I Saw the Flame

The last time I saw the Olympic torch was eight years ago when it was passing through Buffalo on its cross country trip to Atlanta. That was the summer Olympics of the knapsack bomb, but the torch as it came into Buffalo's Niagara Square was a beautiful site. An early summer evening with a cool breeze blowing off Lake Erie. The next morning was even more beautiful. Lone runners bearing the torch through the country side of Western New York, I think on its way toward Rochester and Syracuse, roughly following the Erie Canal.

For the 2004 Athens Olympics, St. Louis is one of four cities in the United States that the torch will pass through. Yesterday the torch was in Los Angeles. Early this morning the torch flew aboard Zeus to here, starting its route through St. Louis at the Arch, then winding through the suburbs toward Washington University and Forest Park, where the Olympics were held a hundred years ago. I saw the torch as it ran through Clayton, directly in front of St. Louis Bread Company and directly across the street from Starbucks. The crowd was less than a hundred, but we all cheered and waved our flags while drinking the new C2 Coke.

It's funny how we'll wait to see something when the actual sight is much shorter than the wait. We'll wait at a curb to see a hearse pass bearing someone famous; we'll wait at a corner to see a torch pass. What makes the wait worth the sight is not the sight of a torch passing but the contemplation of what the sight means, what it signifies. The torch is the vehicle of what we hope will be a good game, of the myth that we willing accept: that the world can set aside arms for sport. It's an idea worth celebrating.

I don't live far from Forest Park. The torch must be there now. I can't see the fireworks, too many trees, but I can hear the cracks and pops and booms.