All across the country, parents are reluctantly cutting the umbilical cord and launching their youngin’s into the cold, cruel world.

Of kindergarten and college, that is. I’ve seen the evidence on Facebook: “Oh, ever since (insert beloved child’s name here) was born, I’ve been dreading the day we would send him/her off to kindergarten/college. I can’t believe how time flies!”

The New York Times has weighed in as well, documenting the rise of “parting ceremonies” on college campuses designed to give parents the not-so-subtle hint that it’s time to “hit the road” rather than hang around for a week at a local hotel and show up on campus each morning to escort Little Junior to class to check out the suitability of his professors, not to mention the laundry room to make sure he knows how to insert his “Action Card” into the slot and separate whites from darks.

And if you don’t believe me, listen to this Tweet from a college professor friend of mine at my own alma mater (Hail!): “HU freshmen parents: I know it’s great to be at Harding but please go home. We’ve got it from here.”

For the record, Eyegal and I are not known for being “helicopter parents.” Number One Son has nominated us for the “The Least Involved Parents in the World” award which I’m guessing he meant as a compliment although it looks a little funny at first glance. That translates roughly to “Find your own way, boys, but whatever you do, don’t wake us up at 2:00AM to bail you out of jail.”

So far, we’ve only had one relatively mild violation of that rule.

Two of ours are out of the house and off to college and only boomerang back occasionally to pet the dog and ask for money. Number Three Son is starting to pick up on the hint–probably best conveyed by his parents’ passionate embraces in the kitchen while he begs for dinner–that “ya know we love ya to pieces and all, but this whole ‘empty nest’ thing is sounding better and better so could you step it up please, because your mother and I got plans.” Completely on his own, he decided to enroll in a program that will enable him to take classes at a local community college while finishing up his senior year of high school. If all goes well, he’ll have around 20 hours of credit and a diploma come next May.

Seriously, though, sometimes our kids do need a little help navigating The Road of Life and Eyegal and I are glad to help out and play the parental GPS–from a distance, by cell, text or Skype, and before 10:00PM.

But every now and then, you gotta go all Special Forces and break bad on some heads. [...]

People look at you kind of strange when you tell them that you shelled out good money to attend something called a “Christian Scholars’ Conference” and that you actually enjoyed it. Reactions can range from “What’s a guy like you doing in a place like that?” to “Well, la-de-da!” But believe me, after a long season of Tim James political TV ads and rootin’ tootin’ “Ag Commish” wannabe viral videos, I was ready for a little more “la-de-da” in my life.

You know Eyegal and me–liberal arts geeks to the core. An itch like that doesn’t always get scratched sufficiently in a high tech town like Huntsville, Alabama. To get to those places that rocket science and computer chips can’t touch, we make an annual pilgrimage to The Christian Scholars’ Conference (CSC) at Lipscomb University in Nashville.

The CSC is a place where scholars (and poseurs like Eyegal and me) from Church of Christ-affiliated colleges and universities, as well as many other schools and denominations, meet and greet and explore new ways to integrate their faith with their various academic disciplines. Nashville is traditionally referred to as “The Athens of the South,” and Lipscomb’s commitment to academic freedom and to hosting a world-class event like CSC is rapidly raising her stock and placing her in the same league as her neighbors and longstanding paragons of academic excellence, Vanderbilt and Belmont.

This year’s theme was “Beauty in the Academy: Faith, Scholarship & The Arts.” What’s so special about a bunch of professors, writers, artists, musicians, poets and playwrights convening for some sort of “Campbellite Woodstock,” you ask? After all, didn’t we switch to a Fortune 500 model faith and chase weird-looking and funny-talking people like that out of the Church of Christ a long time ago and replace them with lawyers, engineers, doctors and “bizness men?”

Glad you asked. Well, when was the last time you heard a world-renowned poet and critic like Dana Gioia, devout Roman Catholic and former Chair of the Endowment for the Arts, issue a stirring and urgent plea for Christian writers to rise up and produce another Flannery O’Connor or Walker Percy who will inject a much-needed pulse of the transcendent into modern art and culture to satisfy man’s unconscious spiritual longings, followed by a public reading of his own work? Hmmm?

I thought so. Or how about sitting in on an intimate creative session with musicians like Sarah Masen and songwriters/performers Linford Detweiler and Karin Bergquist of the alternative/folk duo Over the Rhine?

