loaner, and nice thing

[fflo]

I got a loaner.  At first the dude thought it might have to be a pick-up, which most people don't want, but I wouldn't have minded, despite their being a little slidy in the snow (and there's been a steady dry-crystally flurry thing all day).  But he then brought a Compass around, and when he realized it didn't have any gas in it, he got a Cherokee.  A 2017 Cherokee.  And, compared to my ("smaller") Renegade, it sucks!  It's much less roomy inside.  All it has going for it (comparatively) is more little cubbies for your sunglasses and such, and a range of speeds in the intermittent windshield wipers.

Nonetheless, it's always a little exciting to have a rental or a loaner.  Just to experience driving a different vehicle a while.  And, lately, to make me more grateful for my own wheels.


The nice thing is that a guy named Tony at the Charles Village Pub back in B-more was kind enough to send me a picture of a picture on their wall, prompted only by an out-of-the-blue email request from me.  It's a series of shots of Olga Korbut on the balance beam, gradually getting closer and closer to sitting on her own head and looking at her own heels, from the back.  I used to love to get that booth.  And, sure nuff, there underneath are, in addition to Muhammed Ali, good ol' Earl Weaver, and Brooksie next to him.  Just like I was a-settin' there.

What I like about it most is following her face.  I guess you can't see it too well, even if you click-for-bigger, but it's basically concentrate, concentrate, concentrate, concentrate, concentrate, concentrate, consentrate, SMILE.

Who wouldn't be tickled, having pulled off a totally unlikely thing like that there?
 

Comments

[lynn82md.livejournal.com]

I love Olga Korbut. Obviously, I wasn't alive yet when she appeared at the 1972 games. I learned from a documentary about the Magnificent Seven (the nickname for the first U.S women's team to get a gold medal in the artistic gymnastics team competition) and they remarked about Olga Korbut. She was the one that basically got Americans more interested in gymnastics because her gymnastics was so out of the ordinary and she seemed to defy the rigidness that the Soviet Union team was known for.

My dad got the pleasure of meeting her since during the 1972 games after the attack had happened...he had escorted her and other athletes around to protect them. He had apparently gone to the games as an alternate for the U.S archery team, but was called out to be an escort and another tour in Vietnam.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Wow, that's some history about your dad. I'm glad he didn't find out she's actually a jerk. People were way into Nadia Comăneci a few years later, what with her getting 10s and all, and Olga seemed to fade away. I was just a kid and didn't realize gymnastics hadn't been a thing.

There was a big gymnastics thing in my elementary school in Fruitland (just south of Salisbury). I never could do anything on the uneven parallel bars, and was shaky on the beam, but did manage a decent vault or two, considering I was a fat kid. I liked to joke (still do) about how my best event is spotting. Standing there waiting in case someone fell and catching her: right up my alley.