An almost life-long affair

I fell in love with the Olympic Games around the same time I fell in love with the Baltimore Orioles.

I discovered the Birds in 1966, which, of course, was a magical time for the local boys of summer. The team was amazing and the season culminated in a World Series championship. As a 9-year-old baseball neophyte, I did not quite grasp the rarity of that achievement. I just took winning for granted and the Orioles of the next bunch of seasons did nothing to dispel that notion.

A couple years later, I became aware of the Olympics. The 1968 Winter Olympics were held in Grenoble, France, and the Summer Olympiad took place in Mexico City.

The Neal household was home to a single, 19-inch, black-and-white television that sat camped out on a squeaky, rickety metal stand with wheels (the better to move around in a vain attempt to get better reception).

I remember sitting on the hardwood floor in front of that TV, mesmerized by sporting events I had never witnessed. The skiing, the figure skating, the bobsledding, the ice hockey — I was hooked and I absorbed as much as my mother and my homework demands and household chores allowed.

But more than the sporting events themselves, I remember being drawn in by the concept of this innocent global gathering. I was in elementary school, still participating in duck-and-cover drills as the Cold War raged on. To have an athletic event that gathered the youth of the world to concentrate on peace and brotherhood in amounts equal to competition stuck with me. I have always been a sensitive soul (many still say too sensitive) and my 11-year-old brain was seduced by this concept that prioritized kids as the future hope of the world.

Looking back, I realize how naive that was, and how basically untrue it was even at that time, but I latched on to what I wanted to be my truth.

I don’t remember too many specific results of those first Games of mine, and the memories I do have are probably more media-induced than actual remembrances. I do remember seeing Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise their black-gloved fists on the medal podium, but didn’t understand the political significance of it at the time. There were many memorable American athletes, including Al Oerter, Bob Beamon and Dick Fosbury. I would be taught the Fosbury Flop just a couple years later in junior high school.

In France I — along with the rest of the world — fell in love with Jean-Claude Killy. He won all three alpine skiing events (downhill, giant slalom and slalom). I admit to having to look that up. I didn’t remember the results; I just thought he was amazing.

And for the record, Peggy Fleming won the United States’ lone gold medal. Yay women!

Four years later, in 1972, my heart stopped as the Olympic Village was the site of a terrorist attack carried out by members of the Palestinian terrorist organization Black September. Two Israeli athletes were murdered and nine others were taken hostage. Those athletes were all eventually killed by the militants.

So just four short years after discovering the games that were meant to bring the world together in the name of peace and honest competition, that image was shattered all to hell with the unthinkable.

So much has changed within the Olympic movement over the years that it barely resembles that ideal I fell in love with as a sixth-grader. The amateur concept is long dead and buried. College kids who used to dream of the Olympics being the feather in their athletic caps now don’t stand a chance in many of the sports that used to feature them — ice hockey, basketball, soccer, tennis and the like. Professional athletes win Wimbledon one month and Olympic gold the next. Training for the Olympics has become a full-time profession for many, including hundreds if not thousands of kids who train but never make the team.

But in defense of the professional movement, it almost had to happen, if nothing else to level the playing field. When the Olympics were supposed to be an amateur showcase, there were always countries who identified children at very young ages as potential winners, took them from their families and set them up in what were essentially Olympic training camps designed to produce winners. There were the countries that openly paid their “amateur” athletes and those that were notorious for illegal doping to gain unfair advantages. Doping remains an issue but at least the professionalism is out in the open.

 The loopholes couldn’t be closed or properly policed so they were cut open for everyone to drive through.

But here is the one thing I do remember most clearly from those early Olympiads. Before I even had an inkling that a journalism career could be on the far-away horizon, I was in awe of the broadcasters. This was the era of ABC being the absolute king of sports broadcasting. The network owned the U.S. Olympic broadcasting rights and also was home to the incomparable Wide World of Sports.

I could have listened to Jim McKay 24 hours a day. He was the face of the U.S. Olympic broadcasts from 1968 through 1988, after initially anchoring the 1964 Innsbruck Winter Games. In 1972, he held the heart of the world in his hands as he remained on the air for 14 hours, trying to keep people as informed as possible throughout the Munich tragedy.

In those early years, women announcers were rare and female anchors were non-existent. Donna de Varona called swimming events. Kathleen Sullivan was named a daytime host for the 1984 Games in Sarajevo and Los Angeles, becoming the first woman in my experience to have such a prominent role. Keith Jackson and McKay hosted the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, as ABC’s reign came to an end. NBC has been the main Olympic broadcaster since the Summer Games in Seoul (the exception being CBS in Nagano in 1998).

