DOWN HOME:
Olympic dreams just went zoom
___How much time have you wasted lately?
___Ironic, isn't it, that the Olympic Games--the world's foremost celebration of athletic prowess--turns millions if not billions of people into couch potatoes. Here are these amazingly fit young people accomplishing deeds that boggle the imagination. And the most exercise viewers get is when we run to the kitchen for another can of pop. (Don't you just hate it that copyright laws just kept me from saying, "can of coke"? Of course, Coca-Cola, nicknamed Coke, is bottled in Atlanta. But in Texas, everything is coke. "What'll you have?" someone asks. "I'll have a coke," you reply. "What kind of coke?" she inquires. "Dr Pepper" you respond.)
___Every-other year, I tell myself I'm n
ot going to succumb to the Olympic seduction. And every-other year, our TV set becomes the world's strongest human magnet. I can't draw myself away from Jim McKay and Bob Costas and Hanna Storm and the rest, as they bring us "up close and personal" to dairy farmers from Switzerland who barrel down mountains at 80 miles an hour and teenage girls from Korea who spring around an ice rink faster than you can say "ice rink."
___In America, we love to hear the "Star-Spangled Banner" and count U.S. medals. But I also find myself attracted to sports where the Americans come in 39th, 57th and 73rd, respectively. Then I can just pick a kid because I like the sound of his name and cheer him on like he's from next door.
___I've done this since I was a kid, when I wanted to become the next Olympic downhill champion. The Texas Panhandle isn't a hotbed of Alpine champions, and I never made it.
___Now that it's too late, however, they've added my sport. Olympians call it the "skeleton." Back home, we called it a "sled." In Germany, I hear, they call it "nogginbonkingozoomundtengosplat." The difference between the skeleton and the luge is that when you wreck a skeleton, you break your head, and when you wreck a luge, you break your legs.
___How hard can it be? You put on a skin-tight Spandex suit and a helmet, lay down on a sled and pray like the Rapture already is in progress. I can pray with my eyes closed or open, so I think I'd be a natural.
___As fun as the skeleton looks, my real calling probably was to be a curler. Curling consists of pushing a large stone across the ice and trying to get it to go where you want it to go by brushing the ice with brooms. It apparently was invented by a Scottish shepherd who got really, really bored. But it involves the use of brooms, and I've been sweeping and vacuuming for as long as I can remember.
___My mother, who firmly believes "cleanliness is next to godliness," would have made a great curling coach. And I would've cried when they put the gold medal around my neck and played the "Star-Spangled Banner."
The Baptist Standard
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook
|