Vivid Memories Run the Emotional Gamut

It was the morning after, just before noon. Peter Vidmar sat alone outside his apartment in West Los Angeles.

He had boosted himself up onto a cement planter. His legs dangled as he waited for his wife, Donna, to return from work and ferry him across town, back to the Olympic Village and the other athletes.

It was 1984, the summer of the Los Angeles Olympic Games. But the traffic wasn’t so terrible, and Vidmar wasn’t at all concerned that he had to wait.

As he did, a telephone repairman passed by and stared a little too long. The stranger loaded telephone equipment into the trunk of his car. As the repairman returned to the building, he again looked hard at the young man.

He reappeared with a final load and slammed the trunk. Again, he turned to Vidmar. He squinted and cocked his head to the side. Vidmar met the man’s gaze, a gesture the man must have found inviting.

“Pardon me,� he said.

“Yes?� Vidmar said.

“Did,� the man began, then restarted, “uh, didn’t you win a gold medal last night?�

“Yeah,� the blond gymnast replied. “Yeah, I did.�

The telephone repairman stripped off his work glove, strode to the planter and stuck out his bare right hand.

Sixteen years later, Vidmar, now a resident of Trabuco Canyon, paused in the retelling. “These,� he said, “are the words that are going to sound corny to you.�

The man pumped Vidmar’s hand and said, “Thanks for making me proud to be an American.�

“What do you say?� Vidmar recalled. “I never had anybody say that to me. ‘Uh, you’re welcome?’ I said, ‘Thank you.’ Then he got in his car, smiled, gave me the thumbs up and drove away.�

Vidmar, who had won a team gold medal and celebrated with a restful night away from the clamorous Olympic Village, went on to win a gold medal in the pommel horse and a silver medal in the all-around at those Games.

Still, his most vivid recollections are not limited to the competitions, to the 10 he scored on the horse, or the near-gold in the all-around, or his part in the historic U.S. men’s team gold.

He had wept on the victory stand. He had repaid a tireless coach. He had felt joy for his father, himself a gymnast until stricken with polio. Just as memorably, he had allowed a West Los Angeles telephone repairman to feel it all.

“I’m not going to make this sound bigger than life, but think about our country’s history at the time,� Vidmar said. “You had Vietnam, an Olympic boycott, and we weren’t really patriotic. To have somebody say something that was overtly patriotic like that, it kind of threw me off.�

The Olympic stories bleed beyond the boundaries of the playing fields, into the experience of one athlete among thousands and one human being among millions. The stories tell of Vidmar, standing on the medal platform, searching for familiar faces, and matching their tears with his.

They are of Corona del Mar water polo player Chris Oeding, amused, helping to harbor a skulking Monica Seles during the opening ceremonies in Atlanta.

Anaheim’s Tony Okada toured Europe with his family only days after a life-altering defeat in the judo competition, seeing France from the back seat of a rental car while seething over two judges’ decisions.

Rower John Van Blom from Seal Beach befriended an East German rower who freely divulged training methods previously secured behind the Iron Curtain.

Swimmer Steve Furniss, from Foothill High, hawked his own gear in the center of Montreal’s Olympic Park to finance an engagement ring.

Gary Hall, swimmer and American flag bearer, recalled shaking so badly as he entered the stadium in Montreal that he feared he would involuntarily dip the flag before foreign dignitaries, thereby surrendering all of the United States to a delegation from Guam.

“I was worried that if I let it slip, they’d come out and arrest me right there,� Hall said. “We went down into a tunnel and it was so dark, you couldn’t see a thing. All of a sudden we could see light. Of course, the first thing that was visible was the flag. The Games were close to the United States, so the place just erupted into an incredible roar. I started shaking, it was such an incredible feeling. I was supposed to keep in time with the music, but it was hard to hear. I was hoping I was in step.�

Hall allowed himself a momentary lapse in his flagging concentration.

“I waved at the Queen of England when I passed,� he said. “I think she waved back. I’m not sure because I didn’t look too long. I was scared I would trip.�

Which, of course, would have dipped the flag and consequently surrendered the United States back to England, and wouldn’t that have been difficult to explain to the boys back at the pool.

“But,� Hall said, laughing, “I’m sure she waved back.�

Opening ceremonies seem to be a good place to meet interesting women. Not only did Hall, a swimmer from Rancho Alamitos High, share a moment with the queen, but Oeding stood with his water polo teammates while Seles hid among them.

“I thought she just happened to be in the same place,� Oeding said. “But, apparently she was hoping we’d protect her from people coming up to her, bothering her a little bit. So, shooting the breeze with Monica Seles was kind of fun.�

Many Olympians have powerful memories of their opening ceremonies because of the incredible rush of patriotism, the gushing sense of accomplishment, and, of course, the irresistible opportunity to swipe communist secrets.

A world champion and four-time Olympic rower, Van Blom met an East German rower named Uli Schmidt. During international competitions such as the Olympics, Schmidt would steal away from his delegation to visit with the Americans, and the likable Van Blom in particular.

“We’d talk,� said Van Blom, who rendezvoused with Schmidt during three Olympics. “He’d talk about what the East Germans were doing for training. We were hungry for whatever their secrets were, because they were doing so well. He’d talk about training and after he’d leave I’d write down all of these notes. He was glad to give the information.�

They haven’t spoken in 20 years. But, the last Van Blom heard, Schmidt had advanced well into the Communist Party.

Okada’s experience was far briefer than Van Blom’s. A Savanna High graduate who spent much of his young life training for the Olympics and ignoring all else, Okada arrived in Barcelona and spent a week fasting to make weight.

While the rest of the world’s athletes feasted on the Olympic Village’s free McDonald’s food, Okada lost eight pounds. And he lost his first-round match in a contested decision that he felt rendered wasteful every moment of his training.

Then he toured Spain, France and Italy with his parents, Ted and Carol. The conversational topic wasn’t the striking countryside. If it were, the glum 19-year-old in the back wouldn’t have contributed much.

“It wasn’t really too great,� Okada said. “It took a while to shake. Actually, it’s probably still there a little with me. I wanted to retire right then, but I didn’t. I stayed with it a little more. I moved up a weight class. I tried it for maybe two years, three years. After that, it wasn’t in me anymore. I just couldn’t do it.�

On that awful trip, Okada said, “I talked to my parents a lot. It hurt them the same way. And also my uncle, George. He and my dad trained me. They were all as devastated as I was. I trained all the time. It seemed like it wasn’t for anything.�

Given the chance, Okada, who works as a sorter for UPS, would sell his Olympic experience for a different memory altogether. One of justice. One of accomplishment. He’d likely sell it for the memories of Steve Furniss, a two-time Olympian and 1976 bronze medal winner.

And Furniss, in turn, might have used the money to buy a couple more carats for his future wife’s ring finger. He had finished his individual medley competition in his second Olympics, then began to consider his next rigorous event--marriage.

“I was trying to figure out ways to finance the ring and it came to me,� Furniss said. “I took all my USA gear to Olympic Park and held an auction. I hawked all my 1976 stuff in true entrepreneur fashion. I set everything down and a circle gathered around me.�

To the masses, Furniss held up an outfit and cried, “I have a USA warmup here and the bidding will start at $25.�

When it was over, Furniss had made $150.

“My mother never forgave me,� he said. “But, I already had all my gear from 1972. Maybe today I would look at it differently. But, at least my wife had something to put on her finger.