The Olympics in Vermont

I remember only two summers when the Olympics were on during our Vermont visit, but the whole family is pretty Olympics-mad.

Ah, remember back in the day, when the summer and winter games happened in the same year? We'd work ourselves into a glut of patriotic sports glee and then wait wait wait.

The first time I remember, I was too small to care a great deal. The little television was on all day, but I only watched it when I wasn't following my busy Vermont schedule of creeking, flower-picking, tromping up and down the countryside road, swimming in ponds, chasing tennis balls around at the town court, and standing at the bottom of the hill singing.

Satellite TV was added only about 12 years ago: before that the TV only got 2 or 3 channels. Added to that, the other Olympics that I remember (which must have been the 1984 LA games, so I was 14) occurred in the early days of cable, before there were 2000 hours of constant Olympic coverage. (TiVo is the best thing that ever happened to the Olympics.)

There was no use poring over TV schedules trying to figure out what was on when: you had to just watch and hope for something good. Uncle Mike was pretty much always in front of the TV. Lissa stayed up until all hours of the morning several times, but I don't remember what sport she was watching. I was an early-morning watcher: Vermont schedules take precedence even over the Olympics, and my mid-teens were prime years for visits to the Dartmouth Bookstore and the Powerhouse Mall. But instead of eating my breakfast on Mimi & Gogo's deck, that year I was in front of the television. The US won a bajillion point 3 medals in those games: no wonder we were riveted.