When I was a kid, we didn’t have TV until I was about 9.

We lived way up in the mountains and there weren’t yet the radio waves or satellite signals necessary to reach us. (Which was, of course, a blessing in that my sister and I had to entertain ourselves with hokey throwbacks like books, board games and playing outside.)

But then, all in one fell swoop, television arrived.
And so did the Olympics.

This was back in the day when the Olympics were every four years — both summer and winter — rather than the alternating two year schedule we’re on now. Meaning: it was a very, very big deal.

At our house, we not only got a TV — we got TV tables.
We ate our casserole dinner and drank our milk and watched Dorothy Hamill take the gold.
We thought we’d died and gone to heaven.

Then, a couple of weeks later, the Olympics wrapped up and suddenly (shocker!) there was nothing on TV.

We’d been duped.

We thought TV was dramatic. Thrilling. Heart-wrenching. True.
But it wasn’t. 
It was just a big, black box with too many commericals and a lot of flat-looking shows we weren’t allowed to watch.
We felt the agony of defeat, to be sure.

That was a little over 32 years ago and I still feel pretty much the same way:
TV is a lousy con game, but I love the Olympics.

Really, they’re more like a good book, a good board game or playing outside.
They’re compelling, competitive, exciting, unpredictable. 
They’re real, true human drama, which is what the reality TV folks have been trying to fake for the past 5 years.
They’re inspiring, which I’m a sucker for.

So, I’ve got my eye on the prize. 
This weekend.
Beijing.
A place that’s really too polluted and too controversial to be hosting.
But the Olympics are the great equalizer.
They can be held in Sarajevo or Salt Lake.
Jamaicans can ride the bob sleds and 41-year-old moms like me (well, okay, not exactly like me) can go for broke.

This weekend there’s finally something on TV…