I feel sorry for today’s kids. Summer comes, they’re finally free from school—and bang!Band camp. Science seminars. Internships.

Instead of downtime, it’s get-up-and-go time. Chorus travel, archaeological digs, dance tours. My nephew from Michigan flew to Georgetown University for a summer medical program, replete with cadavers. He was 16.

He’s hardly alone. Some kids fill their summers with so many prep courses that they’re ready to graduate from college by the time they get there. It’s all very admirable, but here’s a question: Why so busy?

I can make the case for doing nothing all summer. That’s right. Nothing. I know it won’t advance your kids’ career objectives or improve their SAT scores.

But it might be good for them.

When I think of my childhood summers, I remember lying in the grass, hands behind my head, feeling the blades dig into my fingers. I studied the clouds. I joked with my friends. None of us wore watches.

Weekdays were indistinguishable from weekends. I’d wake up when my eyes opened, read comic books over bowls of -cereal, go outside with my baseball glove (just in case a game broke out), and find something to do—oil my bike, make things in the garage. Was it lazy? By today’s standards, maybe. But there was a freedom that today’s kids don’t enjoy. We sat on curbs. We daydreamed. Think about the word. “Daydream.” It means your imagination wanders while your eyes are open.

What kid has time for that today? Preteens are on travel soccer teams. They fly to faraway cities. Play tournaments. Isn’t that what pro players do?

Likewise, camps chew up the summer months, but they’re no longer just softball and swimming. There are fashion camps. Circus camps. Science camps. Achievement is emphasized.

Even kids at home find their free time under scrutiny. Some children are made to adhere to playdates as if keeping a doctor’s appointment. (By the way, the closest I ever came to a “playdate” was when my mother opened the door on summer mornings and said, “Go. Don’t come back until supper.”)

We need to lighten it up. Sometimes doing nothing is doing something. Sure, camp can be fun, and travel ball is exciting, but if we cram in activities from the last day of school to the first, we’re ignoring an important fact: The way kids work during the academic year—honestly, you’d think homework was a full-time job—a mental break may be needed. These are young minds, young bodies. Replenishing the juices by kicking back is not a bad idea. And if not in childhood, then when?

Now, I know what you’re thinking: “If we don’t enroll our kids in an activity, all they’ll do is text. Or watch TV (and text) or talk on the phone (and text).”

Well, you could prevent that. You could take away the cell phone, the iPod, the Nintendo. Then see if you can get your kid to do four things in a day:

1. Have a face-to-face conversation with a friend.

2. Read something.

3. Build something.

4. Get wet. A pool. A hose. A sprinkler. Whatever.

That’s really enough. Before you can blink, it’s the school year again, where every day is jammed with sports, AP classes, student government, and field trips.

That’s fine for September. But if September is no different from June, July, and August, then we’re doing something wrong. And our kids are missing something precious.

Okay, I lied. I don’t sit in the cockpit. I sit where you sit. And I fly a lot (over 100,000 miles a year). So I would like to suggest ways the airlines could treat us better this year.

But why bother?

Any business that will soon be charging you and me to open the bathroom door isn’t keen on hearing from either of us. The airlines stopped listening about the time they began selling pillows.

So perhaps we could speak to one another as fellow travelers. Because even if the airlines torture us until we’d rather ride on the back of a filthy hay wagon, we don’t have to follow suit, do we?

We can all be flying buddies!

Here are a few gentle suggestions:

First, when you get on the plane, walk down the aisle with your carry-on luggage in front of you, not behind you. Behind you, you knock over drinks, bags, and small elderly people.

And when you finally sit down, think before you slam your seat back into the person behind you. Breaking kneecaps is for gangster movies.

Feet. As in bare feet. Don’t do it. Maybe at home you like to rip off your socks and plant your naked toes wherever you like, but not on a plane, okay? This isn’t a nail salon. I recently sat next to a woman who stuck her bare, sweaty feet on the cabin wall! Please. Unless you’re Spider-Man and about to walk upside down, keep the shoes on, all right? It’s smelly enough in the cabin.

Which brings us to food. Yes, I know you’re lucky to get a cornflake on an airplane today, but if you must bring food on board, consider the odor. Fried onions will not stop smelling at 23D.

Kids. Let’s talk about kids. Kids love airplanes. Many can’t believe they have a seat in front of them they can kick all flight long, while Mom and Dad watch the movie. Please. Tell them to stop.