Never heard of them? Neither had I. But now my iPhone is full of their soulful, sacramental songs, including Over the Rhine’s haunting, eschatological jazz piece, “The Trumpet Child,” a true fusion of faith and art that left the flood-weary crowd at the Friday evening “Tokens Show” leaning into the instrumental riff at the end and looking toward the sky for some soul-saving satisfaction and deliverance. [...]

As she thumbed through our passports with her practiced fingers and keyed the necessary data into her computer at Miami International Airport, the pleasant, Hispanic U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer was all smiles, the perfect blend of professionalism and “Welcome Home, Cherished and Valued Citizen” hospitality.

I was looking directly at her when she came to my name and her face suddenly darkened. She knitted her brow and tapped a few more times on her keyboard, double-checking, perhaps hoping to stem the flow of bad news that was appearing on her screen. Then she gave it to me, straight between the eyes.

“I’m very sorry, sir, but I’m going to have to hold your passport. Your name is on our list as one that requires ‘extra screening.’”

I didn’t like the words “extra screening.” I thought “extra screening” was one of those things that creepy looking Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officers with gloved hands doled out when the metal detector still screamed “TERRORIST” no matter how many coins and keys you emptied into the little plastic trays.

I’d heard about those full body scanners they have now, the ones that make you look like one of those anatomically-correct diagrams from the elementary sex education books your parents used to keep under lock and key and trot out for “The Talk.” I suddenly found myself fretting over the fact that I had been sitting a long time on the tarmac waiting for our gate to clear and trying to remember if I’d worn boxers or briefs that day (boxers, I hoped).

As it turned out, the rest of my party and family passed their reentry with flying red, white and blue colors. Our travel  companion proceeded on toward  the baggage claim area, her eyes a little wide now as she looked back at her mild-mannered optometrist friend whom she had known so well for many years–or thought she had. Eyegal and Numbers One and Three Sons could have passed through Customs as well, but they would have had to fill out another declaration, one without my name on it.

“You’ll need to stand over there against that wall until we call for you,” the Hispanic agent said. She seemed genuinely apologetic. Unlike Grumpy G-Man over at the next counter. He had apparently been required to work 2 hours overtime that evening and was letting everyone within a 100-yard radius know about it. I suspected that the TSA officers had needed someone to test the full body scan on that day and he had drawn the short straw, so to speak, and now the word was out. He just seemed like that kind of guy, one who would yell at the top of his lungs and finger the shiny, black Glock on his belt in a desperate attempt to overcompensate.

Eyegal thought that we all needed to stay together, to “look more normal.”  I recalled that day when my passport came in the mail and she scolded me for not smiling more and trimming my beard before I had my picture taken. “You look like a terrorist,” she had said. Now someone else apparently thought so, too. [...]

I had a very smart man, a rocket scientist in fact (we have a few in Huntsville), tell me recently that America was going to hell in a hand basket. He didn’t say it quite that way because a respectable Christian, Southern gentleman would never drop the “H” bomb in front of the ladies unless he was reading it out of the Bible. But that was the basic gist of it.

He said a lot of things, that we had strayed from the intent of the Founding Fathers to establish a “Christian Nation,” that widespread belief in evolution was the root of much of society’s evil and ills, including increasing teenage suicide rates, and that really things had grown much worse since prayer was banned in public schools.

He kept repeating how we as a citizenry have elected fools and put them in charge. He didn’t name names, but it was pretty clear whom he considered The Biggest Fool of All. He said we all really needed to “take back our country for God” before it was too late. It sounded a little like he was a recruiter for an army of some sort; the only thing missing was sergeant’s stripes on his sleeves.

Obviously, there was a lot of information and nuance that fell through the cracks. The spaces between the lines of his 32-pt Arial font were big enough to drive a Mack truck through, and I would have been happy to per her in overdrive and gone pedal-to-the-metal had he granted an opportunity for a little Q & A, but he didn’t.

In the end, there was a mixture of applause, some merely polite, some enthusiastic. I suspect most there generally agreed with the majority of his points, while a smaller number recognized his slick presentation for what it was: fear-mongering demagoguery.

But because it was fear-mongering demagoguery for a Good Cause (in the name of Jesus,) he received a free pass. And then the audience rose, shedding his ominous PowerPoints like water from a duck’s back, and grappled with the more pressing Question of the Hour: Chili’s or Logan’s Roadhouse for lunch?

Had I been able to ask questions, I might have mentioned all the biology professors at various Christian colleges and universities, including my own alma mater (Hail to thee!), who somehow manage to hold on to both faith and science and quietly encourage their students to do the same and have for decades (you have to do it quietly lest some large donor fret too much and withdraw his money in a huff).

