(8 of 8)
Henry David Thoreau (second cousin three times removed) is sitting in the Los Angeles Coliseum, watching the U.S. pigeon team peck away at the grass. The Games are 23 days away. Thoreau is the Olympic commissioner of track and field. Good-natured to his toes, he looks like everyone's favorite ice-cream man. His seat overlooks the finish line, where all the races will end. Below and around him, workers hammer and drill in preparation for the opening ceremonies. A theater; a set going up. The gateways to the seats have been painted magenta, vermilion, chrome yellow, violet and aqua. The sky is merely blue. Is track and field the center of the Olympics, Mr. Thoreau? Definitely. "Everyone can understand it."
His second cousin three times removed was all for things readily understood. "Simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth and see where your main roots run." On a wall outside the Coliseum, the motto of the Games: CITIUS, ALTIUS, FORTIUS—faster, higher, stronger. Simplify the problem. Now the workers are washing the track. A light breeze swirls in the vast cone. Suds fill the lanes where the kids will run.
—By Roger Rosenblatt