“Don’t want to go through that again.”
“What are you talking about, the Winter Olympics here in 2002 were fantastic, one of the best experiences ever in the history of Salt Lake City.”
“Hated ‘em.”
“Loved ‘em.”
Overheard a conversation — no, an argument — the other day between two guys — friends, I think — either sitting on a city park bench or in the far reaches of my imagination, not really sure. They were going at it over the fact that Utah this week pried, if that’s the right word, another Winter Olympic Games out of the International Olympic Committee, this time in 2034, minus the misunderstandings, minus the bribes, minus the corruption, minus the ridicule and stigma of the first time around, with the possibility that Salt Lake could become a future part of a regular Olympic city rotation.
“2034, and beyond? Might not even be alive by then,” the one said.
“If you are, it’ll be a sight worth having stayed alive to see,” said the other.
“Nah. Too much hassle, too much traffic, too many people, people from other places speaking … you know, other languages. This is our town here, our streets, our canyons, our mountains, our slopes, our ice, our fry sauce, our quirkiness, our one-sided politics, our inversion.”
“C’mon. I’ve never witnessed downtown SLC so awake at all hours, it was hopping at 1, 2, 3 in the morning. For 17 days and nights, it put the ‘F’ in ‘un.’”
“Parking was atrocious.”
“There was, indeed, a whole lot of healthy walking going on.”
“Got sick of everybody dressing like — what was it, Canadians or Norwegians or members of the French Foreign Legion? So many berets, berets here, there, everywhere. I know a guy living in Sandy who grew up in Panguitch, who was raised herding cattle and moving sprinkler pipe, a countrified cowboy who said ‘was’ when he should have said ‘were,’ who wouldn’t use any profanity, but used ‘fetch’ and ‘frickin’ all the time, who once told me he threw an ‘apple car’ out the ‘core window,’ who knew more about tractors then he ever did about any of life’s fineries, who wore a frickin’ beret for two weeks during the games, and a month after them. He looked ridiculous, but thought he was all sophisticated in that getup.”
“It was the pin collecting and trading that I got into and that was a gas. Meeting folks from all over, buying and swapping hockey pins, skiing pins, skating pins, pins with moose heads on them, pins from Sweden, pins featuring foamy mugs of German beer, pins with an American flag on them. It was all the rage.”
“Wasn’t there a news story after the games ended about the thousands of condoms they found in and around the Olympic village, where all the athletes were … um, sleeping, trying, apparently, to keep one another warm during their time there?”
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