I might have asked that if evolution, and not love of money, really is the root of all evil, then why don’t we get busy and use whatever means necessary to flush out some of those troublesome, suicide-assisting biology professors from our schools and fire them? Seems to me that if you’re going to take back America for God, a good place to start would be by cleaning your own house.

I think that I might have also pointed out that I’m too busy to join God’s merry little band of stormtroopers. Most days it’s all I can do to get up, go to work, provide decent eye care to my patients while affirming their humanity and honoring the Imago Dei in their wrinkled, grizzled faces, exercise, do right by my family (and even then, the people I love most get shortchanged), pay my bills on time, and try to generally be a decent human being.

That effort alone exhausts me. Usually by the end of the day I barely have energy left to operate a remote control, and even if I try to do the right thing and read instead, my lids grow heavy after 5 minutes, and faster than you can say “Mr. Sandman,” I’m off to La-La Land.

And you want me to spend even more mental, physical and spiritual capital by signing up to fight a Culture War? Isn’t it enough to just try to sew a few seeds of righteousness on the small patch of earth I’m fated to walk across every day? Isn’t loving my neighbor as myself and–egads!–my enemies to boot a tall enough order to keep every fiber of my being occupied?

Hmmm. Let me get back with you on that–right after my evening nap. [...]

I would never tell my good friend Dr. Mark Elrod of Harding University (Hail!) to go to hell. He’s too nice a guy for that, plus he has this “condition”–an enlarged heart. Not the type that would cause you to keel over in the middle of a pick-up basketball game, but the kind that bleeds heavily when people are suffering. It’s a malady we could all use a little more of these days.

As for Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh, those purveyors of post-quake logorrhera, and the political dude from South Carolina who when speaking about people on public assistance used the analogy of denying animals food so they couldn’t “breed” but now “regrets” saying that even though it brought him much attention and fired up his “evangelical” base–I would wish them all straight to hell in a handbasket.

Or maybe a parachute.

Now before someone gets on here, as sometimes happens on this blog, and yells “ALL ABOARD THE TRAIN TO CRAZYTOWN!, allow me to explain. Mark, you see, has already been to hell and back. In fact, he returned from there to Searcy, Arkansas this past Monday, changed for life but still in one piece.  He surprised all of us last week by suddenly announcing that he was going to Haiti (which I think we could all agree is as close to hell on earth as one could possibly get at the moment) as a representative of Harding to scope out possible ways that the University community to assist that tragedy-torn country and her people as quickly as possible.

Philip Holsinger, Harding alum, photojournalist and missionary who has spent considerable time in Haiti prevailed upon Mark to go, and with that “condition” of his, of course Mark said “Send me!” Andrew Baker, head of the Church and Family Institute at Harding, was a key figure in arranging the trip,  and other “higher ups” approved it. Now it’s no secret that a few of those Harding “higher ups” don’t care a great deal for Mark’s personal politics. I know this may come as surprise to those of you who may have been off mining lunar rocks, but that kind of thing happens in many circles these days.

But the powers that be nonetheless figured correctly that Mark was the perfect person to represent the University on the trip. They were willing to put past differences behind them and sign off on this anyway because it was the right thing to do. We need a little more of that kind of “bipartisan” spirit these days.

Kudos, Harding. That’s the kind of pure, unadulterated religion that might shake a little contribution money out of me this year. [...]

Pardon me, but does the goofy-looking nerd in the suspenders and top hat reading Mother Goose look like the type of guy who would strike fear in the hearts of murderous Ku Klux Klansmen?

Um, no, I don’t think so.

And if you had asked any of us who attended Harding University in the early 1980s the same question and what we thought of the future prospects of Jerry “Boo” Mitchell, first-class clown, favorite chapel announcer and author of the somewhat subversive “Fifth Column” which appeared weekly in the school newspaper The Bison, we would have likely laughed and said something like “high school speech teacher,” or “radio talk show host,” anything, really, other than the Civil Rights version of Gabriel Van Helsing.

After all, it’s one thing to poke some holes in Harding’s conservative bubble and to expose what’s really in that latest lump of mystery meat served up in Pattie Cobb cafeteria. But to help put the killer of Medgar Evers behind bars? Well, that’s a hole different pile of muck altogether.

Even Boo was somewhat circumspect when sizing up his potential in the school yearbook back in 1981: “With my speech major, I plan on being unemployed.” Byron De La Beckwith wished he had been. If he was still around, he’d probably be the first to tell you that it’s the quiet and unassuming ones that you’ve really got to watch. [...]

