Olympics August 10

[Lone Wolf '49]

Friday, August 10



(Please excuse the typos and bad writing in this friendly message to family. Will hurry. There’s much Olympics to explore.)



Breakfast: Mixed fruit, awesome crunchy bacon (ACB), great link sausage, scrambled eggs, canaloni beans (pork ‘n to us rednecks), wheat toast with currant jelly, orange juice, yogurt.



A well-known American journalist lost his credential yesterday and couldn’t get into the women’s soccer gold-medal game. I guess they’ve arranged another one for him. I take mine off only to sleep and shower.



I stick to Bob Condron’s rule about the three C’s: Before leaving my hotel room, I make sure I have my credential, cell phone and keys.



Commute: Caught the 8:30 red double-decker out of Russell Square. Hazy morning. Going past the Tower of London and Tower Bridge was a highlight, as always.



One morning the red double-decker media bus was packed, and people had their knees out into the aisle. When the soldier came upstairs to check everyone, he glanced at the throng, rolled his eyes, and said, “nobody has any suspicious packages, do you?” Everyone said “no.” And he left.



I really like the soldiers who handle security. They’re happy and courteous. I think earlier in the games, they felt they’d rather be doing more serious soldiering. But now they’ve settled into the routine and seem to be enjoying it. They enjoy engaging in conversation.



There’s heavy security in Westfield Mall, that huge shopping venue that is the gateway to Olympic Park. We see policemen arrived with significant-looking rifles there. I’m glad.



Persons du jour: Sam and Fred, both 12. Absolutely adorable British children from central casting. When I asked what he knows about America, he said, “you have the best sports teams.” And what sport does Sam favor? “Cricket.” How about little, with his rosy red cheeks: “football.”



The best athletes in the world are here. They’ve worked years and years for these 17 days. 99.999999 percent of them are not Michel Phelps or Usain Bolt. Most of them were here to enjoy the festival, eat the awesome chow in the Olympic Village and perhaps go up in The Eye.



And they’re here for the hugs. Surely there are more here, per capita, than anywhere else in the world. Winners reach out to hug losers. Losers hug each other. Athletes compete like crazy and then smile and walk off into the night together.



That’s the Olympics! Of course, governments now consider the proposals for an “Olympic truce” to be naïve. But this is a festival of hope, of kids from all over the world hanging out together and competing and laughing and hugging. I’m so lucky to have been at ten of these parties. I do not plan ever to miss one again.



I’m not good at trading pins, but Nicki Hancock did bring our “trader” varieties here in the silly hope that I would work up the courage to dive into the mosh pit it. It never happened, but we gave my pins to the volunteers in our office and said, “get what you can for them.”



The Olympics is a remarkable venue for bonding and team work. Folks are thrown together in a strange country for a month, with no choice but to work it out. A friendly smile can mean more than all of the chocolate sundaes in the world.



I have invited at least 1,000 people to visit Nicki and me in Kansas City. Hope I remember to tell her.



Lunch: Wheat Thins, yogurt, cookies.



We’ve talked to more than one local person who has been surprised at the light traffic. Just like Los Angeles, the city fathers successfully managed it, and enough people left town, that he has all been quite manageable. The whole deal has exceeded all expectations.



Today’s confirmation that George Bernard Shaw was right when he wrote that we and the British are “two peoples separated by a common language.” As the games near and local folks wonder about their futures, I’ve learned that if you are made redundant, it means you are out of work.



Speaking of Shaw, someone asked today about the financial remuneration for medalists, which varies from sport to sport and country to country. It made me thing about what Henry Higgins said to Eliza Doolittle: “If you're good and do whatever you're told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, and have lots to eat, and money to buy chocolates and take rides in taxis. If you're naughty and idle you will sleep in the back kitchen among the black beetles, and be walloped by Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick.”

 

[Lone Wolf '49]

Continued............

Media has plenty of access to athletes here-news conferences before competition and afterwards for the medalists.



All other athletes are available after they compete, in a gosh-awful wonderful place called the mixed zone. The athletes must pass through on the way from the “field of play” to the locker rooms-and the locker rooms are not open to the media. (It’s called the “field of play” in all Olympic sports, from swimming to figure skating to soccer.) Media are on one side of a fence, athletes on the other. The athletes actually must pass through a whole gauntlet of television interviewers in the broadcast mixed zone before getting to the reporters. It’s the worst system, except for everything else.