So, in letting my memories roam, I see that I am as drawn to the Olympic movement as much for the storytelling as I am the athleticism and the still hopeful philosophy of gathering the world’s youth in peace and brotherhood. I have broadcasting heroes and sports heroes and I’m sure these Milano-Cortina Games will create even more.

I’ll keep you posted.

 

A little bit of whimsy

In my humble opinion, 2026 is not off to a good start. Our current affairs have me, for the absolute first time in my life, terrified. Over the past year, I have written — in my head only — any number of essays regarding the behavior and actions of the administration “leading” our country.

Those ramblings have not been committed to documents and published for a variety of reasons, procrastination and my rather thin-skinned condition chief among them. But perhaps the most important reason is simply that daily events consume enough of my brain, my emotions, my outlook and my overall mental health that I don't need to consume space here rehashing what we’re all living.

So I come here today with a bit of whimsy and some pride in and appreciation for the workmanship of Thun, an Italian pottery company.

I ordered an Olympic coffee mug recently and received it this week. As simple and as silly as it may sound, I absolutely marveled at the quality I discovered upon unboxing it. I can’t really explain it, but this mug hits it out of the park in every category I could create, should there ever be an Olympics for coffee mugs. 

Thun porcelain mug featuring Tina, the mascot of the Milano-Cortina Winter Olympic Games.

First, the vessel is downright adorable. It features a panoramic image that stretches around the entire cup. The artwork is a hand-painted watercolor of a village scene and incorporates the Milano-Cortina logo and Tina, the Olympic mascot who, by the way, is an ermine, should you wonder. The inner lip of the mug is emblazoned with “caffé al volo,” which translates roughly to “coffee on the fly.”

Secondly, the mug feels luxurious in my hand. It’s porcelain, as opposed to earthenware, and just feels elegant. It is smooth and glossy with nary an imperfection. It’s just glorious. High praise for a coffee mug, I know, but there it is.

Thirdly, it’s a nice size that fits well when I wrap my hands around it to borrow the warmth of a fresh cup of brew. In the words of a famous children’s story, it’s not too small and not too big but just right.

But perhaps the coolest thing was the care obviously taken in packing the mug for shipment. The sturdy, attractive mug box was wrapped in protective paper, nestled into the shipping box and then immobilized with more packing paper. So it arrived in perfect condition, something I can rarely say about Amazon deliveries.

Also included in the mug box was a little pamphlet about Thun, the mug manufacturer. I found it refreshing to have an item made by a company with enough pride in its products to actually claim ownership. Instead of “made in China” on the bottom of the cup, this beauty was imprinted with “Thun.”

So of course I had to do some research. And of course I learned new information.

Thun pottery, founded in Bolzano, Italy, in 1950 by Countess Lene Thun, is known for its whimsical hand-painted figurines and housewares, according to online sources. It is not to be confused with Swiss Thuner Majolica, ceramics produced in the Thun region of Switzerland during the late 1800s and early 1900s.

I guess I’m trying to say we have to find pleasure any way we can these days. We have to take the time to see the small things; to acknowledge and appreciate mundane items and events because they help us stay grounded and allow us to be distracted, even if just for a brief moment, from the hell unraveling around us.

So I’m going to enjoy my morning coffee in my new mug as I continue my countdown to the winter Olympiad.

And I’ll save my rant about the ridiculous duty charge added to my order from Italy, caused by the tariffs imposed by You Know Who, for another day!

Kumbaya

I just can’t stop thinking about the missing youth campers in Texas.

Anyone who has been lucky enough to experience summer camp knows it is a special time. Magical, even. A brief slice of time during summer vacations that we didn’t realize would come to a screeching halt once adulthood set in. Whether your family could afford to enroll you in just one session or all of them, you knew you were lucky and embraced every moment. Each summer, that time spent with bunkmates and counselors you idolized was priceless. Each summer’s memories built upon those from the past. You looked forward to seeing old friends from previous years as much as you anticipated making new friends.

In well-established camps, a hierarchy is formed, with younger kids being assigned to certain camp sites and bunks and older kids to different areas. Each summer, you would anticipate moving up an age group, getting assigned to a more prestigious cabin or perhaps lucking out by getting everyone’s favorite cabin counselor.

Many campers start young, work their way through all the age groups and then become counselors-in-training and eventually full-fledged staff. And I can tell you from experience that staff members cherish their camp time as much as the campers, and we build and maintain just as many, if not more, special memories as the summers begin to fade into each other. To say a sense of family develops is an understatement.

I was not able to attend camp as a kid, so I made up for it by working as both a summer playground leader and then counselor, assistant director and director of an eight-week day camp.

It is with that experience and those memories behind me that I am so consumed by the tragic deaths and catastrophic damage caused by flash flooding in central Texas.

As is being well-reported by news outlets, the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in just 30 minutes. And because nature doesn’t adhere to a eight-hour work day, the river rose at 3:30 in the morning, when most people were sound asleep. There was no time for evacuation orders and no time to react.

