Watching the winter Olympics over the weekend really took me down ol' "memory lane"... it's hard to believe that it's been four years sense we had the opportunity to experience the fun right here in our own back yard- The city never looked better...
Remember this?
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"And a Good Time Was Had By All"... PB
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[font "Garamond"][font "Garamond"][size 4][font "Garamond"][size 4]They were pretty cool. My experience during the Olympics consisted of either being on a Hat and Bat unit a mobile field force unit or a grenadier team leader with less lethal munitions. It was very cold out on the line. Mandatory OT I complained all the way to the bank on pay day. It really was a very interesting time and I am very glad that through most of it I was very bored.
The Davis County Rodeo was thought to be the next Settle Washington all over again with massive riots like at the WTO. We had over 250 local riot police and had another 400 hundred on standby about 20 minutes out and a lot more if it really went bad, not to mention the Feds, helicopters, and Military units. PETA and the other urban terrorist did not come out and play like we had expected, less than 100 came out and that is a little on the high side. They were young and dumb, they had their own medics, team leaders, scouts and were fairly organized. The biggest problems I had to deal with was one old cowboy who was steeping on the grass and wanted to yell and call out the PETA dude In the bus. We tried to bring him inside and have cup but he was content with yelling at the PETA people. We prepared for months for riots and all manner of civil unrest. While I did not get to watch much of the Games I felt very proud that Utah hosted them, and that no terrorist made it to Utah or came out to play with us. [/size][/font][/size][/font][/font]
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I know what you mean. I too have fond memories of the 2002 Olympics. I even have a fishing related Olympics story.
In 2002, I lived in Las Vegas, but my extended family lives here, so we came up for a week and watched some of the events, and stayed with my parents. On one of the days when we weren't going to an event, I went and satisfied an ice fishing craving I had and fished Pineview. Shortly after I had set up on the ice and found some willing perch, I see these guys sweeping off a section of ice nearby. They soon were done, and shortly thereafter a bus pulls up and the Danish and Russian curling teams arrive and started curling. They had already been eliminated from the official competition, but just wanted to play a "friendly" game on Pineview and did so. The Danes could speak very good English, and were cool to talk with. One guy was even a bit of an angler himself. They gathered quite a crowd and had a great time. Shortly afterwards, another set of minivans pulled up and out came these reporters with their cameramen. They made a beeline to us ice fishermen and started interviewing myself and 2-3 guys near me. There were 4-5 sets of reporters and they also for the most part were very nice. There was a reporter for the NBC Today show (Bloom) with them and we talked a little hockey. (It was
for me to hear that he died in Iraq a couple years later.) There was one crew however that was out to do a "redneck-Utahn-who-doesn't-know-the-Olympics-are-going-on" story, that came by. He was quite condescending when he talked and filmed and didn't really find out that I was neither a Utahn (at the time) and that I had in my wallet 2 tix for the men's hockey quarterfinals for the next day. He then gave me a small pin and said "here, you now have something to remember the Olympics with" I still have it next to my "jello" pin. Great times!
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