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Show ' ' " I A?wJ 1 Deadlines... They're the basics of this business and they seemed to capture the news" around the world this week... If we had the color press capabilities, there would be yellow ribbons around the border of this column; welcome home to 52 Ameri-, Ameri-, can hostages held for nearly 15 . months in .Iran. . Left, right or middle beliefs aside, who didn't swell with emotion emo-tion when they saw the film clip of the freed Americans ; getting off the . plane in Algeria? And thank God, they all walked off the plane unaided. Free at last. For some time the Iranians had known January '20 was the deadline they had to deal with. Why Carter hadn't taken that stand with setting a deadline earlier only seems political to me, but then, I'm not privy to all the information informa-tion he had. Reagan, too, was anxiously awaiting the deadline, wondering, I'm sure, if it was going to be an inheritance from the prev- ious administration or a liability. The Iranians met the deadline in such a way that it gave ownership to both men. It was, in fact, newly sworn in President Ronald Reagan who made the announcement that now former President Carter had waited so very many months - to give; "The hostages have left Iranian airspace and they are now free of Iran." The inauguration cere-, cere-, monies had become a celebration cele-bration of freedom and papers and newsmen of all forms of media rushed to make deadlines everywhere. , If there was any irony in this day which certainly has to go down as one. of the news reporting's biggest ever, it was the coverage of the multi-million dollar extravaganza extrava-ganza planned by the new administration. For those of us who had felt more than slightly bothered by expensive expen-sive transition, there was, of course, a bit of justice; Ronald Reagan's show had been pre-empted for the hostages release... Nature has a way of forming her own deadlines, too. In Heartland, the independent film that tied for first place in the film festival here last week, nature showed she had her own time table for completion. comple-tion. Many of us had heard Heartland was a favorite to win, and so last Thursday's group in the lobby of the cinemas swelled to unobtainable unob-tainable proportions. Dave and Marianne Chaplin waited inside while fellow teachers Bruce and Sharon Reed were forced out in the cold. . Once, into the film, it was a bitter cold winter on screen that reminded us all how harsh the elements can be. But it was more a story . of survival than of anything else, and. to see how very hard it was for a woman to survive at the turn of the century in the wilderness of Wyoming. Well, suddenly my weekly battle with deadlines seemed pretty insignificant.... Saturday night was the .-.v deadline . for announcing which films had taken honors during the week-long festival. festi-val. It became apparent that some of the participants were going to miss Park City when their deadline to check out came the next day. Roger Ebert, Chicao Sun-Times Sun-Times film critic, said he didn't know how he was going to get around without our own Mountain Metro bus driver "Big Daddy". Another film personality said he would miss Chris, his cross-country ski instructor from White Pine. And it was Mark Rydell, director of The Rose, who said we wish we could just stay here. "We have rooms," Rick Prince quickly added from the audience. Deadlines for checkout suddenly seemed more flexible. Park City's hospitality seemed to Strike a Vein with them all... Deadlines were the topic of this column, and of course, my editor is yelling, reminding me of mine. I'll just tie this up with big yellow ribbon like the one I saw here on Moray Court Tuesday, and say thank God the most important deadline of the week was met by someone else. Welcome home Former Hostages;... JAMIE |