Many of you may remember Michael Lawler. He's the Newport Beach
attorney who has an, er, uncanny knack for getting into big events.
He's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA finals and has gotten into the
Academy Awards ceremonies a few times. He's climbed the Matterhorn and
Mt. Kilimanjaro and traveled to 35 countries around the world.
So when a phone caller mentioned to me that Lawler had some great
stories to tell about the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, I gave this
local legend a ring to hear the details and ask why he goes out of his
way to be a spectator to history.
"Life is short and uncertain," Lawler said. "You can't just be sitting
on the couch and watch everybody else cheering."
If it wasn't apparent before, Lawler leads a charmed life. With no
plans in place, he's able to have the times of his life, time and time
again.
For someone like me, who has to make lunch plans weeks in advance,
it's hard to fathom being so successful at such a moment's notice. But he
is.
"This was a last-minute decision," Lawler said. "We had no place to
stay and no tickets."
Or course, that all changed quickly.
After his wife, Kathleen, and daughter, Kellie, declined to go along,
Lawler enlisted his sons, Brian and Scott, for the journey and hopped in
the car on a February Friday evening and headed east to Salt Lake City.
While he had managed to get a client of his to lend him the room and
board needed in the way of a home in the town of Sandy, just south of
Salt Lake City, they still didn't have any tickets, nor any idea that
they would be able to see any Olympic events.
But as you can surmise, they wound up on a whirlwind seven-day Olympic
venture that would make many drool with envy.
On Sunday, the third day of the trip, they did a little bit of their
own skiing and snowboarding at Snowbird, catching an aerial competition,
an autograph session with Olympian Johnny Mosely and a parade at the
Olympic Plaza downtown later that evening.
The fourth day, the trio was up early for a train ride and horse-drawn
sleigh to Soldier Hollow where they caught the Biathlon event, a
combination of cross country skiing and shooting. Later that day they
were able to get tickets for the women's bobsled and pairs figure skating
events. The bobsled tickets would prove to be a coup.
In between visits to the set of the Today Show and Olympic pin trading
and posing for a photo with the Swiss Curling team, the Lawler clan
managed to nudge next to history in the making yet again, giving a hug to