At Camp Mystic, a girls Christian summer camp situated along the Guadalupe, many campers are still unaccounted for and presumed dead. Cabins along the river were washed away, and most surviving campers were those housed in cabins on higher ground, according to news reports.

At Camp Heart o’ the Hills, also along the Guadalupe, the outcome was a little better, at least in terms of lost lives, thanks to an administrative decision made several years ago to not have camp in session on July 4. While campers were not staying at the camp at the time, staff and administrators were. Camp co-owner Jane Ragsdale was killed while trying to assist her staff in getting to safer conditions, according to many news outlets. The camp’s Facebook page has been inundated with emotional tributes to Jane, posted by campers from the past five decades.

Heart o' the Hills Camp director Jane Ragsdale.
Facebook photo

Judging from the comments shared, combined with the numerous photos and videos posted, Jane was a saint on earth. Her father was a camp owner and director so she grew up in the camping community; it was in her blood, She attended camp as a child and worked at camps before buying her own. Jane had a positive impact on countless girls, many of whom paid tribute on Facebook.

“She was one of the first people in my childhood who truly saw me, loved me and guided me,” one former camper wrote. “It was at camp that the person God created me to be truly came alive.”

Another wrote simply: “Heart camp girls we’ll always be. Till we meet again.”

“She was the heart of the Heart,” according to many commenters.

Jane Ragsdale was just one of many caring adults who devoted their entire adult lives to providing a childhood rite of passage to thousands of children, as well as being a mentor to hundreds of young people working their first jobs.

Dick Eastland, who had owned Camp Mystic since 1974, also died when his camp was swept away.

“Camp Mystic’s Dick Eastland no doubt gave his life attempting to save his campers,” a Texas politician wrote on a social media outlet. “For decades he and his wife Tweety poured [their lives] into loving and developing girls and women of character. Thank you, Mr. Eastland. We love you and miss you."

My heart goes out to the camp workers, especially at Mystic, where so many young lives were lost. I know from my experience, I was always counting heads and was constantly aware of where my assigned kids were at all times. No one went anywhere alone; the buddy system was real! Whether in the swimming pool or locker room, on a hike through the woods, making sand candles along the bank of the creek or sitting at a picnic table working on crafts, I was counting heads. When we hiked in the woods or traveled to a different part of the camp for an activity, there was a counselor at the front of the group and another behind the last kid. And when the inevitable happened, like a skinned knee or a bee sting, I always wondered if I could have prevented the incident.

Camp Heritage, where I worked for four summers, was a day camp with four two-week sessions each summer. Every two weeks, an overnight campout was held the second Thursday of the session. We pitched big cabin-sized tents on the athletic fields and each unit got two tents, one for boys and one for girls. Even with all the tents visible and on a wide-open field, there were those of us who didn’t sleep all night. Administrators huddled at picnic tables under a gazebo that sat on a hill overlooking the field and eyes watched those tents all night.

In short, folks in charge of kids, whether in school, summer camp, day care, church or sporting events, take their responsibilities seriously. Parents will mourn these lost children until their own deaths. But trust me when I tell you those camp workers will mourn those children until they too take their final breaths.

The summer camp experience will never be the same for any of the people involved. What is supposed to be a carefree youth experience will now and forever elicit horrible memories. Images of destroyed campgrounds with be interspersed with images of happy-go-lucky children — singing songs around a campfire, kayaking on the river, riding a horse, or performing in a skit — who didn't return home one summer.

My heart goes out to all the parents, grandparents, siblings and other relatives, friends and neighbors who lost family members, colleagues and young charges. Their lives will never be the same. They will carry this with them forever.

But I care equally for all the surviving camp workers, many of whom are young themselves. A catastrophic event like this, in addition to taking lives, can permanently alter the life paths of the survivors. Some will take it and become stronger, more resilient. Others might not be so lucky; their lives may forever be weakened or perhaps even derailed after experiencing such a tragedy.

I am hoping the tightly-knit camping community has already put its arms around the people of this central Texas area. Campers are a special group and I hope the magic and love of that community can help the healing begin.

A salad by any other name

A salad by any other name is still a salad. There. I said it.

I of all people understand the need to beef up language; to put new, trendy, hip labels on time-honored (read old) items and concepts. I understand marketing and the commercial need to cater to the demographic group that’s out there spending the money, driving ratings and spreading the word through social media posts and reviews.

And I fully acknowledge that I am no longer a member of that desired demographic. But that doesn’t mean I have to like the trend of renaming things that have existed under another label for decades, if not centuries. Doing so is the equivalent of renaming your 16-year-old dog, expecting him to suddenly respond to “Cooper” because “Rex” is no longer “in.”

