Joining the Parade

White Rock was definitely a happening place Tuesday morning. Hundreds of residents lined the streets to see the Olympic Flame during the relay. Almost everyone came with cameras in hand and dressed in the red and white of the Canadian flag.

And then there was me. I suppose I should introduce myself. I’m Myrna Jensen, assignment editor for Channel 2, turned field producer for the Olympics. Field producer mind you is a very broad term. I pretty much do anything and everything that needs doing. That’s why early in the morning I was the chauffer for Carp and photographer Mike Nederbrock as they chased the Olympic Torch. Our goal was to stop several times during the flame’s journey to get all the shots we needed. There were times when I went a few miles over the speed limit, but lucky for me the local police were a little bit occupied.

We knew the relay had almost reached the road that follows the beach and it would soon be heading out of town. As I worked my way through neighborhoods, we saw some people lining a street ahead of us and I thought to myself “good, we’re ahead of the flame”. Then I turned. Right into the middle of the Torch Relay parade. Ahead of me were several giant Coca-Cola trucks and people handing out flags. Behind me, well I couldn’t see what was behind me since the road was heading down a steep, windy hill. So there I am driving down the parade route lined with excited Canadians and hoping I could turn onto a side road and get out of the spotlight. But no. There wasn’t a single place to turn and even if there was I might not have seen it through the crowd. So I continued along the route praying that the police wouldn’t pull me over and send me back to the USA. What do you do in such a situation? Ride it out and pull out the camera. Nederbrock grabbed his camera and I pulled out the flip cam. Take a look at the story on the KTUU’s Olympic page. All those moving crowd shots were taken when we traveled with the parade.

Hmmm… next time I’ll have to remember my tiara.
-Myrna