And if you’ve got a crying baby—and we all love babies—at least pretend you’re trying to keep him quiet. Don’t hide behind an US Weekly.

Also, once your kids stop crying, the plane should not hear from them again until they are old enough to be—and actually are—the pilots. I recently had a little boy behind me who all flight long kept singing, at the top of his lungs, “Go-Go-Go…the cat in the hat!” I don’t know this song, or if it even is a song, but I do know his mom did nothing except occasionally whisper, -“Jacob, keep it down,” which had the same effect as pressing the Volume-Up button.

Speaking of volume, if you need to use your cellphone on the tarmac, please remember there are people inches away from you. They really don’t want to hear about Uncle Seymour’s kidney problem.

And if you fall asleep, try not to do so on the person next to you.

So there you go. With a little cooperation, we can all have a better year as passengers, even if the airlines think we’re cattle. Thank you for your attention. And now, as the captain says, sit back, relax, and strip to your underwear.

Security check.

The elections are over. Bart Stupak did not run. After nine terms in Congress, the Democratic representative from Michigan’s 1st District is walking away to the winter of his discontent, sadly wondering what happened to the public service he entered 18 years ago.

 “It’s so hateful now,” says Stupak, 58. “My colleagues tell me, ‘You look smarter every day for leaving.’”

 It’s wisdom he could do without. Bart Stupak may be Exhibit A of Anger in American Politics. He has long been pro-life. At the same time, he’s championed health-care reform. This year, those two issues came to a head. Stupak bucked his party over President Obama’s health-care bill, concerned that abortions might be publicly funded. Only when the president promised an executive order forbidding such funding did Stupak make the tough choice to vote with his party.

After this, he was called a “baby killer” on the House floor. A Republican colleague screamed those words as Stupak spoke. Stupak was thrown into the media’s hot spotlight. His family received death threats. He took venom from both sides of the aisle.

 A month later, he announced he was leaving politics—even though he easily won his last election. Stupak says he quit to spend time with his family, but he will not miss the divisiveness.

“Every boundary of decency has been crossed,” he says. “The ‘baby killer’ thing? Within 24 hours, there were websites up designed to make money off it. That’s how far afield we’ve gone. The more personal you make the attack, the more money you can make to defeat your opponent.”

Stupak sees no end to this pattern. “As much as people say they don’t like negative campaigning, it moves the numbers.”

When did we become so nasty? Former president Jimmy Carter has suggested that we are more divided than at any time since the Civil War. And between talk radio, 24-hour TV and Internet news, and the collapse of civility from town halls to the floors of Congress, it’s hard to argue.

I ask Stupak if only the mean or thick-skinned will now enter politics.

“Add one more element: the very rich,” he answers. “So many good people would be proud to serve, but they wind up saying, ‘If the other guy spends $3 million, what chance do I have?’ The most money and the sharpest attacks tend to win.”

Stupak sighs. “Remember Mr. Smith Goes to Washington? Those days are gone.”

And soon Stupak will be, too, leaving the nation’s capital for the small town in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula where he and his wife, Laurie, live. The former Eagle Scout and police officer insists he doesn’t regret his vote. But he looks forward to quieter days.

 “I’ll be home soon,” he says. “And if someone stops me in the grocery store and starts yelling at me over health care, I’ll just say I think it’s good for the country and move on.”

Never mind if you disagree with his voting record. What happened to Bart Stupak can happen to anyone now—right or left. As a result, Mr. Smith no longer dreams of going to Washington. He dreams of leaving it. That cannot be good for America. The irony is that at the end of the Frank Capra movie, Mr. Smith, the senator played by Jimmy Stewart, becomes a shining example of the difference one man can make.

 Can we become real-life Mr. Smiths and change the ugly tone of our national conversation? 

Sean Forbes is both. As an infant, Sean lost nearly all his hearing. He grew up in suburban Detroit the way many deaf children do. Special classes. Sign language. Constant tussles with kids making fun of him.

But music. There was always music. At an early age, Sean made his mother play Mitch Ryder’s “ Devil With a Blue Dress On” over and over—he could feel the thumping drums that launch the song. She even taught him the opening words until he could “sing” along:

“Fe-fe, fi-fi, fo-fo-fum,” he recalls now, laughing.

