A Tough Promise to Keep

“We will be back in an hour . . .90 minutes at the most.”

This was the promise my friend and I made to my cousin as we left her in the hotel’s coffee shop. It was the second week of the 1996 Olympics, and this downtown Atlanta hotel was bustling with activity. The coffee shop, hidden on one of the hotel’s lower floors, was surprisingly quiet.

We were starting a day of activities with a visit to the reception rooms for the cities vying for the 2004 Olympics. It was a day that my cousin did not want to miss. To get into these rooms, Olympic staff credentials were required. Both my friend and I had credentials. My cousin did not. She agreed to wait while we made – what we thought would be – quick visits to the rooms. We walked out of the coffee shop, leaving my cousin sitting at a table by the window.

As it turned out, the visits took longer than any of us had expected. As we left the last room, we glanced at our watches and realized just how long we had been gone. We picked up our pace and practically ran back to the coffee shop. There was my cousin, in the same place in the same booth where we had left her, four hours earlier.

Comments

Olympic Memories

Twenty years ago this week, I - along with my family - was sitting in my house watching the Opening Ceremonies of the Summer Olympics. I have always loved watching the Olympics, but this time was different. This time, the Games were not on some far-away continent. These Games were in my own hometown! In fact, just the night before, I had been in Olympic Stadium - now Turner Field - watching the dress rehearsal for what I was watching on tv. Now, twenty years later, some of my most vivid memories remain: The seemingly always-crowded highways of Atlanta were practically desolate, providing a seldom-seen sight. Meeting the Frenchman who wondered if I had ever heard of the book about the Civil War written by an Atlanta woman named Margaret Mitchell. The dress rehearsal crowd cheering wildly during the parade of nations for the entry of the flag from (the nation of) Georgia. Attending the women's gymnastics podium trials, watching the Magnificent 7 prepa...

Speaking the Language

For a moment, I had to step back. I just wanted to take in what I was hearing. In the midst of the 1996 Summer Olympics, I was at a hotel in downtown Atlanta with a good friend. We were standing aside two other ladies, whom we did not know, listening to a speech on the highlights of Athens, Greece. My friend and I listened as the speaker, himself a native of Greece, spoke of Athens’ history, its culture, and its desire to host the Games. But, it was not the speech itself that caught me off guard. It was the fact that he was speaking in Spanish. In the summer of 1996, I volunteered with the host committee for the Olympic Games in Atlanta. One of the benefits of volunteering with the Games was admittance into places and events otherwise off limits to the general public. One such area was the bid lounges for the cities competing to host the 2004 Summer Games. For the duration of the Games, the organizing committee of each city had occupied a room at a d...

Seattle Sunset

The neighborhood was full of people enjoying the summer evening. People standing in their front lawns, casually talking with their neighbors. Fathers guiding their children as they unsteadily steered their bicycles along the sidewalk. Mothers pushing strollers while the children riding inside stared out in wonder, attempting to take in the activity around them. Families exiting the neighborhood ice cream shop, cool, frozen desserts in hand. A steady stream of cars passing along the neighborhood’s narrow, curving streets. At the neighborhood’s center was a large manmade lake, rimmed with tall, green trees. A curving concrete path wound through the surrounding meadow. Couples jogged along the trail, careful to avoid anyone who crossed the path. A wading pool which at any other time would have been a noisy, chaotic scene, was nearly silent, save for the occasional splash of water. Even the lake itself was still, with nothing to disrupt the calm, slow mot...

Scenes From My Life

Search This Blog