Word: night
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...Chilly Night in Isfahan, Iran, 1971 As my parents unload the bags from the taxi, they tell me to sit in the hotel lobby and watch over my 2-year-old brother. I don't, not closely enough, and he waddles into the street, where he is knocked down by a truck. He's fine, if stunned. My parents assure the police that any fault lies not with the truck driver but with them, for leaving a toddler with a 5-year-old. It doesn't matter. The driver is still hauled off to prison. He is held because...
...That night, my father spends hours at the police station, arguing until the truck driver is released. My dad is a law professor, not a military man, but Isfahan's finest aren't taking any chances, this being the season of the Shah's 2,500-year anniversary of the Persian empire. Just months before, the world's royals and Presidents had flocked to Persepolis - the stone city in the desert built by King Darius and sacked by Alexander the Great - to watch costume parades of ancient Persian soldiers, down Château Lafite-Rothschild 1945 and sleep on Porthault...
Usually, when you witness a bit of sports history, euphoria sweeps through the building. But when short-track speedskater Apolo Ohno finished third in the 1,000 meter event on Saturday night, giving him seven career Olympic medals, the most-ever by an American Winter Olympian, you couldn't help feel a little bit like ... "ack." Maybe it was the third-place finish. America tends to like its triumphs golden. But the truth is, while Team USA is now trumpeting Ohno as the "most-decorated" American Winter Olympian of all time, the label is a bit contrived...
Consider his performance Saturday night. In Ohno's quarterfinal heat, he sat in third place for most of the race (the top two finishers advance to the next round). With the other skaters crowded together in front of him - the athletes are so bunched up while circling around the 111-meter track, it looks like they're competing in somebody's kitchen - Ohno's quest was in serious danger. But his patience and mental acuity finally paid off. Ohno spotted an opening, and quickly slipped past Germany's Tyson Heung. If you looked down to take a sip of your...
...into second place. Afterward, Ohno said he might have won gold if the winner, South Korea's Lee Jung-Su, hadn't obstructed him. The Koreans accused Ohno of playing dirty. "Ohno didn't deserve to stand on the same medal platform as me," said Lee. When asked Saurday night if she liked Ohno, A Reum Han, a skating fan who traveled from Soeul to be at the Games, slowly shook her head. "No, to be frank," she said...