July 24, 1996
Imagine: World without limits
By CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD -- At The Olympics
ATLANTA -- I heard O Canada for the first time at these Olympic Games yesterday at 12:15 p.m. I was sitting on a bench outside the Coca-Cola Olympic City, and at the first strains of our national anthem, my heart swelled with pride and I could feel moisture on my cheeks that I actually thought, for an instant of madness, might not be sweat.
Then I realized that the anthem was coming from the fake stadium which forms the entrance to the Coca-Cola Olympic City (rather in the manner of those made-for-the-movies storefront facades they used to use to recreate the old west) and that the cheering I heard came from the fake spectators whose cardboard faces, a careful mix of ages and races, fill the fake seats in the fake stadium.
I promptly faked outrage, but no one noticed because by then, at the fake stadium, the bogus spectators were cheering The Star-Spangled Banner. Unlike the real crowds in Atlanta, which are shamelessly if understandably pro-American, this bunch cheers equally for nations other than the United States; God Save the Queen came on at 12.35 p.m., and the cardboard throng gave it a rousing welcome.
Later, I went into the Coca-Cola Olympic World itself. I wish I could say I paid the $13 entrance fee in counterfeit bills but I didn't. Feel What It's Like is one of the slogans in Coke World; I'll tell you what it feels like. It feels like you've just been robbed of $13. We Speak Refreshment, read signs all over the grounds. Well then, I replied under my breath, Up Yours Cooly.
As I left, I heard O Canada again; it plays at the 15-minute mark of every hour.
I ended up at Coke World because on my way into Centennial Park, which is not a park but a large outdoor product-fest set up downtown between Olympic venues, I ran into the Frederick Douglass High School Band, whose majorettes and twirlers were dressed in long-sleeved, gold-glitter outfits and white gloves.
Douglass is clearly an all-black school, likely by dint of the fact that all the whites in Atlanta live outside of Atlanta, which is a pretty cute way to keep segregation going, and these were majorettes like I have never seen before - a group of the most lovely young black girls, all high-stepping, pelvis-grinding, langorous-moving, neck-lolling, head-rolling, come-hither twirlers in the world.
Behind them was the band, whose members wore the school's long black dress pants, white plastic spats over black runners and white gloves with the fingers cut open so they could play their instruments, and gold T-shirts, and behind them came another herd of twirlers.
I followed the Douglass band around for so long I was getting sideways glances from Janette Kinney, one of the chaperones whose son Wendell plays the trumpet.
I put her at ease when, quoting Kodak, official film of the Games, and trying to explain my life philsophy, I told her, "One moment, one chance." Well, at least she didn't call the police, who would have taken anywhere from, oh, five to 10 seconds to arrive and cuff me. There are so many cops in Atlanta that I, noted friend of all in uniform, have started to openly curse at them and make cruel bacon jokes. Out early yesterday morning on a brief run, an officer politely stopped me from wandering into one of the forbidden areas reserved for sponsors or other just plain filthy rich folks. "This way, ma'am," he said nicely. I shrieked, "Why don't you just shoot me?" Soon, I will be mistaken for Rosie DiManno of the Toronto Star. No justice, no peace.
But back to the Douglass band, which I was still following when I slipped into full sensory overload.
At the time, the band was playing a jazzy version of Are You Ready?, a plane was skywriting a lengthy message which I believe was a 900-number sex line, and I was walking on a road whose bricks were bought by Georgians, who then got to have their names put on the bricks. When I looked down, I was stepping on Chelsea Carter of Plains, Ga., and I went into a panic trying to remember if Chelsea was the name of former president Jimmy Carter's daughter or just the name of current president Bill Clinton's daughter. In any case, it was a bit creepy, like walking on a grave. I tell you only because, as they say at AT&T, it's important to Share the Experience.
I should be used to all the stimulation by now because, at any given time in Atlanta, wherever you are, there is at least one blimp in the air and a couple of choppers and sometimes, as at the women's road race the other day, as many as seven hovering about at the same time. It's so bad that I have begun to have flashbacks of 'Nam and the fall of Saigon despite the fact I have never been there.
Atlanta is America in overdrive, America on steroids and why not, everyone else is. Even Jesus has to advertise here. "Cry out," read a T-shirt a teenage boy was wearing yesterday. "He's listening. Exodus 22:23." I'm not so sure. I know the Lord works in mysterious ways, but having attractive young people from the Calvary Assembly of God hand out free Interactive Pocket Guides to the Games, and expecting that folks will notice the More Than Gold section inside is just a tad optimistic, I suspect.
AT&T, in billboards all over the city, asks, Imagine A World Without Limits. I have. It's Atlanta.
