In a message of , Vicki Nichols (1:114/212) (1:114/212) 
writes:
 >Jan Murphy wrote in a message to Vicki Nichols:
 >
 >JM> Did you see the closing ceremonies, by the way?  Michael
 >JM> Matz was the US flagbearer and he looked so proud and happy
 >JM> I thought he was about to bust. I thought it was rather
 >JM> nasty when some people said how convenient it was that he
 >JM> had a lousy first round so he could leave the show jumping
 >JM> early to get to the closing ceremonies.  :(
 >
 >     UNBELIEVABLE!  Like he would INTENTIONALLY do it JUST SO HE COULD BE 
 >A FLAG-BEARER???!!!!!!!
That's pretty much what I said.  I don't recall exactly where I heard the 
rumer that Mike had tanked his round on purpose, but I doubt it was from any 
of the equestrians.  
 >     No, I didn't see the closing ceremonies - it had been hell-week 
 >(just when I was so THANKFUL that JULY was over and would never happen 
 >again!) - my new puppy got a case of PARVO --- Did you know they can get 
 >Parvo evn though they have had all their shots at the proper time? --- 
Yes, as a matter of fact, I just heard about this a couple of weeks ago on 
one of the Fido animal echos.  Apparently even if you give all the shots at 
the right time, it still takes a while for the immunity to build up, and if 
the puppy is exposed before that happens -- well, you know the rest.  Sorry 
you had to learn this the hard way.  :-(
 >and then my aunt's (by marriage, but a dear friend) aged aunt died.
I just found out that one of our building managers (a very nice woman; I 
didn't know her very well, but I liked her and we had several short but 
pleasant talks about books) died of cancer recently.  Poor Mary -- she'd been 
fighting it for some time.  I'll miss her.  Condolences about your aunt's 
aunt.  Even if you know it's coming, it's still hard to cope with.
 >     Did he carry the flag ON HORSEBACK?  I believe I've owned maybe two 
 >horses you could do that on!
Maybe *that's* how he won the vote.    I've heard it said a couple 
of times that the US flagbearers are voted on by the whole team, but I've 
never heard any details of how it was done.  Yeah, maybe they thought that 
Michael would carry the flag on horseback.  That would have been cool.  
Rather too much "in your face" rudeness for a host country to do to its 
guests, though.  
Nah, Michael probably won because of his Hero status (and YES of course NBC 
had to tell the story of how he and DeeDee Alexander rescued the two kids 
when they were all in the Sioux City plane crash ONE MORE TIME).  Like if you 
were in a plane crash and you had two unaccompanied kids who were sitting 
near you, and you WOULDN'T help them get out too.  Yeah, right.  
I've known kids I would be sorely tempted to leave behind to roast, but most 
of *them* were flying *with* their parents, not unaccompanied.
--- QM v1.31 
---------------