We conclude both our series witin series on summer jobs and our series Silly Photo to Fill Space with this image of very flexible young lady whom we don't know personally!
We have had a lot of fun with this series in the year or two or so since its inception and we never got around to showing the image of a samurai ski-jumping, but there is always a chance that this series will resurrect itself like Freddy Krueger some time in the neat future.
Our feature city of the month for this series is Trenton, NJ, where one can find the Discover Gymnastics Academy, which is offering a free trial class according to their web site. Though we don't have any idea if they have openings for gymnastics instructors or not, we can't imagine a more fun summer job than trying to make some young gymnast the next Nellie Kim (or at least the next Courtney Kupets, who was a legandary gymnast at The University of Georgia).
Of course since more and more folks were born either during end of or after the Cold War, we should remind our readers that Kim, a former Soviet gymnast who turned 53 on July 29, made Olympic Gymnastics history. She won three gold and two silver medals at the 1976 Montreal Olympics where another gymnast (a Romanian named Nadia whose name we can't spell, or perhaps we can, but we're too lazy!) became a household name.
Kim also won two gold medals at the 1980 Moscow Olympics where Misha the Bear was the mascot. I ate a great place called Misha's Cafe in Baku, Azerbaijan- of all places in 2008, but that's really getting off the topic.
Even though many Americans used the word Soviet and Russian arbitrarily in the days when "Welcome Back Kotter" initially aired, Kim is actually from Kazakhstan which Borat made famous/infamous.
As of 2002, Kim lives in or around St. Paul, Minn. Nadia lives in or around Norman, Oklahoma. No one knows what happened to Misha the Bear.
SIDEBAR: Alas, The Ragsdale High School Tigers, one of our past 'high schools of the week' (there are many of them!), lost to their rival, the Dudley High School Panthers of Greensboro, NC, by a 12-0 score. The Tigers played on the road Friday night, but their next game against Western Guilford High School will be at home in the Greensboro/High Point 'burb of Jamestown, NC. We hear the Tigers' band kicks butt, by the way!
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