Martha Cooney - Olympic Torch

 

 

The summer after I graduated from high school, I started working at this overnight camp. It was a Catholic camp in the Pennsylvania woods, and I really wanted to win rookie of the year, my first year. This was a time when health and safety standards were really open ended. [audience laughter] We had all these theme weeks for Halloween week. The counselors got into costumes, we filled tube socks with flour and went around just pummeling the shit out of the campers. [audience laughter]

 

For Christmas week, the local fire company came and they pumped three feet of the foam, the toxic forever chemical foam onto the grass for snow. 300 campers were in. It was a free for all breaking ankles. Eyes are burning. [audience laughter] So great. 

 

So, Monday morning of Olympic week, Dave, one of the 20 somethings who ran the camp approached me. Dave was a former pro rugby player from Scotland, and he used to wear his high cut scrum shorts around camp, like basically the same coverage as a speedo. He came up to me and said, “Martha, would you carry the torch for opening ceremonies tonight?” [audience laughter] And this was a huge deal for me, because I was new to camp, I really wanted to be accepted, I hadn't done anything yet where I would be in the spotlight. So, stakes were high. And I was like, “Yeah, I will carry the torch.” 

 

The other torch runner was Jonathan from archery. He was a really quiet, really nice priest in training, [audience laughter] because the archdiocese would sometimes send seminarians to help out for the summer. There was this other guy who came every year for one week, and he had great hair, but he was always a little bit drunk. [audience laughter] 

 

So, Monday night of opening ceremonies, the entire camp, 300 kids, they process up to the colorist field. That's what we call the flagpole field. They all have their flags of nations and their noisemakers and they line up. I'm ready. I have my sneakers on and I go to the torch handoff spot by the basketball courts. The bullhorn sounds. Chariots of Fire starts playing from the speakers. [audience laughter] The whole camp turns and looks at me. Jonathan from archery emerges from the woods. [audience laughter] 

 

Now, when Dave said Olympic torch, I thought, paper towel tube, [audience laughter] red and orange tissue paper glitter. Jonathan from archery was carrying a branch that had been wrapped in a rag, doused in gasoline and set on fire. [audience laughter] He's running toward me. The flame is like two feet wide. It's hot smoke. It's spitting sparks like a piece of furniture from Satan's living room. [audience laughter] He's got a panicked look on his face. There's sweat dripping from his head. He's like, “Take it. Take it.” [audience laughter] 

 

I don't want to take this, but everything is riding on this. This is my initiation into camp. The whole camp is waiting, so I reach through the smoke and I grab [audience laughter] the end of the stick that is not on fire. I think if I hold it lengthways like a tennis player doing a forearm, I'll be fine. The flame runs down the stick onto my hand. My hand is on fire. I drop the flaming stick into the hot July grass. [audience laughter] 

 

Jonathan from archery does not have time for this. [audience laughter] He gets a look of cold steel in his eyes, like he's about to deliver a baby and he goes in. He reaches through the fire, grabs the branch and runs to the colorist field, like the devil is after him. [audience laughter] 300 campers part like the Red Sea. He goes through up the ladder into the silver bowl at the top, he drops the flaming Olympic torch, getting the glory that should have been mine, while I stand frozen in the handoff spot. [audience laughter]

 

10 minutes later, Jonathan from archery and I are both in the camp infirmary, and Dave is wrapping up our wounds. [audience laughter] He's burned all the hair off of his arms. My hand is crispy. [audience laughter] Dave says, “You were on fire and you didn't let go. [audience laughter] Why did you not let go?” [audience laughter] I didn't say anything, because you remember, I did. 

 

Years later, I asked Dave, how did you decide who to pick for these important things, like running the Olympic torch? And he said, “Well, my job was risk and stupidity mitigation. [audience laughter] So, I tried to pick someone who wouldn't do something foolish and fuck it up.” [audience laughter] Well, that summer, Jonathan won always willing to volunteer. Dave won best legs, and I won rookie of the year.