My Olympic Story Continues

15 January 2018

Landing in Pittsburgh I am picked up by family and driven to my parent’s home near Washington where I grew up. Normally, Pop would have picked me up, but of all times he was in the hospital for a pacemaker replacement. Nothing serious, the batteries were running down. He wouldn’t see me carry the torch. My memory says it was Mom’s brother, my uncle. I can’t remember. Anyhow, I had to get to the Meadowlands Racetrack about 5 miles north of town to register at the track hotel. I was carrying the torch the next day.

            When I drove to the hotel later that afternoon, I was a little early so I went to the restaurant to get a bite to eat. I had been traveling all day and I was famished. I never liked airplane food. I sat down, ordered, and waited for my meal. In the booth next to me were several people, also eating, and talking about the torch coming through town the next day. My mom, who was with me by then, reached over and tapped this really huge man on the shoulder and said “My son here is carrying the torch tomorrow”. Then the man stood up and reached his massive hand across the booth to shake my hand. That’s when I noticed he had a Super Bowl ring on. It was Dwight White, ex-defensive end for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and part of the famous Steel Curtain! He said, “Congratulations’”, and I mumbled some kind of thanks, all the while a little starstruck.

            After I came down from my cloud, I had to go to one of the hotel rooms where the torch carriers were to register. Bell Telephone was a major sponsor of the Olympic Torch Carry. When I found the room, I knocked and went in. There were familiar looking two older ladies sitting at the desk who greeted me. I said hello and told them I was a runner for the torch the next day. They asked my name. When I told them. One said to the other, “There was a young boy who worked as a janitor for our telephone company awhile back with that last name. Do you know him?” I had worked there as I went to college. It was only a half a block from school. When I told them I was that boy and now an officer in the Army getting ready to retire in a few years, we all briefly reminisced. They gave me my uniform and of course, my torch. It was beautiful.

          All-in-all, it was quite an afternoon. Later still that evening, I went to the hospital and showed Pop my uniform and the torch. He was impressed. The story continues…