Olympics story #1

With the Olympics starting this week I thought I'd share a few stories. I asked my youngest brother to write about an experience he had in 1984.

1984 Torch Relay
by Chuck Patton

My friend Lance and I planned a trip to Alaska immediately following our graduation from high school. We borrowed/stole Lance's dad's car and started the trek north. Part of the intrigue was leaving Los Angeles at a time when the world was making the opposite trip - to attend the Olympic Games.

We camped each night as we drove up the west coast and one morning after spending a couple nights on the side of Mt. Ranier, we made our way to the main park road only to be blocked by what looked like a presidential convoy. Several police cars, several black unmarked cars, and a motor home blocked our way - protecting the path of what we discovered was a guy running with the Olympic torch.















From Wikipedia: The 1984 Olympic Torch Relay began in New York City and ended in Los Angeles, traversing 33 states and Washington, D.C. Unlike later torch relays, the torch was always carried by runners on foot. It covered more than 9,320 mi (15,000 km) and involved 3,616 different runners, including 200 runners from the sponsoring company AT&T.

I remember feeling a lot of American pride and also being super hungry...

We were the only humans that weren't a part of the relay for miles and we found out they had a planned rest stop for the crew and runners. We parked the car and sauntered across the road - eyeing donuts and pastries. They happily shared their snacks and asked if we wanted to run around and take pictures with the torch. All we had was my crappy Vivitar 110 camera and I got a couple shots of us holding the torch...

A few minutes later they all got back in their vehicles and carried on with their journey south. We stood on the road and watched until the torch and the entourage disappeared in the distance and continued our journey north.