My first memory of the Olympics was in 1968, when I asked my dad why those runners were standing with their fists in the air. I don’t remember his answer, if he had one, but the black-and-white image on my television was striking. I knew that the nuns would have waled on me if *I* did that during ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ and I really didn’t have much understanding of the moment beyond that.

I was old enough to understand in 1972, when Jim McKay looked into the camera and said, “They’re all gone.” And I was old enough to wonder what was going on with those scary-looking East German women. And there was Olga Korbut on her belly on the balance beam, bending her legs until her toes nearly touched her head — and launching into a huge unintentional smile when she realized the camera was pointed right at her face. That showed up on “Wide World of Sports” for years and years, right before that poor ski jumper:

I thought 1980 was ridiculous. The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, so we decided to show them a thing or two by denying our athletes a chance to enter the biggest competition of their lives? It was the athletes who suffered, not the Soviets. That decision was about as effective as you might imagine: The Soviets didn’t leave Afghanistan for another decade.

The Soviets returned the favor in ’84 by not showing up in L.A., but that only upped the party atmosphere and ensured more gold medals for Americans. I clearly remember the closing ceremony, when the athletes all danced around to Lionel Richie singing “All Night Long”. And in ’88, there was the Unfortunate Dove Incident in Seoul.

’92 was the Dream Team Olympics. In ’96, Mohammed Ali shot that arrow to light the Olympic flame in Atlanta. Then came the bombing in the park right across the street from CNN. I walked through that park many times in subsequent years and it always chilled me to do that.

As more years went by, my interest in the Olympics faded. The ubiquity of televised sports cut down on the novelty factor of many Olympic events, and now the Olympics seems about as exotic to me as a Tuesday night sitcom.

Still, that brings me to today in London, where I hope to rekindle some of that Olympic flame that once moved me. Here’s to that.

Previously: The wrong kind of training | Hokum home