Olympics August 6

[Lone Wolf '49]

Monday, August 6



(Please excuse the typos. Will hurry. There’s much Olympics to explore.)



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



Commute: At every Olympics, I choose one day and walk from my hotel or dorm or apartment to the Main Press Center. At Vancouver, the distance was seven miles. In Athens, it was about one block



Today was the day. I mapped out a six-mile path on city streets and through Victoria Park to the MPC. One American who had lived in London three years advised me that it would be unsafe and I was sure to be mugged. But the Brits and the tourism office in the MPC were encouraging. “Go for it.”



I figured the bad guys would be asleep at 6 a.m.



Nicki was a hero for not worrying.



It was an awesome, world-class six miles. I piddled, dallied, detoured and sat on park benches, stretching out the enchantment as long as I possibly could. With all the slacking, I got to the MPC at 9:45.



Physically, it was easy. Technically? Easy because I had a good map and got an Okie’s sense of direction. In terms of self-discipline, it was a major challenge because I had to bypass about 25 charming small bakeries. All had open doors and the aroma reached out from open doors and grabbed me each time.



My only frightening moment was when two tiny white dogs attacked in at Hackney City Park. But I talked to them and they chilled out while their owner laughed.



I left the Montague shortly after 6:30. The rain had stopped about 30 minutes before. I was happy to have a jacket. (I had taken fresh clothes to the office yesterday.)



The city was just waking up, stretching and groaning a little bit and looking for its tea. Which it found in one of those many little bakeries. Then the traffic picked up. The bicycle commuters, most without helmets, were concentrating as I would if I had to ride the wrong direction every day. I always walk or run facing traffic, of course. Here, that’s on the right side. It made me dizzy. As did looking both ways twice every time I crossed a street.



Sign: “New Traffic Calming Ahead”



Two dozen or more signs in the park: “No BBQ”



I passed pubs named “Yorkshire Gray” and “The Nelson’s Retreat” and “The Marksman” before I stopped writing down the names. I peeked in the window of the “Traditional Turkish Barber”



For my great-grandchildren to walk some day when they visit London, here was the route:



Bloomsbury Way which became Theobald’s Road, which became Clerkenwell Road, which became Old Street, then left on Hackney Road where Old Street dead-ended into St. Leonard’s Church, then Bishop’s Way, then Sewardstone Road, then through Victoria Park and out to Wick Road to Eastway to the MPC/IBM parking garage.



I stopped at the lovely ST. Luke’s Church and Hackney City Farm—where city kids get to experience real farming right in the heart of town, and St. Leonard’s, which was built in about 1740 and is just gorgeous. I didn’t try to go inside; I’ve learned not to go where I don’t belong.



One of the Brits had suggested I take a towpath along a canal, which would have been great. But I wanted to see the streets—and I would have missed stuff like the bike shop named “Look Ma, No Hands.”



Several boats lined the canal inside the park. They were shaped like submarines and looked like houseboats; some had paintings on the sides like “Bob and Sue”, “The Wanderers” and “Our Sweet Boat.” I’d like to know their story.



The park was constructed in about 1850 because the death rate in East London was higher than the rest of the city, due to overcrowding, unsanitary conditions and polluted air. The park is bigger than Hobart. I stopped for water at a little café beside a little lake that contained 50 little paddleboats. I saw the cricket fields and tennis courts and one of those “London Live” sites where people go to watch the Olympics on television.



I enjoyed watching the runners, cyclists and ducks. I loved the quiet and the green grass and the mud from this morning’s rain.



Person du jour: Mike, short salt-and-pepper hair, 55-ish, spare tire, walking his little dog, Daisy, in Victoria Park. Not a big fan of the Olympics, because he wasn’t able to acquire a ticket. “It’s like they gave a party next door and didn’t invite us. We feel left out.”



He has lived near the park all his life. “I wouldn’t know how to get on anywhere else. I don’t have any reason to try. I ran around in this park as a child; I can’t run here anymore, but I certainly can walk.”



Mike shared many things, including the fact that the Olympics has done much for the former wasteland that has become Olympic Park.



“That is a great legacy. Before, the place was like the Bermuda Triangle. Things went there and got lost forever. I was never allowed to venture there when I was a boy.”



Daisy, eight inches tall and weighing in at about eight pounds, yapped and scurried around our feet. Clearly miss Daisy felt left out of the conversation. Mike picked her up and she looked at is with nice big little-dog eyes, content. I said, “hello, Daisy” and she grinned at me because she had never heard an Okie accent. I think.

