Olympic Obsession
I think my obsession started with the “Guinness Book of World Records.” We always had one lying around the house when I was a kid so you could check the distance of the longest grape toss which someone caught in their mouth.
The book also had lists of Olympic medalists in every sport. I used to study those lists and dream of my own Olympic glory. That’s how I ended up writing a sixth-grade essay about how I would defeat Roman Dmitriev, the Russian lightweight wrestler, to win my first gold medal in 1984.
Instead, I ended up in the seats at those Olympics watching with my two brothers. Dmitriev didn’t make it either because of the Soviet boycott, so I guess he gets half the blame for me not having my Olympic moment at 16. He had also retired at that point, but that’s extraneous to my fantasies.
I bring all this up because the 2012 Summer Olympics start this weekend. That means I feel a little distracted pretty much all the time. I don’t just get obsessed with who will win the wrestling competition. I get into pretty much everything.