Plymouth 2020

Mazz, a friend of mine from deepest, darkest Carver, was over the house the other day, and caught his first look at the Winter Olympics.
Where he lives – in a shack somewhere on the great expanse of cranberry bogs that stretches from the Myles Standish State Forest to Wisconsin, they have only recently been hooked up to the ‘telly-graph wires’: so the competitions in Torino were, to his eye, exotic in the extreme.
After a long day of watching mostly snow board sports, with a few glimpses of women’s figure skating, he suddenly sprang up from his perch in front of our 88-inch flat screen beauty, and announced he understood, he finally understood the criteria by which the participants were being judged.
And to demonstrate his insight, he then fell forward, doing a face plant into our vintage shag carpet.
Technically, Mazz misunderstood what was going on. But he was correct in concluding that the camera’s eye valued images of competitors falling, above all else.
The women’s figure skaters appeared to be champion fallers. The snowboarders seemed to use their butts to steer with. Highlights were rare, but mis-steps, trips, pushes, and pratfalls were shown over and over, in super-slo-motion.
I agreed with my friend’s general conclusion, but his enthusiasm also made me take another look at what I had previously considered a spectacular waste of time and money.
As I now understand - thanks to Mazz, the appeal of the modern Winter Olympics is that anybody can do what they do – stumble, fall, trip, get in fights, criticize, space out, and choke.
And if anyone can play, why can’t any town hose? And there’s no any town, like America’s Home Town.

Boy, imagine that: Plymouth, host of the 2020 Winter Olympics. Timed of course, to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the First Pilgrim Olympics - when there was only one country represented, and medals were given out a hundred or so years later, posthumously.
It could never have happened 20 or 30 years ago, when Olympic competitions were, for the most part, athletic.
But now that 16 year olds are being paid millions for doing the kinds of things our kids do in the basement - when we aren’t watching, Plymouth has a great opportunity.
Venues? We don’t need no stinking venues. We’ve got the old Armstrong Rink, and a soon to be abandoned Nuclear Reactor chamber. And most everyone else (like those crazy cross country skiers) can be stuck over in Myles Standish State Forest.
Alpine Events? No problem: a few million extra feet of ‘clean fill’ and Mt. Manomet (the former landfill) will have all the altitude we need.
The most difficult challenge we would face, as I see it, is in making these Olympics ‘Plymouth’s Games’, and not just some abstract, idealistic exercise in international cooperation.
Here I think we can take our cue from the Canadians, who managed to have Curling made an Olympic sport in time for the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010. And the Canadians aren’t done yet: they hope to have both Ice Fishing and Mosquito Swatting made demonstration sports in time for 2010.
What can Plymouth do?
Well, it is hard to rival Curling for pure cultural obscurity. We could have Candlepin Bowling on ice, but that might be expensive.
My personal favorite –a pseudo sport that combines all the falls of figure skating with the grass-growing drama of curling, is Beginning Skating Lessons.
Imagine endless hours of hundreds of four and five year olds clutching orange cones, and gingerly making their way across the ice, with the medal winners chosen by the mysterious votes of judges who tally the total number of falls, the total volume of tears shed, and the scowls of impatient fathers.
Another local sport that could make it to the Olympics is our own Parking Meter Jump –utilizing the existing downtown Middle Street lot competitors could use ramps of snow to leap from meter to meter to see who can go the longest without adding any quarters or being ticketed.
Cross-Rotary-Skiing could combine the endurance of traditional cross-country skiing, with our regional version of the demolition derby.
Outfitting our school buses with skis we could hold School Bus Relays, where competitors try to get kindergarten, elementary, middle school, and high school kids to and from school using the same bus.
For dedicated fans of the new ‘board’ competitions, we could add a slight twist. Instead of creating expensive ramps and half pipes of snow, we could just use the existing gravel operations on Beaver Dam Road.
Or for a real hot event, try half pipe competitions inside the abandoned reactor building. One fall and you’re toast!
There could also be a competition to see which country could fit the most Olympians on ‘The Rock’ at one time.
And what about a Mark Lord Monologue Competition?
Instead of the silly biathlon where skiers race around a course and take pot shots at paper targets, I’d have them ski down the re-created Leyden Street of Plimoth Plantation, build a new home for Governor Bradford, race over to the Wampanoag Settlement, dig out a canoe from a whole log, paddle that canoe over the pond to Plymouth Beach and take pot shots at Piping Plovers.
And to really boost the ratings, instead of allowing countries to choose their teams based on their athletic abilities or odd skills, I’d have the producers of ‘Survivor’, run the whole show.
That would really open up the whole Olympics, because no one would want to do too good, because they’d risk being voted out at the Tribal meeting.

I was wrong in not seeing the value of the Winter Olympics, and for that insight I owe a debt of thanks to Mazz.
It’s not just about falling down though. It’s about hyping up.
It’s about getting your turn in the spotlight, falling down, and getting paid no matter how you perform.
It’s about Plymouth 2020: A Turkey on Skis.