My journalism journey part 9

Because of my job, I got to cover many interesting things. I got to go to a Super Bowl, for one. And there were numerous state tournaments in basketball, wrestling, volleyball, track ... you name it. I went to two national college basketball tournaments, too (NAIA). But one of the most memorable trips I took was to the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

I wasn't covering the games. No, I was going as a spectator.

One day I saw an ad in the AAA magazine for a trip to the Olympics. I believe the cost was $800. It included transportation by bus, lodging, some meals, tickets to several events, side trips to the Edmonton Mall (which at the time was the world's largest mall) and the Edmonton Zoo (to see the pandas). One of the events was the opening ceremonies. I was excited. I really wanted to go. I talked about it to Dean, the publisher, and Wally, my editor, and both said it would be OK. So I put down a deposit.

Later, Wally suddenly got tickets for a trip to Hawaii for the same week. He said I couldn't get the week off. I had been paying off the trip for awhile. I got upset about it, but in the end it all worked out (and if I remember correctly, Wally and Margie didn't go to Hawaii; they went back to North Dakota on a family emergency).

The night before I was to leave, I had to write a bunch of stories so the paper could function without both editorial employees. I left feature stories, sports stories, photos, boilerplate (this is press releases sent to the paper; we used a lot of them to fill space since we had no wire). Anything else that was happening was going to be covered by our ad manager, Mick.

I was at wor****il nearly midnight and had to be ready to be picked up at 9 a.m. I do believe we left from Butte. It was a group called Senior Travel. I had decided I'd rather have a single room, so I paid extra for it. So I get on the bus and the tour leader introduces me to a young woman (well, younger than me; I was 32 at the time) who was to be my roommate.

"Roommate? I paid for a single," I said, and I produced my receipts as proof.

That flustered the tour leader. I found out why later.

We were not booked into normal lodgings. Instead of hotels, we were placed in homes of a Calgary senior citizens group. And my roomie and I were expected to share a double bed. Well, we were both, shall we say, quite hefty. I couldn't see that working out at all. When I saw those accommodations, I said I needed my own bed. In the end, it worked out pretty good.

I was sent with two men to stay with a woman named Virginia, who was a retired special education teacher. She lived in a big house atop a hill overlooking Calgary. She had only planned on housing two people but had plenty of room for one more.

She was a fascinating woman; she had been the director of special education for all of Calgary. She opened her home to us and was very gracious. She had a cute little white dog that was friendly, too.

In the morning, she was just supposed to provide us with a continental breakfast, but instead cooked us a hot breakfast to sustain us for our day. She also provided us with a box lunch (this was included). When we got home at night, she had snacks and drinks (alcoholic if we wanted).

The first day, of course, we went to the opening ceremony. It was chilly but not freezing. We got there early enough to walk around the tents and explore the area, of course looking for pins. Pins are a big thing at Olympics. I got hooked collecting pins at the Olympics (I now have a whole crate full of them).

Eventually, we got into stadium for the festivities. We had fairly good seats, well enough for me to take a decent photo of the young figure skater who lit the torch. It was just an amazing ceremony of athletics and pageantry. I remember Gordon Lightfoot sang "Alberta Bound," and there were representatives of the Native American tribes involved in the ceremony.

Later that day, we had tickets to the U.S. hockey game; our seats were in the top row. I was young then and didn't have bad knees but in not good shape to climb that high. The U.S. won, but it was a high-scoring game; not a defensive masterpiece. That team wouldn't go very far; just a few years ago was the "Miracle on Ice" but this team didn't have that same drive.

We went to ski jumping and luge the next day. We had tickets for the venue, but there really weren't any places to sit. There were bleachers for ski jumping, but unless you got there really early, you weren't going to get one of those spots. I stood at a couple of spots and tried to look over people; fortunately, there were giant screen TVs to allow everyone to see the action. That was the year of Eddie "The Eagle" Edwards, the British ski jumper with little experience who went to the Olympics. I don't remember if I saw him jump.

Half the fun at the Olympics was watching the fans. People painted their faces with the colors of the flag as they watched the luge races on the hillside. And, of course, there were pins to trade. Always pins.

That evening, we had dinner with the senior group before heading back to our homes. The next day, we had tickets for cross country skiing in Canmore. We also got to see a little of the athletes practicing for other competition, such as the biathlon. 

Even though the events we saw weren't "marquee" events, it was still fun to take a look at Olympic action and discover new friends on the bus tour. I took many photos and got them develop at a one-hour place (no digital photos in 1988) and wound up taking orders from my tour buddies, making a little money on the side. We took a nice group photo with my camera and lots of people ordered copies of that photo, I recalled.

The trip to Edmonton was nice, too. The mall, at the time, was the largest in the world and had everything. Looking back, I can see it's nothing next to the Mall of America. But back in 1988, it was something else.

We got back to Montana in time to watch the second week of the Olympics, whi*****luded a lot of the figure skating and skiing.

A few years later, I had some photos for sale at a craft fair in Butte. Some of them included photos I took at the 1988 Olympics. I had stepped away for awhile, leaving a friend in charge. He said a young woman came by and admired the photos, especially the opening ceremony one of the lighting of the torch. He said the woman asked if I had any speedskating photos.

I didn't of course. But the woman: She was Bonnie Blair, who had won gold and bronze medals. She never returned to my booth after I returned.

The Olympics always will hold a special place in my heart because of my 1988 trip.