Living Jackson Magazine

Always Time for a Party
by Priscilla Daves

Ten years since the Atlanta Olympics. I still remember that summer as one of the best of my life—and one that I had every intention of missing.

I volunteered, but the Atlanta Organizing Committee lost 50,000 volunteer applications, a feat that gave me the distinct impression I (and many others) were not wanted. Then they said for us downtown workers to take three weeks vacation. Don’t come to Atlanta. Stay home, or better, just get out of the state, they said. Never let it be said I can’t take a hint.

I’d also been in the crowds when honoring Braves heroes, and I had a clear idea that the public transportation would be a problem only exceeded by the inability of Atlanta law enforcement to maintain crowds.

So I thought it would be a good idea to take three weeks vacation, paint the front porch and not get into the Olympic mess in downtown Atlanta.

Not that I wanted to miss everything. I was in the crowd and as excited as anyone else when the Olympic torch came through Jefferson before the opening ceremonies. I was proud when Jefferson opened its home to one of the Olympic teams from Africa.
Then, I was fortunate to go to an awards ceremony for nothing to do with the Olympics and be seated near a young man from Los Angeles who said he had great memories of the Los Angeles Olympics.

“Don’t miss it—you will always be glad you went,” he said. “Better: get involved because you’ll remember it all your life.”
Still planning to paint the porch, I picked up the phone a week before the Olympics were to start to hear a friend ask if I’d help staff one of the media centers. Seems they were short of volunteers. Imagine.

I went down for credentials that afternoon and discovered that downtown Atlanta was becoming a wonderful place—a place people could walk without fear—a place where just being in the crowd was fun. I liked that Atlanta very much.

I took my family down the next day to see what I was talking about and before long, my sister was running family tours for friends and family. I had access to parking, had that been needed (it was not) because many people were apparently painting porches the first week or so.

Then, somebody planted that bomb. People in this state will take an insult from insiders, but a bomb was an insult from an outsider and that we will not take. Watching carefully between the reruns of the interview interrupted by the blast, it was obvious there was a party going on.

A real Southerner can’t be so insulted as to miss a good party, invited or not. After discovery of the party in downtown Atlanta, everyone came. My sister’s trips downtown with friends and family had to be booked in advance. Our law enforcement officers, after years of special training, were pulled in from all over the state (no one was out there anyway) for boring purse searches. Except for the professional law enforcement folks, the rest of us realized this was fun.

One of the best parts was the pins. Lapel pins seldom worn on lapels but just about everywhere else and in every form imaginable blossomed on hats, shirts, ribbons. You bought them, exchanged them or found them. People who had no language in common were able to negotiate the most complex deals and part happy.

I got the idea that maybe the world could have peace if we could just get everyone talking about important things like our pins and stop trying to shoot each other for things that don’t matter.

The Olympics ended. The people who were in charge of the games felt they were not good games, but they were inside at the games and missed some of the best parts of people getting together, getting to know each other and learning from others. They missed the joy of being safe in a big city and being in a good mood with others who were interested in your pins. Much of the growth we are experiencing today came from exposure of this state to the world 10 years ago. We became an Olympic state.
For a long time in Atlanta you could walk up and start any conversation with anyone just by talking about the lapel pins all of us were wearing.

I think we need another try at the Olympics. Now we know what the Olympics are, we know to buy tickets to things that we had not known about before and we need another party. We’ll paint the porches earlier this time and we won’t be silly enough to listen when anyone tells us to stay at home. And most of us still have our pins, but we could use more.