Letters From North America by Peary Perry

Peary Perry - News Commentator

From: Peary Perry [mailto:pperry@austin.rr.com]
Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 3:37 PM
Subject: this week

My, how time flies……I was just thinking about the winter Olympics the other day and here they are again. Actually it was four years ago when I thought about them but then who’s counting? As always I make a promise to myself to really get into watching all of the events, but then my resolve dissipates like my diet whenever there is a choice of cheesecakes. I mean well, but it just doesn’t happen.

I hate cold. I mean I really hate cold. When I was in the army I was sent to Kentucky, Korea and Kansas…all cold places. These places have snow every year. Kansas was the worst, the wind came from who knows where and just cut you to the bone. I could never seem to get warm. In Korea we used diesel to keep the furnaces going when we were in the camp. You filled them up with a five gallon can. About two in the morning they always seems to run out and I’d get so cold I’d get out of bed, drag the can to the diesel tank (about 300 yards away) and come back and fill up the furnace.  Trust me; I wasn’t very quiet in doing it either. Finally I wised up and bought an electric blanket and solved that little problem. The next guy who had to go get the diesel wasn’t very quiet either. I still hate him.

Anyway, here we are back for the Olympics and I have no clue as to who the major players are. In my last article (four years ago) I suggested some new events which I thought might liven the whole thing up….such as snow bowling, Nascar racing on a snow track and finally combining ski jumping with the biathlon. None of my suggestions seemed to be taken to heart by the members of the Olympic committee, so I suppose I’ll have to try again in four years.

This year we seem to be somewhat off kilter since the events are in the pacific time zone. When you have them overseas, I think we see more of them since they are highlighted and broadcast in the evening. Who has time to watch this stuff during the day? I suppose those unemployed can do so, but shouldn’t they be out trying to find a job rather than spending four or five hours watching speed skating?

This year, the little I have seen seems to be in the time slot where the curling events are taking place. To tell the truth, I’d rather watch paint dry. I find that much more exciting.

Curling looks to me to be a version of shuffleboard on ice with brooms. What’s with the brooms? Are they sweeping the space in front because the ice is dirty or what? You never see a hockey player with a broom…well in a fight maybe, but not in a game. Oh, well maybe sometimes in a game. Hockey is a great winter game….they need to have it at the Olympics. They do? Well, so much for my powers of observation.

One last thing, the Olympic committee as well as the host cities are always complaining about the cost of these events and how much money they lose holding them. I should suggest that they are missing a bet on selling advertising space. The bottoms of the skies and snowboards should be prime spots for General Electric and Ford. The ice skaters usually wear costumes without any sponsors names on them. Look at those guys (and women…woman?) racing cars…I bet they have tattoos with Coca Cola and Pepsi  on them. Huge sums could be made by having those patches sewn onto the tutu’s and skirts of the female skaters and maybe having the men’s skates blink on and off with ‘Google’ or ‘Amazon’…..it could be big.

Back to my idea of combining events…try this...picture snow and sumo wresting. The combination of ice cold ground and large fat guys in small briefs or whatever they call those things. Boggles the mind doesn’t it? Keep thinking and send your concepts to me, I’ll group them all together and maybe the events of 2014 will be more interesting. I hear the events are going to be held in Cairo….maybe that’s not right, but I’ll check on it and get back to you.

Peary Perry 

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