LAX

LAX became my home airport during the mid-eighties. It was expanded for the 1984 Summer Olympics. That was the year the Soviets boycotted, following the US-led boycott in 1980, in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The USSR's withdrawal was followed by Bulgaria, East Germany, Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, Hungary, Poland, Cuba, South Yemen, North Korea, Angola, Iran, Albania and Libya. The Olympics were a dreary affair that year, without the Soviets, competition was slim, and in the uber-glitzy optimism of Los Angeles event after event seemed contrived and listless. It was the last Olympics I watched. Plans for enhancing the airport went on, despite politics, and LAX became a huge wheel of terminals around a four-lane throughway. Breathing the air on the way to the parking lot takes a year off your life.