In any other year on a Thursday before Labor Day, my bags would be packed, my camera batteries charged, and I would be loading the car, about to leave for the airport to catch a flight. This year that flight would have been to Boston’s Logan Airport where we would have rented a car for the short road trip to Worcester for the AYF Olympics.
I should be writing this from an airplane from Chicago to Boston. I should be anticipating the thought of seeing everyone I know and haven’t seen for a year and meeting some new people, especially young AYFers competing for the first time.
Instead it is like any other first Thursday in September in the Midwest. It is a beautiful late summer day in the 80s drenched in golden sunshine. It is a day of MS Teams meetings, course preparation and grading.
The year 2020 has certainly been unusual. We are all weary of the social distancing which for so many of us has dampened our social lives. We have known for a few months that this year’s AYF Olympics were postponed, but the true despair of no Olympics is hitting us all… just about now. We are spending Labor Day weekend at home doing mundane and routine things instead of being together and celebrating being Armenian in America.
The Olympics is a reunion of friends and family. It is taking pride in watching our wonderful young people compete in track and field, swimming, softball, golf and tennis. It is dining with friends and family. It is meeting new Armenians from all over. It is enjoying our music and dancing. The Olympics, to paraphrase William Saroyan, is hundreds of Armenians meeting and creating a new Armenia.
Since I usually cover tennis and golf (the Friday morning sports), I have to arrive on Thursday. The first time I did it in 2014, it was the greatest. I love to arrive at the Olympics on Thursday. It is before the weekend really revs up, and it is a delight to hang out with the Governing Body, CE members and the organizing committee before running the weekend consumes all their time. I often find myself catching up with Ken and Alexan Topalian, Michael Varadian, Jeff and Steve Hagopian, and golf and tennis players and their families. It is a much more relaxed day than the rest of the weekend.
Usually, the host chapter plans an event for Thursday night—a comedy show, a dinner, drinks, and music. Tonight, Judy and I went to Costco and then drove down to Lake Michigan for a moonlight dinner. We chatted about how we would have been having dinner with others in Worcester and how very odd it was that we would be home this weekend.
Tomorrow, I will get up early, but I will not be watching golf and tennis matches. I have two early morning classes to teach. This is my first time since joining the faculty at North Park University that I have not cancelled my Friday classes. That will keep me busy and my mind off of not being at Olympics until 10:30.
I understand several groups are planning Zoom parties for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Invite me; I would be happy to come take a few photos, report who was there, and get some quotes.
Then, at the end of the day, I retire to my room to finish up my Thursday night article. I am doing the same from the easy chair in my family room. Well, there is no AYF Olympics this year, but there are so many wonderful memories.
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