That, in a way, was his first rap. Although it’s impossible for Sean to distinguish, say, soft violins or classical guitar, he can sense low and percussive tones, especially the bass and drum so prevalent in rap music. As he absorbed the beat, he says, “I’d have a hearing friend point to the words.”

Eventually, Sean learned to play the drums and bass himself. He wrote lyrics and made videos in his basement. While attending a special college program at Rochester Institute of Technology, he was surprised one night with a guitar from his father. He played it so screamingly loud that the next day he was yanked into the school office.

But his joy could not be contained. It is rare to meet a rapper as upbeat as Sean Forbes. His energy nearly explodes from his spiky hair and constant smile. You might think he would be withdrawn or self-pitying.

You’d be wrong.

“Once, as a teenager, I was playing hockey, and this kid kept skating behind me yelling, ‘ Hey, deaf boy!’ until one of my teammates started a fight with him. I asked, ‘What’s going on?’ When they told me, I said, ‘Wow, someone is standing up for me?’ And I figured I can do that, too. I mean, I’m going to be this way the rest of my life, so why not be positive about it?”

Today, Sean, 28, doesn’t fight to prove himself. He records. He helped form D-PAN (Deaf Professional Arts Network), which brings the same entertainment that hearing people enjoy to the deaf community, including “signed” video remakes of famous songs.

Oh, and Sean laughs. A lot. When you note how well he speaks, he says, “Yeah, I sound like a French guy, right?” When you ask about what artists he can “hear,” he says, “Eminem is easy, but Whitney Houston is way over my head.” When you ask about the life of a deaf rapper, he recalls once running into a drugstore five minutes before he hit the stage, “because the batteries for my hearing aid went dead.”

Sean’s songs are edged but positive. No killing. No disrespecting women. He’s recently signed major recording and publishing deals and works with the same team that launched Eminem. He’s performed all over the U.S., and his new release—fittingly titled I’m Deaf—is out now.

   I got deaf tones
But I ain’t tone deaf
I’ll stop stating the obvious
But I ain’t done yet

In May, Sean did a concert back home in Detroit. The club was jammed. People roared. But because he couldn’t hear the applause, he asked everyone to sway back and forth, so he could witness the effect his music was having.

What a moment: a child once made fun of now leading a crowd swaying to his beat. Maybe “def” and “deaf” really can be one and the same.

After all, music isn’t in the ears, it’s in the soul.

The kid had an idea. He didn’t have money. He didn’t have supplies. All he had was a book with pictures. He went to a junkyard, found a bicycle rim, PVC pipe, an old tractor fan.

And he did something many of us used to do.

He used his hands.

He bent. He hammered. He glued. The kid’s name was William Kamkwamba. His idea was to make a windmill, because a windmill could make electricity, electricity could pump water, and water could grow crops for his drought-plagued village in Malawi, in southeast Africa.

“Normal people do not collect garbage,” he admitted, laughing. “The people in my village thought there was something wrong with me.”

But three months after he started, he’d done it. Made a small windmill with enough energy to power one light bulb.

He was 14.

When I spoke with Kamkwamba, now 22 — the subject of the best-selling book The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind — I was impressed with his ingenuity. But I also felt a pang of concern. That same day, I’d read about the advent of 3-D television. I worried about our kids, sitting on the couch, wearing funny glasses, all the imagination done for them.

I worried they are losing what Kamkwamba found: the joy of creation, of dirty fingernails. It’s mostly done for us now. We download. We boot up. We plug and play. We call tech support.

And it starts younger and younger. The world of Wii and PlayStation has rendered building blocks laughable. Who needs blocks when you have a joystick?

I remember, as a kid, building a beginner’s darkroom in our basement (getting instructions, like Kamkwamba, from a library book). I shook film in a plastic canister. Slid paper into a tray of smelly chemicals. It took hours. But eventually, I held a wet print in my hands. Today, my 3-year-old niece, when you snap her picture, grabs for the camera and says, “Lemme see.” In her world, all photos are instantly viewable on the back.

Now, I don’t want to play Cranky Man to technology. But there is a time to discover what you can make on your own. What kid, when we were younger, didn’t have paint, tape, or magic markers? A ball of rubber bands? A father’s toolbox that you weren’t supposed to get into?

What kid didn’t, at least once, go to the hobby store and buy a plastic model to assemble? Remember that word? “Assemble”? We built little airplanes. We glued plastic ships. We hammered nails (and our fingers), we made forts, we strung tin cans, we drew faces on socks and pulled them over our hands.

