Light beer and M-16's all part of quaint settings

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© St. Petersburg Times
published February 8, 2002

ICE STATION ZEBRA -- It is cold here. It is hazy. Later there will be snow. It is so quiet downtown you can hear an M-16 cock.

Welcome to the Winter Olympics.

And, man, do I miss Tonya Harding.

The officials of Salt Lake City sort of ease into the Olympics tonight, like a skater testing the strength of the ice on top of a pond. They will start slowly, cautiously, and hope they catch your attention.

Hah. Tonya would fix all that. She would kick open the tavern of the Dead Goat Saloon and announce Utah was open for business. She'd light the torch by flicking her Marlboro into it, and if someone didn't bring her a beer with more than 3.2 percent alcohol she'd kneecap Donnie and Marie.

By golly, America would pay attention then.

Two days in Salt Lake City, and this is my view of the Olympics: It needs more Tonya. It is nice here, but it needs some edge. It is calm, but it needs some controversy. It needs the chain-smoking, hubcap-tossing, bloody-knuckle queen of the trailer park and her roving gang of idiots.

Ah, Tonya.

We still feel the same.

Not that things aren't nice here in Salt Lake, aside from the carpal tunnel syndrome I have acquired from having my hand shaken so often. I have never met a bunch of people so eager to be liked. Except for the guys with the rifles, that is.

One of the things about this job is that you spend a lot of time walking in and out of airports. I have been on a tour bus that was shaken side to side by rowdy locals in Morocco. I have stood in the freezing rain in Japan. I have eaten elk in Norway and kangaroo in Australia. I have been to Italy and Mexico and Starkville.

But I have never, ever been in a place as foreign as this. Start with the weird alcohol laws. Every sports writer I know is doing a piece on the drinking laws, although I'm not quite sure if that reflects more on Utah or on sports writers.

Evidently Utah didn't get the word that prohibition was repealed. You can buy watered-down beer in restaurants, but if you want to go into a drinking establishment you have to pay a fee to "join" its club. Happy hour is illegal. So are doubles. You get one drink at a time, and buddy, you better be happy about it.

As a nondrinker, however, I offer you this assurance: The Diet Coke is just fine. Thanks for asking.

Oh, also, there is a lot of talk about polygamy, which used to be legal in Utah. It isn't anymore. These days, if you want a lot of wives, or husbands for that matter, you have to do it the Liz Taylor way: eight in a series. You know, like ordering chess pieces from Time-Life. I did read there are 20,000 people illegally practicing polygamy in the state. It was unclear whether that is 6,666 men with two wives each, or if it is one man with 19,999 wives.

Anyway, Utah seems to be divided on how to treat such a stereotype. Half the people you meet seem to have this stern, disapproving tone. The other half are yucking it up.

There is a brew house that sells a local hooch called Polygamy Porter, complete with the snazzy caption, "Why have just one? Bring some home to the wives." A cabbie handed a friend of mine a bumper sticker Thursday that read: "Utah: Two Wife Minimum." And there is a resort that took out an ad showing a four-person ski lift with the caption: "Wife, wife, wife, husband ... why not take the whole family."

All over Utah there seems to be a similar question: How much do people here embrace the world? And how much do they keep their distance?

For instance, there are Mormons here. Maybe you heard.

In the immortal words of Brigham Young, this is the place. Back in 1847 Young was looking for a place for 14,000 victims of religious persecution. He settled here, despite the absence of fresh water and the odor of an overworked bobsledder. The next day, legend has it, Utah began trying to win the Winter Games.

So here we are. Salt Lake won the Games by showing its beautiful mountains, its can-do attitude and its accuracy for throwing $1,000 bills at anyone with a vote. Coming soon: The Juan Antonio Samaranch Mall, built on IOC Acres.

Turns out Salt Lake could use some of that money now to build a few more chicken-wire fences. Man, is the security here tight. I heard there were six security guards for every athlete, which leaves, well, none for the sports writers.

I saw a guy at McDonald's yesterday with an M-16 strapped across his back. Ha. I bet they got his order right. (Come to think of it, this may be why our biathlon team fares so poorly. Everyone who can shoot a rifle is on top of a building working security.)

There was a bit of excitement Thursday. Police blew up a suspicious looking grocery bag found in a parking garage three blocks from the media center. According to sources, the bag contained a contraband called "two bottles of rum."

What I'm saying here is this isn't Kansas. Or Florida or Tennessee or Illinois or anywhere else you're used to.

Which, of course, is where Tonya comes back in.

Say what you want about Tonya, thug on ice that she was. Yes, she recently was kicked out of her place for owing $4,500 in back rent (at that price, it must have been the nicest double-wide in the trailer park). Yes, she threw a hubcap at her sweetie (and it surprised no one she had a hubcap lying around).

But say this, too. The girl was an e-ticket. She made you look.

I don't know about you, but I wish she were here.

Besides, she'd know what to do if she ran into a terrorist. Heck, if he made her mad enough, she might even marry him.

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