Jackson Free Press

As a child in the early 1960s, I remember my mother playing military marches on the piano. I would march around the house carrying the American flag and singing every word to "Anchors Aweigh," "The Caisson Song," "The Army Air Corps Song" and "The Marine Hymn." One day my father, a World War II veteran, bought a larger-then-life American flag and dug a hole in the front yard for the pole. From then on, at the beginning of each summer all the neighborhood kids would gather in our front yard for the official seasonal search for the pole hole, complete with map and the raising of the flag, at which point my dad would recite the Boy Scout Oath.

We may also have recited the Pledge of Allegiance, but all I remember is starting every summer with "On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country…" It never failed, whenever my father had a patriotic moment, he always said that oath.

My patriotism followed me into adulthood and into my early career as a basketball coach. In 1976, the bicentennial year, I found it necessary to be in Philadelphia, Pa., for my country's 200th birthday. The 1976 Olympic Summer Games were occurring in Canada that same summer, and because Canada and Pennsylvania are in close proximity of one other (both east of the Mississippi River) and because I have loved sports from birth, I also found it necessary to be in Montreal. I convinced a friend, Marilyn, that it was necessary for her to be there, too. So, the project began.

The plan was to buy a tent and camp out all the way there and back. We had no money, and what money we had would go to purchasing Olympic tickets. I don't think our parents really believed we would go, but after several garage sales and a part-time janitorial job, our money stash began to grow. We ordered and received tickets to some Olympic events and had a place to stay in Montreal (friends of friends). The parents became believers, and my dad, the eternal Boy Scout who believed one should always "Be Prepared," bought us a Class B motor home called the Merry Miler, which he was able to sell after we returned. He never had to make a payment on it. Must be that Boy Scout thing.

He was not about to have his little girl camping in a tent all the way to Canada and back. He also came up with tickets to a Yankees game. What better way to celebrate my country's heritage than to see where the Declaration of Independence was signed, to see the Old North Church and retrace the ride of Paul Revere and to stand at the Lincoln Memorial and look right into the eyes of Honest Abe. And, as a bonus, we had tickets to the 1976 Olympics and a Yankee's baseball game complete with the opportunity to sit in the House That Ruth Built.

We left Mississippi on Thursday, June 24, 1976, and went to southern Georgia to follow the Eastern Seaboard north and begin our trek to Montreal. (My mother told me I was the only person she knew who could leave Jackson, Miss., and travel south to get to Canada.) We started July 4th in Philadelphia, seeing the Declaration of Independence and participating in the Bicentennial Celebration that day. By night, we were sitting on the steps of the Capitol in Washington for a fireworks display. Watching Queen Elizabeth descend the White House steps with President Gerald Ford and witnessing the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier were patriotic moments that live with me still. However, none of these prepared me for the patriotic emotion I would experience at the Olympics.

On July 15 we rolled into Montreal and immediately went to Olympic Village. Because of the attack on the Israeli Olympic Team at the 1972 Munich Games, the Olympic Village and all the athletes were heavily guarded. Seeing all the military and weapons diminished what I had in my mind of the Olympics.

We still needed tickets to the Opening Ceremony and the basketball games and could get neither. Since we both coached basketball and a Mississippian, Lucy Harris from Delta State University, was on the women's basketball team, we were insistent on finding tickets to these events. The Opening Ceremony came and went without us, more disappointment. Scalpers were everywhere. We could have seen the Opening Ceremony but would've had to hitchhike back to Mississippi. We weren't having any luck finding affordable tickets to the basketball games, either, and time was running out.

I was in a concession line to get a Coke and was voicing all of my Olympic complaints to the gentleman if front of me. I spoke of the guns, the military, the scalpers and of how I was a basketball coach from Mississippi and of how it was my patriotic duty to be at the Olympics and support my country. I spoke of how I had come all this way and now had to watch the games on TV and could see thousands of empty seats, front row, 50-yard line. I spoke of how I had always held the Olympics in high esteem and how I considered it to be the epitome of sporting events and of my disappointment now. When I finished my mini rampage, he reached into his pocket and handed me two tickets to all the men and women's basketball games, including the medal games. Turns out he was a member of the International Olympic Committee and said he hoped that would help change my mind about the Olympics. It did.

Fortunately we already had tickets to the track and field events. I saw Edwin Moses win the 400-meter hurdles for the United States and another American, Michael Shine, place second. At the conclusion of the race, Moses and Shine embraced, locked arms and took a lap together, stepping on and knocking down each hurdle as they went, literally and symbolically. It was also here that Bruce Jenner won the gold medal for the United States in the decathlon and became a household word in America.

Because of those golds, I got to attend the Gold Medal Ceremonies at the 1976 Olympics. That is, after all, what I wanted to see in the first place. I stood tall when they raised that flag. I held my hand over my heart and sang our National Anthem as loud as I could. I could hear my mama playing the piano and see my daddy reciting the Boy Scout Oath. I was proud to be my parents' child and proud to be an American.
Judy Jacobs is a guidance counselor and a regular contributor to the JFP.