In the past, I always swore that Ocular Fusion would never devolve into one of those TMI “OMG, my big toe aches and I want everybody in the universe to know about it and sympathize with me” kind of blogs.

But that was then, and this is now.

That was before I happily ventured out into the sunny, 65 degree Alabama weather this past Saturday and down to McGucken Park to fling the Frisbee disc with Number One Son and Uncle T. who was visiting from Colorado Springs.

And now my right gluteus maximus is tied-up tighter than King Tut and a tombful of his Egyptian cousins and concubines.

I just thought you needed to know that. Can I get a witness? [...]

All across the South this week, dozens of new football recruits signed on the dotted line and donned their new lids, sometimes in very elaborate and ham-handed ways (Just kidding. We love ya Dre–Roll Tide!).

Speaking of hams, how ’bout the Vols’ new “wunderkind” HC Lane Kiffin? The guy hasn’t coached a single game in the SEC and he’s already talking trash and accusing his colleagues of cheating? This is going to be soooo much fun!

Number Two Son has completed his own “official visits” and is sitting on and mulling over acceptances from Harding, Lipscomb, Auburn and the University of West Florida. Now we’re just waiting for him to call his own presser and don his favorite ball cap, or in the case of the UWF Argonauts, a Greek battle helmet.

Meanwhile, down in T-town, the academic all-star Number One Son is a second-year junior and starting to get into the meat of his biology major/history minor curriculum. I figured he owed most of his classroom success to me and those fine intellectual genes that I passed on.

But while reading the online version of the student newspaper The Crimson White this week, I discovered that he apparently has another high-octane secret weapon.

Our son is now the official poster child for caffeine addiction at the University of Alabama! We’re so proud!

At first, I thought, Hey, even I don’t drink that much. But then I started counting them up, and it wasn’t long before I ran out of fingers and had to start using my toes.

Turns out the boy is a drip off the old block after all.

With apologies for reckless use of a pun while writing under the influence of caffeine, I bid you all a great weekend.

And to my Crimson brothers and sisters out there–Roll Tide, Roll! The third weekend in October is going to be more fun than ever.

But let justice roll on like a river,
righteousness like a never-failing stream!

–Amos 5:24

Regular readers know him as JRB. He’s a Harding grad like me and the most prolific commenter on this blog, the one whose fervent man-passion for his beloved ‘Dores and his meticulous command of the King’s English often get him into a scrap or two with my Bama-lovin’ alter ego, Mike the Redneck.

And through the power of the written word, a cell phone speed dial and a few blessed opportunities to break bread together, he has become one of my best friends and confidantes in the world and the “little brother” I never had. There have been a lot of benefits to this blog, but my friendship with JRB stands out as one of the greatest blessings of all.

What you may not know (but are about to find out because this is very important for you to consider on this most auspicious day) is that the Montgomery Advertiser has honored him along with three other young, community leaders as recipients of their 2009 King Spirit Honors, an award which “represents the vision, dedication and selfless spirit that have become King’s legacy.”

JRB’s boss at Faulkner University’s Jones School of Law, Dean Charles Nelson, nominated him for his work as director of both the Jones Elder Law Clinic and the Family Violence Clinic where JRB and his student charges provide pro bono legal aid to those whose needs are great and are often least able to afford it. Dean Nelson had this to say about JRB’s work:

“Professor Baker is making a difference in our community by taking on unpleasant issues that many would rather turn away from. He gives not only voice and attention to victims, but also hope.”

Somewhere, Atticus Finch is very, very pleased.

Now I know JRB well enough to know that he’s not in this for the recognition and that he’s probably a little embarrassed by all the attention. Sorry, dude. When you live your life sacrificially and sacramentally before the Lord, this is the kind of thing that happens now and then, so you’re just going to have to deal with it.

Besides, days like today serve a greater need–to remind all of us to scan around and look for the injustices in our own community circle that need correcting and to consider what we can do to set matters a little straighter.

Rosa to MLK to JRB–justice rollin’ on like a river. Together, shall we do a wave?

I should have known better than to start a “My Hair is Bigger Than Your Hair” embarrassing photo war with a guy who had his own darkroom and always kept a fully-loaded 35mm camera in his glove compartment.

But that’s exactly what I did this past Saturday when I uploaded my photo album “Big Hair Alert!” (“Selected shots of family and friends from 1980-1990, back when hair was hair and we wore it loud, proud and tall”) to my Facebook page.

