Didn't watch the opening ceremony because well...not interested, but I had the TV on most of Saturday. Mostly it was on for company and noise, but I could no longer multi-task when the men's gymnastics came on.
How about those Brazilian men?? Apparently, it's the first gymnastics team they've had in the games in like forever or ever. And they did fantastic.
And watching the men's gymnastics brought back some memories. Really really 'wayback machine' memories.
Back in 1984 when the Olympics were in Los Angeles, I lived in L.A. Mom and I went and saw the torch traveling through the city! And then mostly I remember us watching the gymnastics, both men and women's.
It was the year for US gymnastics--the men's team as a whole took gold, the women took silver, not to mention the many individual medals. (Not quite as many golds there. :P)
So this post topic has been niggling at me for a while now, so here it finally is...
Who remembers the 1984 Winter Olympics, specifically the Pairs Ice Skating event. Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean performed their free-style program to a specially adapted version of Maurice Ravel's Boléro and took home the gold. If winning gold wasn't enough, they earned the highest marks ever for figure skaters in a single performance, garnering all sixes for artistic impression. A record that still holds as of this post.
I was 13 1/2 at the time of the '84 Winter Olympics and this performance is one of the few TV moments I actually really remember from my childhood.
If you're so inclined to re-watch an amazing moment in history...
The actual impetus for this post happened last year. I was on my way home from a friend's house one evening and had the classical station on. The station was airing a simulcast from Berlin and halfway home, Bolero began to pour forth from my speakers. I turned up the volume a bit to really enjoy the performance as well as the song itself. I even sat in the car in the driveway until the song finally wound to a close. The original composition lasts anywhere from 15 to 17 minutes.
The one thing I learned at the end of that performance that totally amazed me was this fact...
The song begins and ends with the snare drum and it continues throughout the entire song and by the time all is said and done, the snare drum player has performed over 10,000 beats! WOW!
Do you remember this performance when it originally aired?
Thanks for stopping by one of my little corners of the world wide web. So...a little about me: My husband and I have been married for twenty-four years and we have three adult children although one of them lives at home again. We've lived in Texas for twenty years. To find out more, click here.
After half-heartedly pursing publication for a decade, I finally took the plunge into indie-authorship and have been a published author since November of 2017. If you're so inclined, here's a list of my available books along with links to all major online retailers.
