Ruining The Olympic® Image

The frenzy over the '96 Olympics was pretty manic when we showed up in the summer of 1995, but it reached near-intolerable proportions by the time the Olympics actually started.  Many locals figured that the Olympics would: A. Make them all rich, and B. Put Atlanta On The Map.  There was a lot of talk about the wonderful image of Atlanta ("The City Too Busy To Hate," which seems like a pretty defensive motto, if you ask me) that the world would see on their TV screens as they tuned in to the Sharpshooting Unicycle Dancers and other events.  It seemed like my duty to lower the property values of the Olympics as much as I could, so I drove the Impala around the downtown areas as much as possible during the pre-events hype, hoping that one view of my car would undo the spin of 100 Image Consultants.  Since I lived in Decatur about 1/4 mile from the Atlanta line and maybe 3 miles from the Olympic Village (or whatever they called it), this was fairly easy for me.