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The advance propaganda said it would be a once in a
lifetime
event. We certainly need more of those, since
life presents far too many comes around all the time
events like IRS forms, utility bills and the cat wanting in
or out.
Thus we ventured north 25 miles to Buena Vista last Friday afternoon to watch the Olympic Torch Relay.
When it was first announced that the torch would be coming through central Colorado on its way from Colorado Springs to Vail, I had visions of high-altitude marathon runners loping across South Park in 25-mile relay legs, barely visible in the swirling ground blizzards, the torch somehow staying lit despite the roaring gales of the empty stretch between Florissant and Hartsel.
So it was something of a disappointment to learn that the torch would be riding aboard a vehicle for most of the course, and that when a human runner did get the torch, the run would be one fifth of a mile -- two or three city blocks.
As to the once-in-a-lifetime angle, later that afternoon I talked to Dick Dixon in Salida. He used to teach journalism at Salida High School, and was for many years the Chaffee County correspondent for the Pueblo Chieftain.
Seems like the torch came through Poncha Springs
once,
he said, but I can't recall exactly when.
Neither could I, so I nosed around on the Internet. The
torch came through Colorado in 1996 on its way to the
Atlanta summer games, but I couldn't find any indication
that the flaming Olympic symbol had transited the better
portions of our state.
The best guess would be 1984, en route to the Los Angeles summer games that the Soviet bloc boycotted. I couldn't find a specific route listed anywhere, but several sites said the torch passed through Colorado in 1984 on its way from New Mexico to Utah.
Poncha Springs could certainly be on such a route, but on the other hand, the twisting torch course defies all geographic logic -- there's no good reason to go through Colorado at all if you're headed to L.A. from New Mexico, just as there's no sensible reason to go through Vail if you're traveling from Colorado Springs, home of the U.S. Olympic Center, to Aspen, second home of many of rich and famous people and thus a place where publicity is assured.
I even tried plotting this year's course against a map with all known Chevrolet dealerships and Coca-Cola distributorships in Colorado, and it still didn't match. So I don't know how they determine the torch route.
As for the timing, I was impressed. About 45 minutes before the torch was due in Buena Vista, Martha told me it was time to rise from my keyboard and get on the road so that we'd be sure to be there in time.
Hell, it was a couple hours late getting to
Denver,
I grumbled, and that's a big city where they
know how to make things happen on time. The way things
usually work around here, we'll be lucky if the torch
arrives before darkness and frostbite set in.
She told me I could keep my attitude problems to myself, and we headed north. To be Olympically Correct, we drove a Chevrolet -- for all I knew, in these security conscious times, there would be a checkpoint where Fords would be turned back, and interrogation would follow if the search personnel found Pepsi cans under the seat.
For the four miles from Johnson Village into Buena Vista, pickups and spewts were parked alongside the road every few yards, with people standing outside to wave flags and enjoy the first half-warm day after a week of bitter cold.
From a supermarket parking lot, we saw a cavalcade of tax money at work -- cars from the state patrol, county sheriff and town police department. Then a big van with a platform on the back, where a video crew was capturing every footstep. And then, right on schedule, the runner with the torch, who jogged along for her two blocks, then lit the next torch, which continued north.
Buena Vista was an official lunch stop on the torch route, so there was quite a bit going on downtown, where they had set up an immense portable stage. We missed the official lighting of the official cauldron because we were trying to find an official parking place.
Finding a place to park in Buena Vista on a winter weekday afternoon is usually a very simple matter. But I've never seen a bigger crowd there -- not for the old June Fest, not for the rodeo, not for Gold Rush Days. The last time it had could have been so crowded must have been on election day in 1880, when the town held perhaps 1,200 residents, including children as well as women who could not vote then, and still managed to cast 1,092 ballots in favor of moving the county seat from Granite to Buena Vista.
At any rate, everybody seemed to have a good time
outdoors on a January afternoon, and if that's not a
once in a lifetime event
hereabouts, it will do
until one comes along.
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