It’s tough to say goodbye
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BEIJING -- Sunday night and today have been kind of like the last day of school. Everyone is cleaning up and packing. Editors and writers were working last night, some with wine glasses on their desks. People from different news organizations were hugging each other and saying goodbye.
When they get home and return to their regular beats, they’ll be at each other’s throats -- as they sometimes were here. But for now, the Beijing Olympic motto -- One World, One Dream -- reigns.
Everybody is wild about the volunteers, and people are getting teary-eyed saying goodbye to them. Everybody wants to go, but no one wants to leave.
One colleague of mine, who has covered more Olympics than he cares to remember, joined other writers in running a lap around the track after the final race Saturday, then became very emotional when he realized what that lap signified: the end of the Games.
‘That was four years of my life,’ he said.
Yet he still doesn’t want to go home.
-- Kevin Baxter