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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.

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