CALGARY, Alberta -- I am standing in snow. My feet are numb. My nose is leaking down my face. You are in an easy chair, wearing fuzzy socks.We are both experiencing the Winter Olympics.I am the journalist.Ah-choo!Let the Games begin! Wow! Just saying it gives me chills, although, with any luck, they will go away by spring. Maybe my jaw will defrost by then. Gold medals? Silver medals? Victory? Defeat? The triple salchow? Yes. Well. Easy for you to say.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- He had the look of a man who had just walked into a bulldozer. He had the look of a man who had just skinny-dipped in the Arctic circle. He had the look of a man who had just discovered a horse's head in the sheets. Woof."Did you even know what you were doing out there by the last play?" someone asked Washington quarterback Jay Schroeder, after his team's 17-0 NFC title loss to the New York Giants."Well," he said, dizzy from a mild concussion, "I had an idea of what was going on out there."The idea was this: His team was getting killed.
MINNEAPOLIS -- I get on the shuttle bus. I take my seat. My colleague from a National League city sits next to me. He has never been where we are going. I look at him sadly. Nothing I can say will prepare him. Nothing."You look a little pale," he notices."Just wait," I say.The bus turns on a downtown street. The people of Minneapolis are swarming, as if on pilgrimage. And here is their mecca: the huge, round shape. The pastry-puff roof. The ramps like octopus tentacles. We are entering the Metrodome.Good God!
EDMONTON, Alberta -- Once upon a time, before we ever heard of them, they were best friends, two blond-haired boys skating on frozen lawns in Brantford, Ontario. Wayne Gretzky says they were seven. Greg Stefan says they were five. Whatever."We used to call Wayne 'Weener,' " says Stefan. "He was dominant even then. He'd score seven or eight goals a game.""We met when Stef joined our local tyke team," says Gretzky. "He was the best goalie around. One time, he lost his stick and dove to the ice and stopped a puck with his face mask. I'll never forget that."
Up goes the shot, down comes the rebound, in goes Bill Laimbeer."That's one," he says, grabbing it.Up goes the shot, down comes the rebound, out comes Bill Laimbeer."That's two," he says.Up shot, down rebound, out Laimbeer."That's three," he says.
This is something I've always wondered about. When a team plays a game on a Thursday -- as the Lions did a few days ago -- what do they do on Sunday afternoons?Do they watch the other games on TV?Does Eric Hipple invite Joe Ferguson and Chuck Long over to his house, and open a six-pack of beer and a box of pretzels?And what does his wife say?Does she come downstairs, shake her head and say, "I don't know what you see in that game. Why don't you do something constructive, like rake the leaves?" She couldn't really say that, could she?
MINNEAPOLIS -- I get on the shuttle bus. I take my seat. My colleague from a National League city sits next to me. He has never been where we are going. I look at him sadly. Nothing I can say will prepare him. Nothing."You look a little pale," he notices."Just wait," I say.The bus turns on a downtown street. The people of Minneapolis are swarming, as if on pilgrimage. And here is their mecca: the huge, round shape. The pastry-puff roof. The ramps like octopus tentacles. We are entering the Metrodome.Good God!
LAKELAND, Fla. -- If this were Rolling Stone magazine, the following might be titled "HERNDON -- THE INTERVIEW!" Not that you'd likely find Larry Herndon in Rolling Stone's colorful pages. He is not quite the earring and leopard-skin type.Actually, if magazines were people you might find him in Gentlemen's Quarterly. Maybe Family Weekly. Certainly not Commentary. Talking has never been Herndon's favorite activity, at least with reporters. Setting up an interview with him is not merely like pulling teeth, it's like waiting for them to grow in.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