When reporters rushed to the mixed zone to interview the gold-medal women’s beach volleyball players, the floor collapsed beneath them. No further comment….



We are distributing tickets for the closing ceremony and for Sunday’s gold-meda men’s basketball game. Things definitely are winding down.



“It’s the time of the Olympics,” a writer said, “when I’m ready to go home.”



For me, it’s the time when I realize so much left to do and so few days to do it.



Weather: The most perfect day ever created. Some haze, but, what a day for a daydream! High 79, low 64. Some haze, but not a cloud in the sky. The Brits are now winning the sunburn games.



A writer, a dear friend, said he thought these Olympics ranked “somewhere in the middle” of the eight games he has attended. No! Comparing Olympics is like choosing your favorite grandchild. It can’t be done! The fact is, it’s a 10-way tie for me.



The USOC staff works incredibly hard; it’s just like the bowl staffs, or the staffs of the schools that host the NCAA tournament. Except they have a bowl game every day for two weeks.



Left the office at 5:30 for a night on the town. For us, that meant nearly two hours in the fabled British Museum, followed by an incredible walk down to Victoria Embankment and along the Thames. Craig B. and Bill M. joined us.



The museum, right across the street from the Montague, is only the world’s best, that’s all. We should have spent two days thee, not two hours. Seeing Rosetta Stone was a highlight. I distinctly recall Newty Barnett telling us about it in 1962. And the Behistun Rock. Those went together like Bert and Nan Bobbsey. I couldn’t believe we were actually standing there, looking at the R. Stone.



The museum is the most user-friendly I’ve ever seen. You can rent a little stool to carry around and sit on when your wife wants to look at the clothing for a long time and you’d rather look at the display on the gladiators, or the one on the history of money. There’s a nice café, and grass out front for napping.



We saw Olympic medals from 1908, 1948, 1984 and 2012. We debated whether Elgin did the proper thing by removing the friezes (sp?) from the Acropolis and bringing them here for safe keeping 200 years ago. The museum’s hours are only roughly 10 a.m. until 3 p.m., but it’s open until 8:30 Fridays. We knew we had to do it.



The walk to the Embankment was fascinating. We lingered outside the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden. We saw a 15 or 20 enchanted pubs, with lovely baskets of flowers hanging from the windows and young people spilling out into the streets in the dazzling summer evening, drinking beer and laughing. I predicted there’d be some he’in and she’in later.



We squeezed cheek-to-cheek and tail-to-tail past some ultra-mod outdoor bars following a sign to “Brasil 2016.” We found a massive courtyard with salsa music and gyrating people. If this is what the ’16 Olympics will be like, count me in. Well, count me in, regardless.



Watching the waves of the Thames lap at our feet, we found ourselves at the base of Cleopatra’s Needle, an obelisk that was spirited here in 1880 or so and has survived. You can see pock marks from where a German bomb landed nearby in 1917. Oh, my.



We walked back to the Montague, washed our hands and went back to Il Fornello after trying a couple of quieter places whose outdoor tables were filled. We did get to sit on the sidewalk and had a nice meal and some beer (Craig and I) and wine (Nicki). Michael Lewis, dean of USA soccer writers, walked past and we offered a seat at our table. We learned about life on Long Island and at Wembley Stadium.



Our waitress, Fanny (no kidding) was from a German island in the Baltic sea, had lived in Boston and Philadelphia for nine years, and cut no slack to the tipsy sophomores who whistled at her short skirt. She said the Olympics had not been great for business because regular tourists had stayed away. She told us that hotels around Russell Square had discounted their rates in the past few days, hoping to make up.



As we walked past Russell Square to the Montague at 11 p.m., we heard mariachi music. We investigated and found, indeed, found a dandy group wearing traditional mariachi outfits including the large wide-brimmed black embroidered Mexican hats, serenading outside a hotel. Young people sang along in Spanish. Folks who lived nearby surely were upset….except one couple applauded from a balcony.



Dinner: spaghetti with meat sauce, garlic cheese toast, London Pride beer, and a bite of Nicki’s margharita pizza.



A woman from Cornwall and her daughter were listening to the mariachis. “Aren’t they grand?” She asked about America and the Olympics and what we thought about England. We think it’s grand. Best part is the people! Second-best is the people.



What a privilege to be here! Every day is an adventure. Inspire a generation. And mind the gap.