February 23, 2010
Mike was having one of Those Days when things just start sliding downhill and snowball into a big pile of "ugh." Looking for a happy diversion, I asked whether it was a trivia or newspaper-reading day in the Activity Center, and he grumbled something about a biathlon.
A biathlon? Oh—a biathlon! Of course! The Olympics! I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten the Olympics! I’d been looking forward to this since I first saw the February activities calendar: The Recreation staff is putting on its own 2010 Games in the nursing facility, complete with opening and closing ceremonies, engraved medals, "Orting Olympics Judge" T-shirts—and cowbells. Monday was curling; today was the biathlon.
The Activities Center, now under a giant "Winter Olympics 2010" banner, had become a biathlon course. One at a time, contestants had to fire a cork-shooting toy rifle at a target, wheel (or be pushed) through a slalom course of orange cones, shoot at another target at the other end and race back through the crepe-paper finish line. Judges tracked their times and awarded points for target hits.
Spectators crowded both sides of the course. The official Olympics theme played. A couple people clanged cowbells, and everyone clapped for everyone.
One guy twirled his arm like a "woo-hoo" lasso as he was pushed through the course, then waved his hat in triumph at the finish line. Another guy broke through the crepe paper with his chin—and the judges quickly lowered the finish line.
Course times varied wildly—as far as I could tell, my Valentines Dinner escort Vern clinched the gold with a blazing time of just over 30 seconds (since he doesn’t usually use a wheelchair, he had to borrow one to ensure fairness). A few other folks were within seconds of that, and some times were up over a minute, but it really didn’t matter. It was just fun.
One older man had a little trouble at the rifle stage and was taking quite a while to line up his shot. Mike leaned over to me and smiled. "And we won the war?" he said. I laughed out loud, not just because it was very funny, but because in the middle of That Kind of Day, now Mike was laughing, too.
Just another gold-medal moment for the Orting Olympics.
Mike was having one of Those Days when things just start sliding downhill and snowball into a big pile of "ugh." Looking for a happy diversion, I asked whether it was a trivia or newspaper-reading day in the Activity Center, and he grumbled something about a biathlon.
A biathlon? Oh—a biathlon! Of course! The Olympics! I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten the Olympics! I’d been looking forward to this since I first saw the February activities calendar: The Recreation staff is putting on its own 2010 Games in the nursing facility, complete with opening and closing ceremonies, engraved medals, "Orting Olympics Judge" T-shirts—and cowbells. Monday was curling; today was the biathlon.
The Activities Center, now under a giant "Winter Olympics 2010" banner, had become a biathlon course. One at a time, contestants had to fire a cork-shooting toy rifle at a target, wheel (or be pushed) through a slalom course of orange cones, shoot at another target at the other end and race back through the crepe-paper finish line. Judges tracked their times and awarded points for target hits.
Spectators crowded both sides of the course. The official Olympics theme played. A couple people clanged cowbells, and everyone clapped for everyone.
One guy twirled his arm like a "woo-hoo" lasso as he was pushed through the course, then waved his hat in triumph at the finish line. Another guy broke through the crepe paper with his chin—and the judges quickly lowered the finish line.
Course times varied wildly—as far as I could tell, my Valentines Dinner escort Vern clinched the gold with a blazing time of just over 30 seconds (since he doesn’t usually use a wheelchair, he had to borrow one to ensure fairness). A few other folks were within seconds of that, and some times were up over a minute, but it really didn’t matter. It was just fun.
One older man had a little trouble at the rifle stage and was taking quite a while to line up his shot. Mike leaned over to me and smiled. "And we won the war?" he said. I laughed out loud, not just because it was very funny, but because in the middle of That Kind of Day, now Mike was laughing, too.
Just another gold-medal moment for the Orting Olympics.
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