Word: coliseums
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What were people thinking in 1932, the last time clusters of Olympic athletes paraded into Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum? The world looked more perilous then; perhaps it wasn't. That Depression year, 34 million Americans were out of work. One day after the 1932 Olympics began, Hitler's National Socialists won a plurality of seats in the German parliament. In 1932 Mussolini told his countrymen, "I foresee a long series of political, economic and military wars." And Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World. And the opening ceremonies of the Olympics came off without a hitch...
...said, "Yeah. Dolls.") The audience for the Games promises to be up a bit: 510,000 in 1932, more than 2 billion now. Saturday's show was brighter, brassier. Still the basic ceremony held its ground. All the excitement generated by seeing the stairway ascend to the Coliseum torch was merely a gloss on the fact that the torch was lighted. Everything was startling, but the same. Tunes were played. The kids marched in and out. Odd to think that 52 years from now people may look back and remark with deep wisdom: How naive they were. How mindless...
...budget or the anticipated infusion of $3.3 billion into the local economy or the 269,000 dozen cookies. One million new trees planted by a conservation group? Good for them. Nothing like a tree. The question is why. Why, as the magenta was going up at the Los Angeles Coliseum, were 7,800 athletes from 140 nations loading their gear and kissing Mother goodbye? Numbers? Here's a number. On July 28, 2 billion people of the great trembling bipolar world will lay down their washing and watch these Games...
...Duncan Atwood noted, "It was sort of like having a flash go off in your face just as you released." Mel Durslag, a Los Angeles historian for the Herald Examiner, recalled that similar worries were heard in 1958 when the Dodgers wanted to put home plate in the Coliseum's east end. A man from nearby Arcadia proposed floating a giant balloon over the west rim, thereby shading the batter's eyes, but then someone else thought of moving home plate. Deciding not to wait for any logical reversals, Atwood taped on a pair of sunglasses and beat...
...Being an Olympian is better than landing on the moon!" Al and Jackie Joyner, a triple jumper and heptathlete, went in as a family entry. Carol Lewis was hoping to make it two brother-and-sister teams in the long jump. For the Lewis family, the wind on the Coliseum floor was the only ill omen. "If there were flags out there on the runway," Carl said, "they'd all be blowing a different direction. It will be real hard to jump here unless we have a miracle and the wind decides to blow one way." But, as World...