Friday Evening: In Vancouver

Sitting in the club room of Jericho Sailing Center; warm, breezy, rain squalls scudding across English Bay. We cleared Blaine in five minutes – no sweat. Frank handled Winnie Bago, the sheet metal mountain, adroitly except for clipping one safety cone – a small blip to remind him he’s a mere mortal.

Not many rigs here yet. And Frank hasn’t pulled out the outrageous cowboy hats again; he says you can’t present yourself as a real RV’er without a modest cowboy hat. Frank has lost his ordinary joe designation – not for going suit but by being over-equipped. His packing is a Parkinson’s Law system – if there is a space in 30 foot Winnie Bago (I know, it’s getting smaller now but I am zeroing in on it.) he will stuff it with gear. Three ski parkas, innumerable ski pants, sweaters galore and enough shoes and boots to turn Imelda green.


Tonight we are hanging out with visitors and local sailing club members to watch the opening ceremony on a big TV. A couple from Butte, the only other State-siders; folks from western slopes of Alberta, Saskatoon, upper BC, lots of very proud Canucks. They are justly proud, applauding each aging Canadian star, standing for “Oh Canada” despite a dreadful rendition – one starchily asked an American to remove their hat – and even applauding VanOC chairman’s maudlin, cliché-packed address (“young role models,” “persistence and dreams,” “youth coming together in name of world peace” and all the other self-congratulatory clap-trap that the IOC brings out in otherwise nice, civic-minded citizens. Thankfully, the fans, host volunteers and athletes make up for all that. And Vancouver topped Beijing by being all the Chinese weren’t – relaxed, sometimes imprecise, faintly amateur and always joyful. The light effects were the best ever.

The tragic death of the Georgian luger raises questions about access to the sliding course given to foreign teams and, more, about the need for a threshold of international experience that should be applied. It was the only down note of the evening.

And now the games are open. Tomorrow? Rain and fog; will the downhill be cancelled?