And that wouldn’t be the athletes, the medal winners or even any of the sports. Never been much interested in sports at all…guess it wasn’t built in to my ‘design’. Come to think of it, I believe I’m the only person I know who failed PE during my entire school years. Couldn’t…wouldn’t jump the buck or the horse. I’d make an effort, albeit a weak one, but I’d get as far as bouncing on the spring-board then jump off…no way was I going to try to lift myself high enough to swing these little legs over or through, knowing I’d be kissing the gym floor. The beams? :) Ropes? Yeah, right! I could grasp the rope, wrap my ankles around it and immediately stuck. I think my biggest problem was not that I was physically unable to do any of those things but had too active an imagination for I foresaw each ending in pain and disaster….two things I took great pains to avoid at any cost. Sports were no better. Why run track when I could sit down and read? Swimming…HAH! I couldn’t even float successfully. And ‘they’ tried…they really did. My mother would take Sis and I to the city pool during the summer…Mum could swim (and dive when she was younger), Sis at five years younger than I could swim…while I cowered in the furthest corner of the 3′ depth screaming I was drowning. PE teachers tried…they tied a rope around me, then a life-belt…nope. Soon as water hit my chin I was done…and heaven forfend water should get in my eyes! So they moved me on to field-hockey. Now, I actually loved hockey…until someone snagged me round the ankle and my potential to be a star was ended. (Star…LOLOLOL…riiight!).
These, I guess, are reasons enough for me not to be too excited about sporting events, more especially the Summer Olympics. Winter Olympics held my attention when Torvill and Dean did their “Ravel’s Bolero” (the music was enough for me to be mesmerized but their skating was poetry in motion), likewise John Curry and Robin Cousins on ice. Then came Eddie the Eagle…an underdog and deserved to be cheered on (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_%22the_Eagle%22_Edwards). Or maybe it is that Olympics in general have ceased to be of interest once professionals could participate, politics tend to interfere…neither of those are in the true spirit of “The Games”, are they?
At any rate, I do concede to watching the opening ceremonies and their fanfares so Friday, the 8th, found us glued to the big screen. The show was impressive…and those 2000 drummers totally incredible…loved it. Then came the procession of nations which, I admit, began to get boring until I heard it…a pipeband playing “Scotland The Brave”. Well…that woke me up, mostly because I was wondering why a pipeband was playing at all. Scotland did get a modicum of independence a few years ago but to my ex-Pat knowledge not enough to get us into the Olympics under the Saltire (St. Andrews Flag) or even the Royal Standard (eeuuww! lol). Then again, maybe the powers-that-be hadn’t been gracious enough to notify me of this (tic). But I waited patiently to see a group come swaggering out, kilt swinging. Nope. The music changed back to Chinese music (beautiful in it’s own right) after about four melodies only to return periodically throughout the entire procession of nations. I had to find out…maybe, as with past occasions at the Edinburgh Military Tattoo ( http://www.edinburgh-tattoo.co.uk/tattoo-experience/index.html), it was being played by Ghurka Rifles for some reason…so off I went to my trusty pc. After some searching, there was the surprise…and the reason I won’t soon forget the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
I hail from what used to be the 3rd largest city in Scotland which, by the standards of larger countries, was not a huge city…and as with most, has it’s various suburbs of council housing. I learned that a group of twenty-six from one of the suburbs….known as Fintry…had formed a pipe-band. Amateurs, something to do, something for kids to do, helping keep them off the streets, be involved in their community etc. and the ages of the band members range from thirteen to sixty-plus. They had been playing in France last year when spotted by the Chinese Olympic ceremony organiser who then wrote to invite them to play during the opening. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/7549580.stm). And I was thrilled!
I wrote my sister demanding to know why she hadn’t told me about this…she wrote back asking me to please tell her because she had heard nothing. I had read that they had to keep the thing a secret but I guess that was up to the very last minute. The more I learned the prouder I became…not just because they are from my home town (which most people here…and probably no-one in China…hadn’t even heard of) but because to me this embodies the spirit of the Olympics. People giving their best, playing their best…be it a sport or a pipe or a drum…coming from little or nothing. This band didn’t even have full or proper uniforms and the local businesses, community groups etc. got together to fund their kit, travel etc.
So…that has been the highlight for me (not to diminish the achievments of every sports man and woman taking part, be they medallists or not…they all worked hard to get there which surely requires no small effort) and I am very, very proud of this small group who never expected such an honour.
