The evening was structured as follows: the Master of Ceremonies asked us to take our preassigned seats at tables. There were more tables than gold medalists, so he asked us to accept with grace the fact that some of us would not have a gold medalist to dine with. 

No problem, there was a marker at my table with Parry O'Brien's name on it. Could life get much better than this? Well, no, but it could get...

...worse! 

Someone came by, snatched the O'Brien table marker, and moved it to another table.

We would meet him eventually. After dinner, each gold medalist sat at his/her own table, autographed the booklet, and stood for photos.

My encounters with four of the gold medalists are recounted in my article, Legends of Gold.