Do olympians realize they're wearing feed sacks?

Who designed the mogul outfits for the U.S. ski team?

They look like they were made from feed sacks.

Moguls require a loose fit, but it looks like they stuffed their pajamas with cotton batting.

The snowboarders started the trend toward baggy outfits. They don't look out of place because of the boarders' unconventional, renegade air.

Besides, there isn't anything wrong with checked shirts to an ol' country boy.

The mogul outfits are right at homely.

I can't say too much about them, though, because I had some feed-sack shirts myself.

Feed-sack apparel was common when I was a kid. Lots of people who farmed bought chicken feed in bulk, and the sacks were made from the softest cotton you could get.

The designs were often outlandish, but nobody seemed to notice. It was the thing amongst rural folk.

City people wore solids, stripes and little checks called tattersall.

My grandparents had a bunch of chickens and some ducks, so they bought feed in big sacks.

My grandmother was a whiz at sewing. There was a particularly good-looking blue background with a muted grey bird's-foot pattern on a sack, so she made me a shirt.

I was measured carefully. In no time, I had a long-sleeved shirt with a stand-up collar, one-piece yoke and two-button cuffs.

It was my favorite shirt. Until the next one.

It was another grey shirt with small maroon medallions edged in gold.

This one was even more comfortable than the first. It was a bit looser to accommodate my growing.

From time to time, my grandmother made collarless undershirts for my grandfather. He was a welder, so his topshirt had to be heavy duty.

He liked the softness next to his skin, however.

My grandmother would save old work shirts for mending fabric if my grandfather burned a hole in one.

Come to think of it, his shirts were about evenly divided between grey and brown.

I don't know if the U.S. mogul team will get to keep their baggy, saggy outfits.

But I still have the bird's-foot shirt. I figured I should keep it for posterity's sake. It's been a while since I saw a feed-sack shirt.

I doubt Peggy Fleming every wore feed-sack clothing.

The news that she was injured in a traffic accident in Vancouver gave me a start.

She was in Vice President Joe Biden's motorcade when it happened.

Somebody would have had to suffer if she and bobsledder Vonetta Flowers had been seriously hurt.

Anybody who saw Fleming skate in the 1968 Olympics in Grenoble might say she's the best ever.

There have been a lot of skaters who have captured the public's fancy over the years, but Fleming is one of those rare people you simply can't forget.

Her grace, style and skill made her America's darling. She won at a time when free skating accounted for the bulk of a competitor's score, but the compulsories were also a factor.

Skaters had to carve loops, figure eights and whatnot as a demonstration of prowess.

That exercise was finally tossed out. It's free skating, after all, that draws a crowd and makes for good television.

A lot of old-timers will tell you that Sonia Henie is the best figure skater of all.

She was before my time, so I'll stick with Peggy Fleming.

Fleming is an international star on the same order of Jean-Claude Killy, Bonnie Blair and Franz Klammer.

Klammer's mad dash in the men's downhill at the 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck is my favorite of all the individual men's performance in the Winter Olympics, although Shaun White has to be one of best Olympic showmen ever.

I like his overshirt, too.

Some people just stick with you. Particular events are as clear in the intervening years as they were when you watched them unfold. Like the 1980 Miracle on Ice.

What a performance!

The Winter Olympics is one of sport's greatest spectacles. I'm a big bobsled fan. I'd like to take off in one, just for the experience.

But I want to drive so I can see where I'm going, not hunker down in the back out of sight. As the old saying goes, if you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.

I must admit, snowboarding and the moguls have become Olympic favorites of mine.

I think curling is a hoot, too. Looks like fun to me.

Larry Clark is a staff writer for the Hickory Daily Record. Reach him at lclark@hickoryrecord.com.