And through it all, when we held up the toy rocket or the puppet, there was quiet. No thumping music. No sound effects. We growled the noise of an engine, we spoke the parts of our characters. We used our own voices. And in doing so, we discovered them.

It was quiet when Kamkwamba tinkered with his windmill creation. Just him and his spare parts. He was too poor to attend school. He knew nothing of texting, e-mail, or the Internet.

“The day I connected the generator to the windmill, the whole village came to watch,” he said. “I was scared that if this thing is not going to work, then the people who think I’m crazy will prove me crazy.”

It worked. The village cheered. That led to bigger windmills — and finally a water pump. But it is fitting that the first thing Kamkwamba powered was a flickering bulb, the symbol of an idea. Because children should know that the most rewarding lights of their lives will always be lit — not by microchip processors, but by their imagination.

He stepped forward and rolled the ball.

This is a story about doing what you have to do—to survive, to endure, to thrive. Tom Smallwood comes from a place and a life as Middle American as his name. His father was a Michigan autoworker. Tom was also an autoworker. He put in seat belts on a General Motors assembly line. Then, in 2008—two days before Christmas—he was laid off.

“It was the first time I was ever fired,” he says. “It hurts.”

Smallwood applied for half a dozen jobs. Never got a response. What would he do? He was 31 and had a wife, a 1-year-old daughter, a mortgage.

And a bowling ball.

Now bowling, in normal times, is not considered an alternate means of employment. But these are not normal times, and Smallwood was out of options. When he was younger, he’d dreamed of being a pro bowler. He was very good and had won some tournaments. But once he passed his 30th birthday, he chose what he called “the guaranteed-income world.”

Only what is guaranteed anymore? Jobs we thought we’d always have are gone. Firms to which we pledged our allegiance disgorge us. Houses are lost. Neighbors disappear.

So Smallwood took his bowling ball and went to the lanes every day. He made a decision: If he didn’t have a job by May, he would try to qualify as a pro bowler.

May arrived.

He was still out of work.

So Smallwood entered the Pro Bowlers Association (PBA) Tour Trials, where wannabes attempt to make the circuit. Around 120 bowlers bowled nine games a day for five days. It was exhausting. But when it ended, Smallwood was in third place. He’d done it—qualified for a tour exemption, which meant a guaranteed spot and a minimum paycheck at each PBA event for a year. His family cheered, and he almost cried.

“It was like someone said, ‘Congratulations, you got a new job,’” he recalls.

And thus did Tom Smallwood go from “unemployed autoworker” to “former autoworker turned professional bowler.”

If the story ended there, it would serve a purpose, proof that new vines can swing within reach, that careers can change direction. But let’s go back to where we began, to the numb feet and shaking hands and Tom’s wife, Jen, holding her breath. Because sometimes good stories have even better endings.

This was in Wichita, Kan., in December. The PBA World Championship. Smallwood had driven there in his Chevy Impala. (“Yeah, I still drive a GM, even though they got rid of me,” he laughs.) From the start, he bowled great. And now he was one of the last two bowlers left. The other was the reigning PBA Player of the Year, a tall Texan named Wes “Big Nasty” Malott.

Final frame. National TV. Smallwood needed one strike and at least seven more pins to win. He threw a strike with his first ball. Then, fighting his pounding heart—“I don’t think it’s possible to be more nervous”—he stepped forward, rolled again…

Well, you can guess the rest. All 10 pins went down. The announcer screamed, “Dreams do come true!” And Smallwood-—a year after the worst Christmas of his life—had something special for this year’s tree: the PBA World Championship and a $50,000 check, more than he’d ever earned in any year in any “conventional” job.

“I know I’m really fortunate,” he says. “Not everyone can pick up a bowling ball and win. But if I was still working at GM, there was no way I’d have even attempted this.

“Getting laid off was one of the worst things that ever happened to me. But it led to the best result.”

There’s a lesson here. This new decade may be the one in which Americans learn to reinvent themselves. If so, Tom Smallwood has set an inspiring example.

By the way, not too long ago, GM called and offered him his job back.

He said, “No thanks.”

I told you it was a good story.

“Enjoy the meal,” the pastor tells them as they line up. “There’s a place for you here. See that man for a blanket…” 

This is my hometown, Detroit, in a devastated economy, in a crumbling church, on a cold, hard floor at the bottom of the world. 

