OLYMPIC DREAMS

Since I was 10, I have but one simple dream:

To watch the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics LIVE!

As a young school boy, I remember vividly sitting on our carpeted living room floor in front of our old Samsung colored TV watching three Koreans lighting the cauldron at the Seoul 1988 Olympics! Since then, I never missed watching the televised opening ceremonies, and there was never a time I never wished I were there on site LIVE!

During the opening of the 1992 Barcelona Games, my jaw dropped at the sight of an amazing archer shooting a lit arrow from the floor of the stadium to ignite the cauldron several meters high and away! It was perhaps the most dramatic lighting I've ever seen!

My mother was invited to attend the National Association of Realtors convention held in Atlanta three months before the 1996 Olympics! It was very disheartening to say the least! All I got from that trip was a black T-Shirt with a nice colorful embroidery of the 1996 Games logo! The Parkinsons Disease-stricken Muhammad Ali shakingly lit the cauldron with both hands.

At the Sydney Olympics 2000, the cauldron emerged from a pool and ascended to the top of the stadium's side via an escalator of sorts, complete with a waterfall! It was beautiful!

At the 2004 Games in Athens, the cauldron looked like a gigantic pen that swung upwards after it was lit! It wasn't as fancy as I expected it to be-- Athens being the place where the Olympic Games were born!

Today, the Beijing Olympics will open and the same feeling as I had at every opening ceremony is rekindled. Again, I am wishing I were there-- in Beijing. Obviously, the television and the internet are the only means by which I can be at the opening.

I don't think my childhood dream will ever get off my head until it is fulfilled. I hope that at the 2012 LONDON GAMES I will be able to actually be at the opening (and closing) ceremonies! (PRAYING! PRAYING!)

In addition, last year, I met Lloyd, a teenager being trained for the Royal Rowing Team of the United Kingdom. He might participate in the 2012 Games! At least, by then I know someone who might actually participate!