CURMUDGUCATION: I Have One Good New Years Story

CURMUDGUCATION: I Have One Good New Years Story

I Have One Good New Years Story

New Year's Eve is not one of my favorite holidays, and some of them have been downright unpleasant, but I have one good story. It involves the Olympic torch.

This was the route. I wasn't kidding with "circuitous."

Back on New Year's Day of 2002, the Olympic flame was on its way to Salt Lake City, and on its long circuitous route out West, the flame passed through Erie, Pennsylvania, which is just up the road from me. On New Years Eve I packed it in early and was in the car early the next day to take my turn at carrying the torch.

My leg didn't come until a little after noon, but torchbearers had an early call for training. We had received much of our info in packets well ahead of time, along with our official torchbearing outfits, which were comfy and warm and remarkably free of any commercial elements (and one of our requirements was to keep them that way). I did in fact have a corporate sponsor (Coke and Chevrolet split the torch run; I was a Coke guy).

The operation was run by twenty-somethings who had taken time off from work to run this cross-country operation; our host was a guy named Steve who had left a job he'd been at for four years CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: I Have One Good New Years Story