And still, there is hope. 

If there is any advantage to living at the epicenter of the economic crisis, where our main industry—the auto business—has imploded, where abandoned houses seem to dot every corner, where the unemployment rate is a staggering 25%, it is this: You get to see what man is made of. 

What I have seen is that man is made of tough stuff. Man can rise to the occasion. One such man is the pastor of this church. His name is Henry Covington. Thirty years ago, he was in prison. He’d been a drug dealer, a drug abuser, a thief, and an armed robber. He had every excuse to see the world as hopeless. 

But on a night when he truly hit bottom, hiding behind trash cans, certain he would be murdered by angry drug dealers, he promised his life to God if he lived to the morning. 

He lived. 

He kept his promise. 

These days, Pastor Covington, 52, runs the I Am My Brother’s Keeper Ministries in downtown Detroit. His huge brick building was once—more than a century ago—the largest Presbyterian church in the upper Midwest. Now, like much of Detroit, it’s been overgrown with poverty, and there are broken windows and a hole in the sanctuary roof through which the rainwater collects in buckets. Several times, this ministry has been close to folding. Local drug lords even offered the pastor money to let them use the church for their dealings. 

But Henry Covington was done with that life. 

Instead, he dug in. He found a way. Today, he conducts services through the cold, through the snow, even under a giant plastic tent when the gas company shuts the heat off due to unpaid bills. He takes little salary and lives with his family in a tiny, nearby home. 

And yet, he says, “I’m where I’m supposed to be.” 

What he means is that he is where he can make a difference. In that way, Covington is typical of many people in this economy who find new meaning in their lives despite losing jobs, homes, or status: They find it by giving to others and reconnecting with their faith. 

In Detroit, we call it fighting back. 

A few years ago, I spent a night at a local homeless shelter to write about the experience. As I stood in line for food, a man tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was who he thought I was. I told him yes. 

“So,” he said, nodding sympathetically, “what happened to you?” 

I never forgot that. I realized hard times can hit anyone. Now, all around our country, it is being proven true. With the mortgage crisis and the recession, even rural states like Wyoming and Montana have seen jumps in their unemployed and homeless populations. In Detroit, nearly half of the homeless are families, and more than half of those are on the streets for the first time. 

“A lot of people are just a paycheck away,” Covington says. Which is why his church doubles as a shelter on Tuesday and Thursday nights. I go there often. I am always moved by how the homeless visitors, tired and hungry, sometimes holding young children, still listen carefully when Covington tells them things can get better, when he bellows, “I am somebody, because God loves me!” and they repeat his sentence, yelling even louder. 

I am also impressed by how many volunteers come down from the suburbs—including other churches—some who still have their jobs and homes and some who don’t. They come to serve food, to offer a smile. “It seems the worse it gets, the more people want to help out,” Covington says. “ Maybe they have more time on their hands now. Or maybe…” 

He shrugs. “Maybe it makes them feel better about things.” 

Think about it. As the normal pillars of life come falling down—jobs, workplaces, bank accounts—where do we most likely turn for comfort? Not to former bosses or co-workers, who often act as if unemployment were contagious. 

Many of us turn back to our communities, our neighbors, and our faith. And while there are mixed signals about actual religious-service attendance during this recession (some say up, some say flat), it’s no accident that programs such as Covington’s have increased across the nation—as have the volunteers willing to help in them. 

“There is always someone who has it worse,” Covington says. “When you realize that, you don’t feel as bad for yourself. We have more people in need than ever. But we also have more people than ever wanting to help.” 

So this is our silver lining. Here, in a state where General Motors employs one-tenth of the people it employed 30 years ago, we pull together. We will do with less. We will pray a little more. 

And Detroit will endure, just as Covington has endured. After turning his own troubled life around, he allowed a homeless addict to sleep in his house for a year. Later, he offered shelter to a woman and her baby who were victims of abuse. Today, the former addict is clean, has a house, and is an elder of the church; the woman is now his wife, and they are raising a family. 

I don’t know when the economy will turn. But I’m pretty sure these times are testing us, the way our parents or grandparents were tested in the Great Depression. And I think we’re supposed to learn something. 

What we’re learning in Detroit is that when everything falls down, we still have one another. So before winter comes, we aim to fix that hole in Covington’s roof, to shut out the rain and snow. We’ll do it, because this is how our gritty old city—and how America—will get out of this mess, by having a little faith in our beliefs and in each other, and by showing it, one extended hand at a time. 

