I met Bob via twitter (he’s a big Canucks fan) and I went over to his house last night after he invited me over to see the torch that he got to carry in the as part of the relay just before the Olympics started in February. And just how did he get to carry the torch? This is his story…
Bob called for weeks to see if he could volunteer for the Olympics. He wanted to help, he didn’t have any inkling to carry the torch. He’s got a lots of experience with events and volunteers and just wanted to be involved at that level. He continued to call and call and a couple of days before the relay, they took him up on his offer and had him schlep stuff and get things ready for the torch relay. He did such a great job, they asked him to come back on Relay day. He schelpped and schlepped some more on Relay Day. And then he heard his name being called on a walkie talkie…over and over…but it wasn’t his walkie talkie, so he couldn’t really answer it. Besides, he was too busy carrying stuff around. Finally, he got to talk on the walkie talkie and one of the organizers asked him to come talk to him. Bob went to see him and was informed 1) a torch bearer didn’t show up and 2) if the torch bearer didn’t show up in 10 minutes, would Bob like to fill in?
Can you imagine? A no-show for the Torch Relay? It never occurred to me that would happen. And that’s how Bob got to be the torch bearer. But you know what? He’s a good egg (and too modest to talk about it) so I happen to think he was just the perfect person for the job. And so does his wife, Lori.
Bob had to change into his track suit, white toque and special torch mitts (they have grippy things inside!). You can see part of the “Torch Kit” below (I didn’t take photos of the tracksuit):
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Thankfully The Torch Relay is longer than 1 day, so I had a chance to get some more shots today to make up for yesterday’s “soft focus” shots.
Today we headed down to Commercial Drive. There were rumours/tweets/pretty good information that there would be a protest not far from where Mike works. We did see a big group of protesters at Grandview Park, but not much action happening. We picked out a spot and were pretty sure we hit it right again, because we saw a woman with an unlit torch (that had been used already. The end was all blackened from the last flame.). But I lost her out of my sight and soon there were rumblings of the torch being re-routed. We didn’t know why, exactly, but assumed it was a protest thing. And there was a helicopter circling around for some time. People started walking down toward 1st Avenue and we followed once I saw one of those Relay Vans go by. We hauled it over to 1st, waited a few minutes, and soon…
Hey! Here’s the cops running. We didn’t see many of them in Burnaby yesterday. There was no Coke trucks this time. I could see the flame in the distance.
Then…
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I got this photo of a fellow countryperson and her dog patiently waiting for The Torch to arrive down Commercial Drive. So far, this is my favourite shot of the entire event. I don’t know who this woman is or the name of her dog because I took this photo across the street with my zoomy lens.
I am very grateful that I had a “take 2″ day today because we really lucked out when a local celebrity ended up being the torch bearer, not to mention some drama with a re-routing situation. I still don’t know why or what happened, but they changed the route of the torch. I’ll post those photos next.
Step 1: Find a local who really knows the lay of the land. Have her and her husband take you to the best spot.
Step 2: Stake out your spot. Stand there and wait:
Step 3: Check out the crowds and your fellow country people wearing red and waving flags:
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