Stumbling Into Olympic History
A Marathon
Have you ever stumbled into Olympic history by accident? That happened to me 40 years ago in Freeport, Maine. Freeport and Los Angeles were linked on that day.
During the summer of 1984, I visited Maine during a vacation with my parents. One of the important stops was the town of Freeport, Maine. We’d been awaiting that stop since we left Maryland.
My parents and I wanted to visit the famous flagship store of L.L. Bean in Freeport. This is a store so famous that travel magazines write about it. Dad couldn’t wait to explore that store. He’d been devouring L.L. Bean catalogs for years. He wanted to buy clothing and supplies and also look at the displays. Like the famous giant boot at the entrance to the store. Mum wanted to buy clothing, and she wanted to help me find something, too.
But of course, we also planned to explore the town of Freeport and visit the smaller local shops. That’s where the Olympic history happened. The 1984 Summer Olympics to be specific.
A Marathon Achievement!
By some coincidence, that exact day was the moment that Maine native Joan Benoit was running in the Olympic Women’s Marathon in the 1984 Summer Olympics (which were played all the way across the country in Los Angeles that year). This was also the…