The Lucky Tiger Grease Stick Band.

Some say adolescence is a time for angst, but eight buddies in a band will help you fight that. My teenage years were spent greasing up, tuning up, and cracking up. All I really remember from high school is laughter.

Maybe that’s why, decades later, when I was approaching my 50th birthday and my wife insisted that I do “something special,” I felt a rush of ennui. I’ve always been a reluctant grown-up. I have no interest in suit-and-tie affairs, a few raised wine glasses, everyone so…mature.

“Well, what do you want?” she said.

The truth? I wanted my old basement back.

And so began the best birthday I ever had. It started with seven phone calls and seven anxious responses. “You’re kidding?” “Heck, yes.” “Count me in.” It continued with a visit to my old neighborhood in South Jersey and a request to the McCutcheon family, who now live in my old house.

“Would you mind,” our drummer Marc “Rosey” Rosenthal asked, “if we borrowed your basement for a day? Oh…and could we clear out your furniture?”

Incredibly, they said, “OK.”

Old song lists were dug out. Instruments were brought in. And finally, on a beautiful Saturday in May, one car after another pulled up to a familiar house. Out stepped Howard, Victor, David, Marc, Sandy, Mark, Perry, and me.

For the first time in 34 years, we were all together.

“Look at you!” “Ayyy!” “Man, you got old!” Although some of us were now physicians or businessmen, we were back to teenaged insults the moment we laid eyes on each other. We rumbled down the steps to the low-ceilinged basement of my youth. We ran the familiar grease through our hair, donned sunglasses, rolled up our sleeves. We plugged in and tuned up.

We were never very good, and we weren’t good now. We had less hair. Wider stomachs. Occasionally, we had to pull out glasses to read the lyrics. And it was pretty obvious that “Action Jackson,” our guitar player, was not going to do the flying full-leg split he used to do on “Splish Splash.” He’s a doctor now. He knows better.

But if you love music—and we loved that music—it is always inside you. So, when my piano started plinking and Rosey’s drums began banging and Sandy “The Kid” began plucking his bass, I can’t explain it, it all came back. At our ages, we can’t remember where we left our car keys, but we can still remember who sang what on “Silhouettes.” We played only for ourselves and a few family members. A private basement concert. And we laughed until our ribs threatened to snap.

Now, our band’s best memories were never of excellence (we didn’t have much) but rather of screw-ups and shenanigans. Like the day we played on a beach and got attacked by bumblebees. Or the night when we pulled off a highway ramp and ran across the top of Big D’s car. Or the gig where we sang “Sixteen Candles” and, when we got to the part about “Blow out the candles,” one of us hit a light switch to darken the room—and all the power went out.

At best, such stories are cute to others. But they are priceless to us. So we told them again, for the thousandth time. And we cracked ourselves up. We sang “Teenager in Love,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “Great Balls of Fire.” We did nearly 30 songs, many from memory. And when we finished, we didn’t wash the grease from our hair. Instead, looking like Sha Na Na’s retirement party, we piled into our cars and drove to the local diner where we used to stuff into booths late at night and punch songs on the jukebox. We ordered cheese steaks and fries (the salmon and grilled veggies of adult life were put on hold), and the laughs went on for hours.

Stephen King once wrote, “I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was 12.” That pretty much sums up my Lucky Tiger Grease Stick pals. It was nearly midnight before anyone heaved a sigh or looked at his watch.

It was the best birthday of my life. And the kicker is, the whole thing made me feel younger, not older. After all, every good memory is a notch on your life belt, and every happy song you sang is still somewhere inside you, if only in the “twiddle-lee-dee” backups on “Rockin’ Robin.”

I love my bandmates. I missed them all those years. And I came to realize something as we hugged goodbye in the parking lot and promised another reunion.

We were never very good, but we were always good for each other.

And we always will be.

If you want to find the best stories at the Olympics, look in the corners, away from the spotlight. For me, in covering the Olympics over the last 24 years, the lesser-lit places have been where the most memorable moments took place.

It’s been called the biggest sporting event in the world and the most overhyped event in human history. Having attended the last 23 of them, I can tell you the Super Bowl is all of that—and crazier. With the showdown set for tonight, here are a few sides of the Biggest of Big Games that you might not know.