Did I mention that I had one of those now? I think I did. And I have almost 100 friends, some of whom I’ve actually met. I’m a blessed man.

All those long, flowing, fluffy locks nearly clogged up the interwebs the way they do the bathtub drain after my morning shower. But within hours, my friend D., an old running mate from my Virginia days, fired off his own salvo entitled “Old pics of Facebook friends–enter at your own risk.”

It was on–only I was completely overwhelmed by superior firepower. It was the US Army versus the Liechtenstein Civil Patrol. [...]

I did a double take when I filled up the trusty German sports sedan at Sam’s Wholesale Club the other night.

Was the final total really only $33? I took off my glasses, checked for smudges, rubbed my eyes, put them back on again and stood there staring at the digital readout. I wasn’t seeing double. I was seeing half.

I looked around and the mood among my fellow customers was one of great jubilation. One man was happily chattering into his cell phone, “Can you believe this?” Another finished filling up his Ford F-150 Double Cab, stared at the final total and started bawling like a baby, tears of unadulterated joy flowing like a river down his ruddy cheeks.

We were partying like it was 2-0-0-4.

I quickly called Eyegal and shared the good news, that I had just filled up for half of what I did just a few months prior. Being the retired CPA and family CFO, I’m sure she was already calculating how she could take the extra coin and pump it into another part of the family budget such as groceries, much-needed-house-repairs or something boooring like that.

But our country’s economy was flagging and in danger of implosion, and being the patriot that I am, I knew what I had to do.

I executed a U-turn into the Sam’s main parking lot, withdrew my club ID card from my wallet and started toward the door. I flashed the ID at the greeter who gave it a cursory glance, smiled and waved me through as usual. I made my way (slowly) through the electronics until I found my “item of interest.” After a very short internal debate, I grabbed the card containing the barcode of my desires and started for the register.

I’d been gazing longingly at the GPS devices (aka “personal travel assistants”) for a couple of years now. Frankly, I would start to shake and my hands would grow tremulous every time I was near them. I’ve always been fascinated with maps of all kinds and could stare at them for hours.

But a map that actually moves with you and pinpoints your position in real time? One that talks to you in “American Jill” or “British Emily,” or, in a pinch, “Mandarin Chin-Li?” It was like all my Star Trek dreams had come true. What’s next–a device that actually flips open and that you can talk into, like a real, bona fide “Communicator?”

I unwrapped my prized Garmin Nuvi 750 and fired it up. As advertised, it quickly honed in on the hovering satellite. After typing in my destination (home, please), off I went, “American Jill,” in that sweet, sexy voice of hers, guiding me every step of the way (“turn right here–you delicious, intellectual hunk of a man, you.”).

I’m pleased to report that I made it home efficiently and in record time. And I didn’t get lost once. Oh, and the Home Depot, McDonald’s and the corner Shell Station were all right where they were supposed to be! Who knew?

With our Thanksgiving trip to Grandma’s house in Virginia coming up in a couple of days, my timing couldn’t have been more perfect. My “personal travel assistant” will not leave me in the lurch. Never again will I be wandering aimlessly along I-81 in Tennessee between Mohawk Crossing and Blountville searching frantically for the nearest Taco Bell.

And with Number Two’s upcoming trip to Harding to check out his prospects there, I won’t have to worry so much about whether or not he’ll miss that tricky turn onto Arkansas 64 near West Memphis and end up in St. Louis before he realizes what happened. So really, it’s all about family.

Guide Me O Thou Great GPS–and talk sexy to me while you’re at it!

Lewis and Clark never had it so good. And if they had, they would have arrived at their destination much sooner and eaten a lot better.

Ah yes, the ol’ missing first paragraph is back:

My Olympic dream died sometime around 1978. The reality was that I could barely crack the top 10 of an average high school cross country race, so there was little hope of me ever mounting the winner’s platform and hearing “The Star-Spangled Banner” in my lifetime.

And here’s the rest.

BONUS:
Here’s some footage of me running the last lap in that charity fundraiser at Harding University in 1983.

And here I am today with my Sunday morning running buddies, “Team Wannabe” (that’s actual speed, not slow-mo).

Old Olympic dreams never die–they just go slower.

For Jim Ryun, his Olympic dream of winning a gold medal went unfulfilled. He failed to qualify for the 1500 meter final in 1964 (he was still in high school, though) and then finished second to Kip Keino in the high altitude air at Mexico City in 1968.

