I went for a short walk on the trail around Evergreen Lake in - get ready for it - Evergreen, Colorado the other day, and on the way back saw the statue in the photograph on the left in front of the Evergreen Nature Center. Just for fun, I decided to have a closer look. It turned out to be a sculpture of Peggy Fleming, the former figure skater and gold medal winner at the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble. The sculpture is very contemporary in design and appropriately gold in color. But why was it here? I did some research on the internet, and found that Fleming, although born and raised in Northern California, now lives in the Denver area. It is the same old story - still another Californian moving to Colorado.
Another Olympic figure skater who has spent time in Colorado is Michelle Kwan. After she retired from skating, she attended the University of Denver, and graduated with a bachelors degree in international studies from the Josef Korbel School of International Studies. I remember seeing her once or twice at the DU Bookstore, where I was the store's Finance Manager. As I recall, the staff was all atwitter about it. And where is Kwan originally from? You guessed it - California! Do you see a pattern here? In any case, after getting a graduate degree from Tufts, she became active in politics and is now the U.S. Ambassador to Belize. Just think. If I had been smart, I could have used my tuition waiver to get a graduate degree in international studies, delved into politics, and today might be the U.S. Ambassador to who knows where? Perhaps Outer Mongolia. I hear spring is really nice there. And are they into ice skating?
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