Four years ago, the place in world I love best -- along with my birthplace and the town of my residence -- hosted the Olympics. Suddenly, it all seemed like so much more than figure skating, slalom and luge ...
I have a special affinity for the Piedmontese capital city of Turin, with its Parisian-style boulevards and very un-Italian street grid. Visiting in 2004 and 2005, I couldn't miss the preparations for the 2006 Winter Olympics there.
How could I? Streets were cut and covered to drop a new two-line subway in place. Piazzas got tune-ups, Olympic buildings were built and other structures were renovated and repurposed. And, more than anything, there was a BUZZ.
The city was alive with the excitement that comes with planning and hosting an event of epic proportions and everyone, it seemed, was talking about Le Olimpiadi.
And the talk has continued long after the games left town. I recently read a novel set in the city during the games, for example.
I wasn't there during the games, but watching the coverage on TV brought me to the cafes of Piazza Vittorio and the porticoes of via Po and via Roma. Cutting to commercial breaks, there were shots of the medieval village on the Po River and the Alps that line the horizon west of the city.
Bookstores suddenly -- for the first time in recent memory -- had guidebooks about Turin and Piedmont. Magazines featured the host city. Journalists discovered bicerin (Turin's unique hot chocolate) and the city's baroque treasures.
Every day friends e-mailed me with news, photos and personal experiences and I compiled many of them into a blog here at OnMilwaukee.com, offering readers something that no other media gave them: a first-hand look at a city overtaken by Olympic fever.
I watched the games, more than any previous Olympics and while looking for glimpses of a town (and the surrounding cities like Sauze d'Oulx, Susa and Pinerolo) I feel a little is like my own, despite the fact that I've never lived there, I saw some sports, too.
And having this separate connection to the Olympics really brought me into the games themselves in a way I'd never really been into them. It's the same kind of feeling I might expect to experience if Chicago and our region had gotten the chance to host the 2016 Olympics.
This year the Winter Olympics are in Vancouver. I hear it's a lovely city and I would love to go see for myself someday. But, I gotta say, my Olympics were in 2006 and I'm not sure if I'll be able to get excited about these newfangled ones.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