 

[Lone Wolf '49]

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

Mike asked if I liked London. Many people want to know that. Of course, I said yes because it’s true. Side note: I have not heard a single negative word about the city from journalists. Let me repeat that: “not a single negative word” and “journalists” in the same sentence.



“I like the people best,” I said.



“Right,” said Mike. “We are sincere and polite. That’s just who we are.”



He gave me directions to get out of the park, although I didn’t want to leave. It was a perfect morning, but the Main Press Centre and ticketing beckoned a half-mile away.



While I sat on a wet bench in the splendid shade to quickly scribble Mike’s comments onto my folded-up piece of legal pad, a woman with a Wicked Witch basket on the back of her bicycle pedaled by. She was pretty and dark and wore a nice-looking dress which blew in her breeze. Toto didn’t jump out of the basket, but the Wicked Witch music got into my head and didn’t leave for several hours.



Lunch: Summer sausage and smoked pork loin, courtesy of USOC volunteer Craig Bohnert.



I forgot to mention that Nicki was enthralled by the little electronic cars that carried the implements in the hammer throw from the landing area back to the athletes. She said, “I think I like ‘field’ better than ‘track.’” Yes, all you Texas people, it reminded me of Jones Ramsey.



Weather: high 68, low 61. Felt cooler because of the breeze and rain showers.



Assume you have seen photos of the LOCOG volunteers. They’re universally terrific. Their uniforms consist of two trousers, two shirts, a jacket, a hat, a Swatch and shoes. They get one voucher each day for food.



This USOC media staff works very hard during the games. Mark arrives by 8 a.m. every day, and Christie, Brittany and Katie stay up until 2 a.m. putting out the dandy electronic USA Daily that carries feature stories on the American athletes and the next day’s schedule. It’s an enormous amount of work.



The wonderful Brits are doing anything they can to touch the Olympics. The crowds at yesterday’s women’s marathon were huge. The road cyclists said the race outdrew fabulous Tour de France. Folks also pack into the various sites around town where the Games are shown live on big-screen televisions. They understand this is a fortnight that will not come to them again. They do not want to miss it.



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.” A friend told me he snuck off for a “kip”. Back home, that would be a nap.



Speaking of Shaw, on my pedestrian journey, I felt like I had often walked down those streets before, and passed many quaint, dignified places that certainly might have been 27-A Wimpole Street.



Does any reader know who lived at 27-A Wimpole Street?



We left the office about 7. The dandy barbershop singers came back to perform in the MPC courtyard this evening, but I forgot to go down and listen. Uncle Billy was smart to tie those strings around his fingers.



Walking from the Montague to dinner, we met a couple from Scotland who were eager to talk. Their son, Leo, was big for a six-year-old and he had curly blond hair. Leo didn’t say a word while we talked; he may have been warned about Stranger Danger although I doubt that sad element has migrated there.



The dad said, “Leo, this couple came all the way from America for the Olympics.”



Leo looked up and his blue eyes widened, but he said not a word.



Finally I said, “Leo, do you think we talk funny?” He grinned a grin that I will remember forever and said, “I think a li’l bit, sir.”



Dinner: Fish and chips and a German Budweiser, at the legendary hole-in the-wall “Rock and Sole Plaice” (sic) near Covent Garden. Lance B., the South Dakota boy relocated to Washington, D.C, sent us. Lance is a normal guy in every way except he was only a Rhodes Scholar and can figure out just about anything, any time, any where and can explain it while using only a small allotment of words, all of them regular. Thanks for the tip, Lance!



We sat with strangers and Craig on picnic tables outside, under a canopy which was helpful when the cold rain began.



Craig spotted a Baskin-Robbins and I had two dips of chocolate chip cookie dough because the clerk said it was the most popular. And because that’s what I always get. I felt a little silly walking into the refined Montague with the ice cream in hand, but the bellmen grinned and said it was okay.



Nicki finished her ice cream first as she always does. I ate mine in our four-poster bed and watched the Games on television. It was only 10 p.m.-an early night.



We didn’t see a single event today, except on television in the office. Yet it was one of the greatest days of my Olympic life.



What an honor and a privilege to be here! Inspire a generation. And mind the gap.

 

[ronny]

I was sure the attack of the two tiny white dogs was gonna end badly.

Clearly, he's not in America. No BBQ in the park, indeed!

This is one of the luckiest guys I've ever heard about. Every 4 years, he gets the vacation of a lifetime, free. And, 68 degrees.