Like our Over the Hill
columnist Joan Crosby, I am addicted to the 2010 Olympics. It has been exciting to watch the adventures of Minnesota-born Alpine skier Lindsey Vonn, winning gold despite a severely bruised shin. It has been uplifting to see Apolo Ohno win medal after medal in speed-skating— after warming up by yawning, no less. It is moving to see the tearful athletes on the podium as the flags of their countries are raised.
I have also watched in anguish as figure skaters have fallen during competition. One after another, the incredibly coordinated and choreographed skaters have fallen, skidding across the ice. They seem to fall most often on simple moves, not the fancy aerial throws or dizzying spins incorporated into routines. It must be so frustrating for them to reach this level, only to stumble.
The same for the skiers—as I write this at home, I continue to feed my Olympic addiction—watching the women’s ski-cross racers on Cypress Mountain. Although she was the favorite to win the gold, France’s Ophelie David crashed on a jump, painfully left behind as her competitors raced to the finish. How heartbreaking.
I guess that is one reason I enjoy watching the Olympics. The competition imitates life. We all have moments of glory—and despair—in our day-today life. We may not have millions of people watching us, but we all have our challenges and critics to deal with.
We certainly do at the News-Herald.
Every week we work really hard to cover all government meetings, activities at four schools, church events, community gatherings, and business news. We gather trail reports, weather information, fishing reports, historical remembrances, columns from a variety of folks and more. We proofread and proofread and proofread again. We do our utmost to make it to our finish line each week with complete and accurate coverage.
And sometimes we slip and fall.
It is exasperating to find an error on our own. Sometimes we remember a line in an article that didn’t seem right and we search the newly printed pages—sure enough, there is something amiss. Sometimes we don’t catch mistakes until we get a nasty phone call or an anonymous postcard pointing out an error—like the one sent to me a few months ago when I accidentally referred to a ruffed grouse as a rough grouse.
I already had a friend politely point the error out to me and the correction was written, ready to be published the next week. I couldn’t believe I made such a dumb mistake. I certainly wouldn’t finish in the medals for that issue of the paper.
But like the Olympians who pledge to work that much harder to come back and compete, mistakes like that remind us to slow down—to write carefully, to proof thoroughly—to strive to be the very best.
Fortunately we don’t have to wait four years to try again.
Finish each day and be done with it.
You have done what you could; some
blunders and absurdities have crept
in; forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin
it serenely and with too high a spirit to
be encumbered with your old nonsense.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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