TuI was all set to look for a jpeg to put up here.  You notice it is lacking.  Maybe I will find one.

Ever since the Winter Olympics of 1980, I have been hooked.  I dream, and some day will make this dream come true, of going to another Winter Olympics.  You see, I was at the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York.  I remember the Raybrook Correctional Facility as an Athletes’ Village.  I remember the streets of Lake Placid being closed to motor traffic and walking around like I imagine in a village in Europe.  I remember the small, sometimes high school bands playing at the medal ceremonies.  The Olympics, then, were so different than they are now.

What makes life so different that all the musical talent at Turin cannot be like the young Italian girl who sang the Italian national anthem?  What makes it necessary for professional athletes to close down their professional season for two weeks so that they can play in the Olympics?  Why is the Olympics more a marketing tool now than ever before?

I think part of the problem with the current Olympic set up is that the summer and winter games are not in the same year.  In February of 1980, the winter games opened in Lake Placid.  In the summer – I think it was July or August – the summer games opened in Russia.  The summer games, due to distance from where I was and the fact that the US boycotted them, are more of a blur.  Now that the Summer Olympics are two years off from the Winter Olympics, there are more of them.  They are not as special.