-Isms: Views on life in rural America

One of my favorite summer events - popping up like a leap year - begins in just over 10 days.

Watching the summer Olympics, the pure joy of viewing the best of the best, has been a mainstay since I was young.

I'll admit, the Olympic world feels a tad bit tilted this year, since the games are a year off, due to last year's cancellation because of the pandemic.

I may have been only seven years old, but I still remember sitting in the living room with the 'rents, watching track and field superstars compete in Mexico City, in living color, nonetheless. It was the first time the televised games were aired in color. Those Technicolor dreams of earning gold, striving for the highest achievement in amateur athletics, made an impact.

One of the top highlights that year came when Dick Fosbury flew over the high jump bar, backwards, establishing the Fosbury Flop. Another happened when George Foreman's bout against a Soviet Union boxer ended in round two and the pulverizing puncher from Texas grabbed a small American flag and waved it in the ring.

The mere mention of certain competitors, like Dwight Stones, Mark Spitz, Nadia Comaneci, Carl Lewis, FloJo, Michael Phelps and others, remind me of the thrill of competition and the physical and mental toughness required to weather the storms of training, sacrifice and close encounters of the athletic kind.

The Olympic games feature a showcase of unbridled talent in events we may not often be exposed to. Mom's favorites were synchronized swimming and gymnastics. Dad enjoyed track and field. It didn't matter what aired, though. We watched it all.

Sometimes, though, ugliness filled headlines leading up to and during the worldwide event.

I didn't have a grasp of the political landscape in 1968 and how competition can draw out vile characters. Ten days prior to the Mexico City games, hundreds of students were shot by police and military troops in the Tlatelolco massacre. In 1972, terrorists stormed the Olympic Village and killed two Israeli athletes. African nations boycotted the Montreal games, protesting apartheid in South Africa. The U.S. stayed home in 1980, after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and, in 1984, the Soviets replied by avoiding the games in Los Angeles.

Perhaps I choose to see a silver lining, but let's keep politics separated from the Olympics. Let's let athletes participate and aim for perfection, without questioning motives and maneuvers. Easier said than done, right?

I'm ready to get sucked in to the storylines of the games themselves, the narrative of the athletes who came from humble beginnings and the coaches who saw potential, the perils associated with extended training schedules and the potential for greatness.

Once competition begins, you can catch me watching canoe sprints, badminton and trampoline gymnastics. I'll also be cheering for the volleyball and archery teams. Hopefully, it won't cause too much of a distraction.

Let the games begin.