THE OLYMPICS / WINTER GAMES AT ALBERTVILLE : DATELINE: Albertville

Sights and sounds of the Winter Olympics:

Coaches on the cross-country courses, running in the snow alongside their sweating skiers and calling out split times. . . . Rock song after rock song on Radio France, the Olympic station, almost all in English by the groups that made them famous, but the old Kingston Trio hit, “Greenback Dollar,” in French by some group that definitely is not the Kingston Trio. . . . Unisex bathrooms in the main press center at La Lechere. Well, at least some of them started out that way. Strategically applied strips of black tape have changed them to single-sex facilities, preserving dignity all around. . . .

Bouquets of flowers for the medalists. That used to be strictly a figure-skating custom, but other sports have adopted it, for men as well as women. . . . Hundreds of cuckoo-clock Alpine chalets, each with functional shutters, some of them closed against the elements, and cords of cut, split firewood stacked on their second-floor wraparound porches. Snow four feet deep on the roofs of those chalets. . . . English speakers who don’t know one another, and so don’t know that each speaks English, trying to communicate in French. . . . Signs on the buses forbidding smoking, naturally, and--gum chewing? . . .

Mountain streams that run out of flat surfaces and become instant waterfalls. . . . Those same waterfalls caught in mid-flow by the overnight freeze. . . . Scores of washroom signs urging, in French and English: “Attention. Don’t put hands in the rubbish bins.” Hard to imagine anyone wanting to. And there are no rubbish bins, anyway, only a single, flip-top mini-can that would be inadequate in your kitchen. . . . Looking down from high up on the mountain into a valley full of clouds. . . . Messages on jacket backs in strange versions of English, such as, “Snow White. From North since 1907.” . . . Bonnie Blair, smiling, smiling, smiling. . . .

Expatriate Americans speaking English as if it were a foreign language. . . . Yellow headlights on the cars, trucks and buses. . . . Ancient castle ruins on the mountainsides. . . . Bright sunny days, icy-cold nights. Or, snowstorms up the mountain, rain down below. . . . Fancy writing in the daily Olympian: “Agile as panthers, these flesh-and-blood ‘machines’ slid rhythmically and voluptuously past the long rows of sun-drenched pine trees, weighed down with their powder snow.” . . . Bus drivers, obviously imported, who don’t know their way around and get lost--here in town and on the mountain. . . . Concerts at the venues by costumed musicians playing Alpenhorns, those long wooden instruments with the melancholy sounds.