What a little chewing gum will do when you need to see the Olympics
Brian Williams, usually the anchor and managing editor of NBC News, weighed in on the power of chewing gum as a solution to watching the Olympics at the airport in an amusing piece he wrote for yesterday’s The Post-Standard in Syracuse, New York.
In the piece, he describes a college tour of up-state New York colleges that his wife and son was taking, and their hopes to watch the Olympics at the Syracuse airport, at a time when (and you know this if you’ve traveled by air) all screens were tuned to CNN. It was very nearly a futile effort, described at length in the piece “Insurrection in Syracuse” until his son turned MacGyver and saved the day. Here are some of the details, including the all important introduction of chewing gum as part of the solution:
My wife apparently appealed to the airport management (in the most polite way) and was turned down at every turn in her quest to have just one television set tuned to the games. The only other television, in the airport bar, was apparently not up to the task. Telephone calls were made to city officials. The crowd of viewers who wanted to see the Olympics was peaceful and civil, but growing and insistent. There was no effort to light torches, pillage or scare the good townspeople of Syracuse - but it was close. The answer to the telephone inquiries came back saying the “Syracuse Commissioner” (is that the same as “Theodoric of York” or the “Chancellor of the Exchequer?”) had turned down the outlandish and highly unusual request to change the channel, saying the city had a binding contract with CNN.
I’m proud to say that this is where the story took a turn. My 17-year-old son, showing the resourcefulness of an infantryman, literally used chewing gum to affix a coaxial cable to a TV monitor they discovered in a children’s play area in the airport lounge. It was a vintage color TV, and it was a scratchy local cable signal, but slowly a crowd formed to watch the Olympics. My family had skirted the law. Risking certain arrest as dissidents, they watched Phelps swim. They watched gymnastics. They boarded and were able to watch the Olympics on NBC on board Jet Blue all the way home to New York. The Syracuse airport, combined with Mother Nature, tried to defeat them. They won. Way to go, honey. Good job, son.
We hope to see you from Beijing for tonight’s broadcast. If you’re in an airport and can’t seem to see our broadcast, I hear chewing gum and cable might work.