Olympic Throwback 1

I am trying to get my mind around the upcoming Olympics next month. I enjoy watching the Summer Games, but the Winter Games do not excite me very much. It is especially difficult when the time zones are so different that it's like watching day at night, or vice versa.

          My favorite Olympics was 1984 in Los Angeles. That is because I was a participant. I was able to carry the Olympic Torch on its way to Los Angeles. It's an interesting story. Let me explain.

           The powers-to-be decided a way to get money to help pay for the games would be to offer people an opportunity to carry the torch on its route to the games. If I wanted to carry the torch, all I had to do was raise $3,000 and donate it to a charity of my choice. Choosing the charity was the easy part. I selected the Special Olympics. Collecting the money was a different matter. I was on active duty in the Army at the time and stationed in the Finger Lakes area of New York. I was an avid runner. So I began by contacting my family, friends, and co-workers and asked for a charitable donation. It started okay, but stalled out about halfway there. Then I was interviewed by the local newspaper. A few days after the article was published in the paper, I received a phone call from a local resident; a lady named Pat who read my story said she wanted to help. She had experience in fundraising and wanted me to see my dream come true. Well, to make the story a little shorter, we did it. But I wouldn't have without her help. I got my $3,000. But I still had things to do.

           The distance I would run would be no problem. It was one kilometer, about .6 of a mile. According to a map of the route the torch would take, it was nowhere close to where I was stationed. But it did run right through my hometown of Washington, Pennsylvania, a small Appalachia-like town about 30 miles south of Pittsburgh. And even more, the route ran right through the town on a street that ran past the college I graduated from in 1966: Washington and Jefferson College. All I had to do was simple: 1) ask the organizers to give me the part of the route that would run past the college, and 2) find a way to get to my hometown. Once I heard from the organizers that I could run the route I wanted, I purchased a round-trip airline ticket to Pittsburgh.

           I was going to be part of the 1984 Summer Olympics... (to be continued)