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put to rest—a question that has, at times, plagued me because I am no longer that tiny little girl with a brown ponytail in a snow-white leotard with red, yellow, and blue piping. I’m not sure I ever even knew her all that well.
    You want me to remember every leap, somersault, and dismount from a time in my life that I thought was just another competition and that even now I find hard to put into historical context or perspective. I am not angered by your question but by my own confounding and complex feelings on the subject. And in truth, to know who I am now is to understand 1976 and what happened during and after that fateful Olympic year.
    Do not think I fashion myself a victim, unless it is a victim of good fortune. But I am older and wiser, and I understand that with fame comes a sea of responsibilities that a young child must swim through. Sometimes, I felt myself sink beneath the surface of the water, and though I always struggled to rise and breathe, there were precious seconds when, I must confess, I just wanted to embrace the cold darkness.

    How can I begin to explain that time? I will pull out a dusty copy of Jean Ure’s book, Romanian Folk Tales, and turn to my favorite story, “Necessity.” After you have read it, I’ll attempt to shed some light on an Olympics that the world seems to recall better than the girl who held the spotlight and never quite escaped its glare.
    Once there was a man. He had only one son by the grace of God, upstanding and handsome as a peony flower, but not knowing much about hardships as our man was well off.
    This man wanted his son to learn to deal with difficulties and to look after the farm, so he sent him into the forest one day to get wood in a rather rickety old cart. “Now remember, lad, the cart’s not very strong but if it breaks down you’ll find necessity will teach you what to do.”
    The boy set off to get the wood with the idea that necessity was an old workman who lived in the forest and who helped people who had breakdowns.
    When he got to the forest he loaded a fine cartful of wood and after he had had a bit of lunch he harnessed his oxen to the yoke and set off slowly home. They came to a rough place and the front axle broke right in two. He pushed it up and twisted it down but he just couldn’t fix it in place again.
    He remembered what his father had told him and climbed up on to a little mound and shouted at the top of his voice, “Ne . . . cess . . . ity . . . Ho there . . . ho . . . ”
    From another part of the wood he heard an answering shout: “‘Ho there . . .” He ran toward it, thinking that he would find Necessity and that he would repair his cart. But he didn’t find anybody.

    He thought that he had somehow missed Necessity and shouted again till the valleys rang. He got the same answer.
    Then our lad saw that evening was not far off and ran in the direction that the answer came from. He didn’t find anybody that time either.
    He tried a third time and then realized that necessity was not going to come and help him mend his cart. So he said bitterly, “What’s the use of running round to get someone to work for me if it’s likely to get dark while I’m still here?”
    And with that he took his coat off and unloaded the cart, took a bit of wood the right length and in the twinkling of an eye the axle was ready and in place. He loaded the cart up again, yoked the oxen and by the time that day was giving place to night he was home.
    His father came up to the cart and saw that it had a new axle. He asked the lad who had fixed it. The boy told him everything from beginning to end, and the father laughed and said, “Remember, my lad, that necessity is the best teacher.”
    Necessity is what you do in life when there is only one path, choice, or desire. Necessity is synonymous with need, requirement, inevitability, stipulation, and obligation. But at the 1976