Olympic Games ~ A Reflection
DJ Quinn’s reflection on Olympic Games played in the summer.
You might not understand what camping has to do with the Boston Marathon. But if you have ever camped with, or near, a family of nine kids, you might have seen (or heard) it happening.
It’s the competition. It was on family road trips that my siblings learned to compete. Mile after mile we fought for seats in the car. At night we wrestled for places to sleep. We had fist fights over the last donut or cookie. And when Dad pulled off the road to restore order, we fought over who caused all the chaos.
Our family camping trips were, in fact, a "Camping Olympics”. We trained at home, perfecting our skills in wrestling, running, and harassing each other. When we hit the road, our training paid off. Camping freed us to battle one another outside the confines of home, without our parents acting as referees.
My parents knew competition would be intense when we traveled. Before we left on a camping trip, they issued us Camping Olympic uniforms. These were sweatshirts, and each kid wore a different color. Color-coding prevented fights about who owned which sweatshirt. It also helped Mom and Dad remember who-was-who.
The uniforms had strict wearing regulations, known as "Three in/Three out." No matter how much mud wrestling, swimming, or sweating we did, we had to wear the uniforms for three consecutive days. On the fourth day, they were turned inside-out and worn inside-out for the next three days. Our family Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser stunk like a moving locker room. When the uniforms finally were washed, they were worn Three in/Three out again on the trip home.
The Camping Olympics were held at "The Madison”. To this day, I don’t know exactly where The Madison was located. It was a God-forsaken spot in Montana, somewhere before the Madison, Jefferson, and Gallatin rivers hooked up to form the Missouri.
It was a desolate spot indeed. The Native Americans didn't want to live there. Lewis and Clark took one look and moved on. Early pioneers passed up offers of free land at The Madison. Except for mosquitoes, flies, and some snakes, we were the only living creatures ever to stay at The Madison. Which was exactly the reason my parents loved it.
The average temperature there was around 100 degrees in the shade. And since my parents never chose a camping spot with trees, the temperature in the shade was irrelevant. The Madison was scorching hot and was infested with rattlesnakes. According to my parents, the rattlesnakes were so big they “could swallow kids whole”.
Every day, Dad would head to the river to go fishing, reminding us for final time about the snakes before he trotted off. Being petrified of the rattlers, none of us would tag after him. In all the years camping at The Madison, no one (including Dad) ever saw a rattlesnake. But the lurking snakes did their job—they gave our father some quiet time alone.
Mom might have braved the rattlesnakes to go with my father, but she hated fishing. Her passion was organizing the Olympic games. With unlimited imagination, she kept us occupied and prevented us from killing each other. Minor Olympic events varied — some card games, relay races, and water fights. But in my mother’s eyes, the focus of our Camping Olympics should be baseball.
Baseball. Standing in the hot August sun, dressed in our sweatshirts, we swatted mosquitoes and played baseball. Each game started with the few siblings who were in a good mood singing The Star-Spangled Banner. The rest of us, who had been shoved out of the wrong side of the sleeping bag that morning, just stood there. That moment wasn’t about patriotism, it simply served to raise tempers and irritate the competition.
And then we played baseball. Green, red, yellow, and blue against black, pink, brown and purple. Three hits. Two outs, and a brawl about a strike call. A time-out called for more mosquito spray.
Then pink, green, red and purple played black, blue, brown and yellow. On and on it wore, inning after inning, day after day. Baseball. In the sweltering heat at The Madison, my brothers and sisters learned to hate baseball, mosquitoes, and rattlesnakes. But we learned to love competition, and in the long run, how to love one another.
The best part of Camping Olympics was that we competed for fun. Nobody really cared who won. Until that fateful night when our parents violated our Olympic code. We were sitting around the campfire when the folks announced they had a surprise. They pulled out the first-ever “Good Traveler Award”. My sister Mazie won that single award. The other eight of us tied for dead-ass last place. Which is the reason our lives have never been the same.
It wasn’t Mazie's fault, but that Good Traveler prize ruined our Camping Olympics. We still played games on later camp-outs, but by then Mazie was on a mission, always gunning for more prizes. Since the night she won the one-and-only Good Traveler award, she has run hundreds of races. She has won countless trophies, ribbons, medals, turkeys and even a cheeseball or two.
My other siblings and I have no use for prizes. The night all of us losers missed the award podium in the Good Travelers competition, our focus changed. We decided we would all compete for laughs and let Mazie run after the prizes.
Years after our last camp-out at The Madison, I was a spectator when Mazie ran the Boston Marathon. As she slowly jogged past me at mile #21, I jumped into the race to join her. It was like being back at The Madison. Everyone was hot. Everyone was sweating, stinking, and ignoring the yelling crowd. I even felt an urge to sing The Star-Spangled Banner to make Mazie run faster.
As we crossed the finish line in downtown Boston, my mind flashed back to The Madison. Mazie put her finisher's medal around her neck, then ran to a Porta-potty to throw up. I enjoyed the free food they were passing out to runners. As I stepped over passed-out racers and chomped on free donuts, I was thrilled that I had “finished” the Boston Marathon.
And in that post-race chaos, I heard my late mother’s sweet voice. She was whispering in my head repeating the sacred rule she tried to teach us at our childhood Camping Olympics. “Never forget kids-- the one who has the most fun wins!”