps to Olympic Park. Yes, the night the bomb went off. We were close enough to where it went off that we could see the debris rising into the air. it was so loud and so scary. it was crazy because we started going away from the blast, but it was amazing as to how many people rushed towards it. it was also amazing how the police came out of the woodwork. everywhere you looked there were police all of a sudden directing people and trying to clear out the area. we went straight back to the apartment and turned on the radio (we had no tv, ok that is a lie, we had a tv that we took from the hallway that didn't work). the bf called and said they were on lock down and weren't allowed out.
after the olympics were over we hung out and the paralympics started. we didn't go to any of the events but we went to the closing ceremony. we didn't have tickets but went to hang out anyway. while we were sitting there, someone came up and handed us two tickets. it was an amazing night.
the whole summer was amazing. the olympics are amazing. that was 1996.
in 2001 i was getting ready to get married. i was working a lot, not riding my bike very much any more and planning our wedding for january. at work we had an ad proposal for coca-cola and my boss asked me to do some research, so i did. i stumbled across a contest coke was having where you could nominate someone to carry the olympic torch for the torch relay for the salt lake city 2002 winter olympics. you had to write up a thing saying why you were nominating the person and why they are inspirational. i nominated my mom and xtie, two people who had a huge influence on me and who i had become, two people i looked up to and who i loved. i hit send and then never thought about it again.
months later i got a weird message on my answering machine that went something like "yoohooo..... it got this weird message saying that i need to call some people about salt lake" and something something, i can't remember. so i emailed my mom, and said "ooh! i wondered if anything might come of that!" to which she replied something like "what are you talking about? come of what?" so i picked up the phone and called her, email was getting us no where. i told her how i nominated her and then she started to get stuff in the mail. all kinds of crazy stuff that needed to be notarized and signature guaranteed and it all the deadlines had just passed or something crazy, which didn't make any sense at all. but she got everything shipped off and then we just waited. eventually she got her uniform - white pants and a jacket with the Salt Lake logo and a white hat and gloves. she got information about when and where she would be carrying the torch, when to arrive and what to expect. they even gave her a training plan which was funny since i think each torch bearer only goes two tenths of a mile, or something of that sort.
so she found out that she would be carrying the torch on new years day, 2002, in cleveland. i flew home a few days before then, visited with friends and hung out. on new years day, we woke up super early and drove to where she needed to be. there was a crowd of torch bearers, all getting ready for their turn. they had a meeting where they learned everything that was going to happen and then they all were loaded onto mini buses. i had a map of where she would be carrying the torch later that day - after it was dark! i parked the car and rushed to the intersection where she would receive the flame. also there was my pre-school teacher!!! and my aunt and uncle. we waited and waited. then the lead cars started to come through. there were a ton of them. i think chevy was sponsoring the relay and a bunch of chevy cars and corvettes and trucks drove by and then some wacky other kind of parade like vehicles and then the little bus that was carrying all of the torch bearers came and stopped. out popped mom! she had a few escorts with her, who were wearing blue outfits similar to hers, and then some officials. the person who was to pass her the flame came running up, they passed the flame and then she was off doing her part! she carried her torch and looked so excited but nervous, too. there was a strange dude who was running along, too, with no shirt despite it being below 30 degrees. he was cheering for her the entire way. once she covered her distance, she passed the flame to the next person and a man on a motorcycle extinguished her torch and turned the gas (??) from it off. she could have gotten back onto a new little bus but instead she stayed with us and we drove back to the big party happening, oh gosh i have no idea where it was! there were a ton of people and kids were asking my mom for her autograph and to get their picture taken with her. it was really pretty exciting! not only was she able to keep her outfit but she was able to keep her torch, too, which now hangs on the wall of her house. it is very cool!


Happy Olympics!