But the most bitter disappointment came in 1972 when he was tripped by another runner in a qualifying heat. Although the judges ruled that he was fouled, the International Olympic Committee (IOC), for reasons still not understood, didn’t reinstate him. Dream over.

Still, an Olympic Silver Medal, a world record in the mile and a high school mile record (3:55.3) set in 1965 that stood for 36 years–not too shabby if you ask me.

I’d take it. All I got was a trophy from Ol’ Earl.

Ryun went to The University of Kansas, ran in the Olympics and won a medal, went on to a successful career in business and eventually became a U.S. Congressman.

I went to Hardly Harding University, ran the race of my life in a fundraiser event on the school track in front of the lovely ladies of Sigma Phi Mu and became an obscure optometrist in a small Southern city.

Are you picking up on a pattern here?

Eventually, though, our paths would cross. Years later, after the boys were born, I spied a picture of Ryun setting his high school mile record in a runner’s magazine.

Inspired, I dropped him a short note at his House of Representatives address telling him how he had been my running role model and that I showed that particular picture to my young sons as an example of what it was like to “give one’s all” on the athletic field or in any life endeavor.

I know–gag. It was a real groupie thing to do, but I didn’t ask for a thing. Honest. But needless to say, I was thrilled when this arrived in an official looking government envelope a few weeks later:

That picture hangs on the wall of my office to this day.

But that wasn’t the end of it. A few years ago, Ryun spoke at Hardly Harding, and I drove over to Scarcely Searcy to hear and meet my boyhood hero:

That’s him signing his book for me. He’s smiling (or is that a smirk?) at something I’m telling him. To find out what we talked about, check my column in The Huntsville Times this coming Sunday.

My Olympic dream dead? Not so fast!

Some of you have been clamoring for a shot of the proprietor of this joint. Well, here’s a shot of me “back in the day” when my morning workout was truly a run and not just a slog:

I sense some skepticism out there coursing the interwebs and emanating from my computer screen. What’s that you say? Is that really the Eyeguy?

Would I ever pull your leg, kid around, be factitious, yank your chain, or otherwise out and out lie simply for effect?

Yup, you bet I would.

Actually, that’s a very young Jim Ryun working out in the 1960s when he was rising to the top of the distance running world and around the time that he set the world record in the mile run. He was my boyhood hero (did you know that he grew up in the Church of Christ and was recruited heavily by Harding?), and I tried to be just like him.

And I came pretty close too. Oh sure, there were differences, such as his setting the world record in the mile, routinely beating the world’s best runners, running for the Kansas Jayhawks, winning a silver medal in the ’68 Mexico City Olympic Games and becoming a Congressman, but sheez, let’s get picky why don’t we?

How fast was Ryun? He could outrun a Mustang:

Notice the unrestrained small child looking on from the passenger side. Those were the days, weren’t they?

I’ll share some more of my memories of Ryun over the next few days and the curious ways in which our paths ultimately crossed.

In the meantime, here he is in one of his happier moments. Jim McKay has the call.

In a few minutes, I’ll lace up my Nike Vomero running shoes (black and gold swoosh for Harding–Hail, alma mater!) and once again hit the pavement for an early morning 5-miler. It’s a habit with roots from the early 1970s, more specifically, the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany.

I’ve been reminiscing some about that time these past few days as I’ve been writing my next Huntsville Times community column which will appear on August 10th, the opening weekend of the 2008 Beijing Summer Games.

Here’s a sneak preview:

During the 1972 Munich Games, American runners like Jim Ryun, Steve Prefontaine, Dave Wottle and Frank Shorter captured my elementary schoolboy imagination and launched my own much less stellar running career…

…I fashioned a makeshift running singlet by cutting off the sleeves of a white t-shirt and stenciling a crude “U.S.A.” across the front in red and blue magic marker. Soon I was racing an imaginary Kip Keino around my house, and I eventually wore a bare path in my father’s lawn, not as sacred and pristine as the track at the University of Oregon’s legendary Hayward Field, but just as oval…

Intrigued? Check back on August 10th for the rest of the story.

From the opening ceremonies until the Olympic flame was extinguished and the charge given to the world’s athletes to reassemble in Montreal in 1976, the Munich Olympic Games were marked forever in controversy and tragedy.

I’ll be serving up some of my own memories of that time and trying to track down some vintage YouTube footage as well.

It would go even better if we could make it a group project. Where were you in ’72?

To my Gen X and Y readers: Yeah, yeah, I know some of you weren’t even born yet. But you can still talk about your earliest Olympic memories if you like.