Few, if any, words in the English language have a singular, dedicated definition. With this week in mind, take the word “hot” as an example. It can mean extremely warm, stolen, electrically charged, spicy or sexy. Context determines the intended meaning — or at least we hope so — so conversation participants are on the same page, so to speak.

One of the recent linguistic appropriations that has driven me crazy is the use of the word “hack” when offering instructions or suggestions for how to do something. Apparently, the phrases “helpful hints,” “useful tips” and “shortcuts” are no longer good enough when it comes to sharing knowledge and experience. We have camping hacks, cooking hacks, gardening hacks — you get the picture. And the joke is that most of these "hacks" are time-honored, well-known helpful hints that we had in our life tool boxes as we grew up.

Interestingly enough, “hack” is another word with multiple meanings — most of them negative. You definitely do not want your computer or any other digital device hacked. You should use caution when accepting a ride from a hack. You do not want your lawn guy to hack his way through your carefully cultivated bushes and trees. As a writer, I would probably cry if someone referred to me as a hack. And while writers in particular are often referred to as hacks, it’s a label no worker, regardless of profession, wants. Unless, of course, you're a hacker and proud of it.

So now, hack means helpful hint. OK. Whatever.

But what brings me here today is the use of the phrase “sub in a tub” to describe what we old people call a salad. I get that carbohydrates are the new enemy of the people and those nasty things are to be avoided at all cost. So sandwiches, hoagies, submarine sandwiches and even wraps are out and “subs in a tub” are in.

I know this is not an extremely new marketing effort. The phrase has been around for a while and I have giggled before at the gullibility of consumers willing to pay $15.99 for a $5 salad simply because it has a hip, new moniker.

Recently, because I apparently clicked on an article about or a “recipe” for a tub concoction, I have been inundated by social media posts from a variety of cooking, diet plan and wellness groups extolling the virtues of the sub in a tub.

"Sub in a Tub" from Mediterranean Diet and Recipes for Beginners group on Facebook.

A recent salad made by the author. 
Photo by Marge Neal

Again, I understand the marketing value of renaming salads to appeal to a new audience of consumers. What has me absolutely cracking up over this are the comments people publish on these sub in a tub posts.

Below is a collection of honest to God real comments posted by folks responding to the pretty pictures of salads in plastic food containers:

“OMG! This looks delicious! Can’t wait to try!”

“Where did you get the containers and lids from please? Can’t wait to try this. TY.”

“Looks good.”

“I’d love to try this. Can you share your recipe?”

For real? People have never before seen a salad and think it's a new thing? Can't wait to try it? Were you born yesterday? Have you been living in the proverbial cave, eating sticks, nuts and berries (which, now that I think about it, was probably mankind's first salad)? And do you really need a recipe? Geez!

To be honest, the comment section also includes discussions about reinventing the wheel and pointing out the bowls of assorted ingredients are, in fact, salads. Here are some of those debate comments:

“Wouldn’t that be called a salad?”

“Technically it is a salad. They just decided to be innovative. LOL.”

“These people nowadays they can’t come up with a new movie they just keep making the old good ones and messing them up most of them and what used to be  chef salad is now sub the tub.” (Lack of punctuation and poor grammar is the work of the original poster).

“Call it what you want. It looks delicious. Count me in.”

“It’s a chef’s salad.”

“Chef salad doesn’t have pepperoni or salami.”

“A salad by any other name is still a salad.”

“What’s your point? It’s named this and it’s cute. Downer!”

And so on and so on.

There’s no doubt the word “salad” covers a wide open territory with much room for interpretation. There are lots and lots of named salads (Greek, Chef’s, Cobb, Caesar, Waldorf) and probably just as many unnamed concoctions whipped up in kitchens across the country that are probably never the same two batches in a row. I quite often make the “clean out the refrigerator” salad, using up the last remnants of veggies, meat, cheese, hard-boiled eggs and anything else that’s just this side of being a science project.

Depending on my mood and patience level, I will slice green and black olives, chop up walnuts, cut strawberries, watermelon and cantaloupe and grab a handful of sunflower seeds for a salad. I’ve been known to add dried berries, bacon bits, granola, grapes and that last mandarin rolling around in the bin. In other words, pretty much anything goes in my house. There are no salad rules. Well, I guess there is one rule: I call a salad a salad.

(Please note that I didn’t muddy this debate by bringing up the mayonnaise-based recipes labeled as salads: potato, pasta, shrimp, chicken, tuna, etc. I guess those could be a topic of discussion another day.)

Regarding “sub in a tub,” I’m guessing perhaps there are new generations that refuse to eat their veggies and these new labels make salads look trendy and innovative. But if there are people in this country who turn up their noses at a salad but fork over big bucks for a “sub in a tub,” well, bless their little hearts.