My Musings
Now that the 2022 Winter Olympics are stumbling and lurching into their final days and closing ceremonies, where the Chinese leadership will bask in the glow of their excellent human rights record, it's time that I revealed a little-known fact about myself, which is not going to surprise you at all: about eight years ago I was invited to join an ice dancing team.
Yeah, I know, I look like an ice dancer. Or maybe someone who could have been an ice dancer eight years ago. OK, maybe 38 years ago, but in any event sometime in the past. The foot skills, the body movements, the ability to do pull-throughs and drapes as needed to excel in the sport were evident in my mannerisms. Not my mannerisms while skating, but just while walking on dry land. In other words, people could see the potential I had to gain those skills, if they stretched their minds to very limits of credulity.
When I was invited to join the ice dance team, I was in a learn to skate program. In other words, I couldn't skate. My "long form" birth certificate said I was in my late 40s, but I was much younger than that in terms of my self-image. I was a young, lean, sleek skating machine, not a has-been with a bad back, Dadbod, and salt-and-pepper hair. And the team saw that in me!
Well, as you can imagine, there were a lot of demands on my time, and I simply couldn't fit ice dancing into my routine. So, alas, no joining the team and no wowing my co-dancers with skyrocketing skills development. And no Beijing Olympics.
This is a long way of saying that I won't be carrying the US flag on Sunday when the games come to their conclusion. But as you might have guessed, in my mind I will be.