Growing Up and Olympics United States

 Memory Posted By: Anthony

The first Olympic Games I ever remember watching were in 1992, in Barcelona. I don’t recall this specifically because it was a time that was special to me or depressing, or interesting at all, but because it brings back one of those few rare memories that’s so finite and insignificant that it may be a key to an entire part of my childhood. You have them too I’m sure. The memory of sitting on a particular park bench on a particular day with your grandfather feeding birds or watching men play chess, or reading a book. It means something, because that’s all you remember from that year. And the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona are all I remember from that summer. My parents would never allow us to stay up and watch TV. I was just barely eight years old and my brother on the bottom bunk only five. And so, when my father came home from a particularly long day of work with a surprise in his truck, a tiny 14 inch black and white television for our bedroom, we were ecstatic. We could stay up and watch TV!

It wasn’t so simple of course. The antennas were removed and we were left with a fuzzy mess to watch unless my mother came in and took the trouble of pulling out the small monstrosity of a television, itself probably 20 years old, and plugging in the coax antenna and then carefully positioning it against a cracked window for us to get any kind of reception.

The results were often paltry in comparison to the vivid cable TV of the living room, but we were excited none the less. And when it turned out that channel 5, on which the Olympic Games aired every night came in perfectly if you tied the antenna to the cord on the shades and opened the window a little further, we were given a privilege beyond measure.

For those four weeks of August in 1992, my brother and I were allowed to stay up as late as we could (often only until 11 o’clock) watching the Olympic games on our small black and white television. I knew absolutely nothing about sports other than teeball and pee wee football at that time and the wild gesticulations of the gymnasts and flailing speed of Tom Jager in the swim relay were intoxicating to me. I never went on to try my hand at any of these sports. In fact, I would find in the coming years that I was physically incapable of most sports, my hand-eye coordination miscalculated by nature a good five degrees.

But those warm summer nights watching team USA in Spain and getting my first taste of a global society that I would grow up into, something an 8 year old in the rural backdrop of Winlock, Washington has no concept of, are one of the happiest memories I have from my childhood, a singular snapshot of an entire year, compressed into a single evening, a series of evenings. Ever since then, I’ve been enthralled with any iteration of the Olympic Games, however invested I may or may not be at the time. I couldn’t tell you who won anything that year, except for Team USA’s dream team in Basketball. Honestly, I looked up Tom Jager’s name, because all I remember is watching the swimmers. Not a single name sticks out. For me, it’s not necessarily a matter of remembering the essence of sportsmanship or eternity of sport, but remembering a part of my childhood.