My Olympic Hero

Four foot nine and you know who.
She does everything the big boys do.
Double backs that reach the sky;
There is nothing that she won’t try.

Wheeties cereal commercial 1984 still remembered by me

As the Olympics come to a close, I must pay homage to my childhood hero, gymnast Mary Lou Retton. Already into gymnastics before the games, the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics spurred my love for gymnastics even deeper. All because of Mary Lou. Who else would inspire me to get my hair cut really short and never thereafter, but Mary Lou? (I found out later on that my mom secretly cried because she thought I looked like a boy). I collected all of the Wheeties boxes with her on it when I didn’t even like Wheeties. I ordered the official commemorative Olympic leotard with much of my allowance money (later to be disappointed because the stripes weren’t exactly the same width as those on Mary Lou’s leotard). I begged my dad (and he so kindly did) to make miniature wooden apparatus for my barbies and little orphan annie doll with miniature leotards made by mom. I read Mary Lou’s biography many times and even kept a Tyson chicken cookbook with her featured on it. I didn’t even cook! I can even still remember the precision I took in posing for this picture trying to make my hands positioned just like hers. And of course I taped the Wheeties commercial with her featured to watch over and over and memorize.

Because of Mary Lou many years were spent dedicated to gymnastics. Many afternoons were lived at the gym practicing until I entered high school and knew I was never going to amount to Olympic quality.

So every four years when it is Olympic time, a flood of memories rushes through my mind as I recall that great summer of 1984. The summer of Mary Lou. And you can bet that when my kids were at gymnastics class this week, I longed for a moment where I could just run out onto the floor and relive those great gymnastics years.