JOURNAL OF TININTHEWIND

I am an observer more than a participant in sports. Oh I have down hill skied, and ice skated. I can swim a little, and as a child, I won a relay race a couple of times. I can even lift weights if they aren’t very heavy. So I am not surprised that I become excited when the Olympic Games come to town. I was aware of those super star athletes as far back as 1952. The town of Helsinki, Finland was where Floyd Patterson won a gold medal in boxing. My dad talked about it for weeks.

As long as I can remember I have enjoyed watching the big games from our living room, every four years. When television became the focal point in our home, we would watch the athletes work the hardest that they have ever worked, hoping, praying, that they would be awarded a Gold Medal.

I remember the thrill I felt when Peggy Fleming won Gold in the Winter Olympics in Grenoble, France in 1968. I cried when Palestinian terrorists killed eleven Israeli athletes in Munich, in 1972. Although these Games suffered horror and heartbreak, names such as Olga Korbut and Mark Spitz are remembered for their Gold. The haunting melody of Nadia’s Theme brings the vision of a 14 year old girl from Romania who scored a perfect 10 in the 1976 Games. The score board had to be adjusted because until then the number 10 was not on it.

I can still see a broken hearted Dorothy Hamill skating off the ice, thinking that she was being booed by the crowd, when, in fact, they were screaming with delight at her perfect score. Remember the young men who were the Miracle on Ice? The US Hockey Team beat the Soviets who owned the rinks by winning four consecutive Winter Games. And who can forget, in 1984, the beautiful love story performed by Torvill and Dean who took us on a journey of intense love and suffering in their Ice Dancing interpretation of Bolero.They won Gold for the United Kingdom. That same year, Scott Hamilton, wowed the world with his expert figure skating. Another Gold.

Gymnastics brought us Mary Lou Retton. Jamaica introduced the world to the Jamaican Bobsled Team. Eddie the Eagle jumped high and strong and we cheered. Michael Phelps awed the judges with his powerful swimming in 2008, and broke the record, winning eight Gold Medals.

One cannot mention all of the wonderful, inspiring young athletes who have given their all at the Olympic Games through the years. This has been a list of just a few whom I remember and admire.

With pride and determination, representatives from around the world, march together at the opening ceremonies. So proud they are and those of us who watch feel love and compassion. So happy they are. So free, their hearts full of anticipation.

The Opening Ceremonies of all the Games have been spectacular. The Torch has traveled from Olympia, Greece across the world to where it would finally light the giant Cauldron and announce the beginning of the Games. We were touched to see Muhammad Ali light the Torch at Atlanta. We felt compassion and pride for Paralympic Archer Antonio Rebollo when he shot a flaming arrow into the Cauldron at Barcelona. In 2004, the Torch traveled from it’s birthplace around the world, stopping at every city that has hosted the Games, then returning to Athens, Greece before opening the Summer Games. Determined mountaineers, for the Bejing Games, climbed to the top of the world and placed a flame at the summit of Mount Everest. The flame bearers cried “One world, one dream,” their Olympic Motto. A special road was built to the Everest Base Camp which then opened the way for the torch bearer’s journey to the top.

This year, in Vancouver, after traveling through the most northern provinces, the Torch bearers relayed the flame into the streets of Canada’s most beautiful city and on into BC Place, where the towering icicles carried the flame to the waiting Cauldron.

All of Canada, along with the world, cheered as Alexandre Bilodeau of Montreal, in Down Hill Mogul skiing, won the first Gold Medal for Canada.There are 10 days ahead with more of my favorite games. I will partake in most of them: watching, enjoying, feeling, with them, the Thrill of victory, the agony of defeat.

Copyright Kathleen M. Brosius February 16, 2010

Flickers of Light

The familiar sound of an owl, shadows flickering on the wall, the touch of the soft feather mattress that we lie on: these are a few of the senses experienced during a night spent in an old shanty that rested on the banks of the Minnesota Sough. There was no running water and no electricity. In a tiny kitchen, our mother used a two-burner propane stove to prepare supper. She stored milk and butter in an old ice box on the porch.

We had several kerosene lamps in those days. The smell of the golden fluid that brought life to that humble cottage gave me much comfort during my young life. I loved the lamp that sat on a small table beside the bed, best of all. A round glass bowl, that held the kerosene, perched on a tall pedestal. A cotton wick was fed down though the burner until it dipped into the amber fuel below. The saturated wick would be ignited and the glow of the flame illuminated the room and strew mysterious shadows about. A sparkling glass chimney protected the flame, as it flickered and danced inside its crystal prison.

Our mother took my brothers and me on adventures around the world as she read stories from ancient books. I recall: The Bobbsey Twins, Raggedy Ann and Andy, Yellow Eyes, and of course Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Today, we have all the luxuries of modern life, it seems, no matter where we go. But there is one thing that I truly miss, that old kerosene lamp. Whenever I smell kerosene, I travel back to a world where fairies danced on walls, where a mighty owl ruled the woods at night. My mother was close and my father near-by. So grateful am I for the gift of memory. A flame that flickers deep in my soul comes to life at just the smell of yellow liquid gold.

Copyright by Kathleen M. Brosius - January, 2010