Me and My "Dorothy Hamill" Haircut
Football season may be over, but thankfully the Olympic Games are here! As a fan of all sports (my husband says I missed my calling; I should have been a sports broadcaster), the Olympics is near and dear to my heart. My eyes well with pride every time the United States delegates enter the Olympic stadium during the Opening Ceremonies. When Dorothy Hamill won the gold medal for figure skating in 1976, I was one of the millions of young girls who sported her signature bob. I swear that hairstyle was more popular than Jennifer Aniston’s!
My all-time favorite Olympic moment was the 1980 Miracle on Ice. For those of you who aren’t big sports fans, that’s when the United States Olympic hockey team pulled off one of the greatest upsets in sports history, defeating the Soviet Union, 4-3. But, I also love gymnastics. I cheered for gymnast Mary Lou Retton when she scored a perfect 10 in 1984 and I celebrated along with the Magnificent Seven, the U.S. Women’s Olympic Gymnastics Team that won our country’s first women’s Olympic team gold medal at the 1996 games in Atlanta.
If I could have been an Olympic athlete, I would have been an ice skater. Unfortunately, fat girls don’t figure skate competitively. And forget being a gymnast–I cannot even walk down the stairs without falling! Maybe I would have been better off with something like curling….When I’m pushing my kitchen mop around my white kitchen floor, I like to pretend that I could actually medal; with Mr. Clean on my team victory is guaranteed.
Seriously though, I thought: “If Canadian curler Kristie Moore could compete at the 2010 Winter Olympics when she was nearly six months pregnant, maybe I could give it a try.” NPR contributor Beau Dure said: “Curling is a top contender for the most accessible sport in the Olympics, full of people you could easily picture having beers with you or teaching you how to play their sport.”
The objective of curling is to slide a 42-pound granite stone down a strip of ice with the help of two brooms. The Olympians make this look easy, I fear that I’d look more like a crazy person in pajamas let loose on an ice-covered slip and slide.
So, I’ve decided to let the Canadians continue to dominate the sport. I’ll stick to good old-fashioned American curling: Curling up on the coach in my own pajamas with a bag of cheese curls. Sweep curls from bag to mouth while cheering for the American Olympians to bring home the gold.
