Shelter from the Norm: The good news is that the Olympics are nigh upon us. Finally. A spectacle — no, an oasis — almost as vast as the pit we’re all trying to dig out of. A safe and mindless distraction that doesn’t involve alcohol, opioids, or shooting innocent people. (And who among us are truly innocent?) I intend to engorge myself and enjoy the temporary illusion of community the Olympics allows. The tragedy, of course, is the world will have to wait four years — at least — before pickleball is acknowledged as an official Olympic sport. Climbing walls? Sure, no problem. Surfing? Skateboarding? Curling, even? But pickleball, tragically, will have to wait.
All this begs the much bigger question: What would Avery Brundage have thought?
Once upon a time, Brundage was a household name throughout the U.S., but especially in S.B., where he lived from 1941 — where he allegedly came in hopes of gobbling up prime coastal real estate on the cheap after the pseudo-attack on Ellwood by a Japanese submarine — to his death in 1975. Brundage chaired the International Olympic Committee from 1952 to 1972 but served on the committee going all the way back to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. To the extent anyone on the planet personified the Olympics, it was Brundage, a hard-charging purist who yoked his unforgiving zeal to the wheel of amateurism in sports.
