ALBERTVILLE, France -- The thing about printing your own money, the bearded man tells me, is finding a place to do it. It's damn hard. You can't just build a mint, you know. Even if you do run the country.He reaches into the pocket of his blue jeans, which he wears with a denim shirt and white socks and bedroom slippers, not a bad outfit for a deputy minister of the government, and he pulls out a few bills, colorful little things with the picture of a mountain. They are signed by the "Secretary of Finance of Slovenia.""Tolars," he calls them.
ALBERTVILLE, France -- One jump. One jump. It plays on the mind. One jump. Gotta hit it. One jump. God, let me hit it! The audience can be clapping, the music blaring, filling the arena, violins and kettle drums cascading down to the ice, where the skater glides along in her sequined outfit, big smile, arms out, looking for all the world like Julie Andrews on the hill in "The Sound Of Music." But in her mind there is only one sound, one voice, one screaming order from the storm trooper in the brain. One jump! One jump!"Hit it! Hit it! Hit it! Hit it!"
LA PLAGNE, France -- I rarely go to bobsled races, because I can see the same thing at a bank robbery. Two guys in masks come running out, jump in a vehicle, duck and drive away. Big deal.But I did attend the Olympic bobsled race Sunday, because certain circumstances demanded it, such as national interest, and the fact that if I didn't go to bobsled, I had to go to figure skating, in which the ice dancerswere scheduled to do The Original Mandatory Program, which this year is . . . the polka! I am not making this up. Roll out . . . the barrel!Also, Herschel Walker.
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.
