I started playing tennis again. This in itself is not earth shattering news except for the fact that I can’t really remember the last time I played. It’s probably been 20-25 years since I seriously hit a tennis ball around. About 5 years ago I tried to get my son interested in it. We went out a couple of times and hit the ball around but it never caught his interest. My dad got me interested by dragging me to the courts with him. I think my mom made him take me to get me out of the house and doing something, he played with a buddy once a week and I followed along. He’d give me a ball and tell me to hit it against the backboard while he and his friend played. Sometimes I’d hit the ball over the backboard and fence and have to go search for it, eventually that became less frequent and I became good enough to hit with my dad. I remember hitting the ball off our garage door which was made of wood and had these panels. I became accurate enough that I damaged the one panel so that my dad had to keep nailing the panel back into the door. I took lessons in the summer at the local courts, and when I got older I went to a week long tennis camp at the big state university. I lived in the dorms, ate in the cafeteria and played tennis for 6 hours a day…best week of the summer.
Tennis became my thing. I was a tall, skinny kid. My basketball career ended when I was cut from the high school JV team. I never even tried football, I’m quite sure I would have had various body parts broken, and my baseball career ended early in Little League when I got plunked in the square of the back by a hard throwing but wild side-arming pitcher. After that I always had one foot in the proverbial bucket if not dugout, which is good for not getting hit, but not good for actually hitting.
Tennis was my thing and I was into it, lived it, breathed it, read books and magazines about it, lamented why there wasn’t more tennis on TV. I had a few friends and of course they also played. We spent many a summer nights at the courts. We’d go late after all the “beginners” had gone home. We were serious or so we thought. There was nothing worse than being on a court with a couple of beginners on the court next to you and their stray balls kept rolling onto your court interrupting your play. We knew when the lights came on and more importantly when the lights went off, and there were many a night we were the last ones on the courts as the lights flicked off and we were left scrambling to collect the balls in the dark. Eventually one of us would pull our car up to the fence and turn on our headlights to find that one ball that had disappeared into the darkest corner. Surprisingly, none had us had girlfriends, but that’s another story.
In a cruel twist of fate, my high school did not have a boys tennis team. The millage failed to pass before our freshman year and a bunch of the minor sports got cut. When the millage passed a year later only some of those sports were reinstated. There was a girls tennis team but not a boys one, and no, I’m not still bitter about that. Although I’m not the only one who has that feeling, whenever I see one of my old tennis playing buddies its a guarantee one of us will say something like…”can you believe they had a girls tennis team and not a boys team, what the hell was up with that.”
Sometime during my 20’s, the buddies I played tennis with started moving away, moving on or both. Spouses were acquired, soon babies followed, eventually I followed suit and the couple of hours on the weekend that I used to play tennis were taken up by pushing a stroller, then by kids activities, then the dreaded organized kids activities, and next thing you know your helping coach one of your sons teams and you have equipment in your garage and the team tents are transported in the back of your truck.
My tennis racquet used to be in a prominent place in my closet, the master closet right in the master bedroom. I don’t remember when, but my beloved old Wilson wood racquet became banished to the basement, and not just any part of the basement, but that far dark corner of the basement where the light doesn’t seem to reach as strongly and it always smells a little damp and musty. In fact a lot of my old stuff seems to end up in this corner. A box of trophies, yes there are some tennis ones, and yes I should probably get rid of those, my old baseball cards and no I’m not getting rid of those, and also my tennis racquet, one step away from the donation pile.
I was talking to a friend at work a month ago. We were killing time waiting for freight to arrive, chatting about sports and what we used to play back in the day. Much to my pleasant surprise she said tennis was her sport and that she had been on her high school tennis team. I asked if she still played and she said it had been awhile, maybe like 10 years since she had seriously hit the ball around. She thought she still had her racquet kicking around in the garage somewhere, it had survived various moves but she actually hadn’t swung it for quite some time. We decided to get together when the weather became nicer and just hit the ball for awhile to see if either one of us still could. Both of us must have been a little apprehensive about playing again because we both made clandestine visits to the local courts to hit the ball off the backboard to knock the rust off our swings, and then we agreed to meet one Sunday morning at 9:00.
We’ve played 3 times now, and I’ve never had more fun playing tennis than these last 3 weeks. We’ve progressed to where we’re playing games and sets, and sometimes she wins and sometimes I win, but I honestly don’t care about that, I’m just happy to be back out there on the courts again. We laugh and joke around and even do a little good- natured trash talking (she’s originally from New York so she’s much better at that than I am). She’s very good, you can tell she used to play a lot and she’s competitive in a good way. She surprises me sometimes with her ability to chase down shots I thought were winners and yet she gets them and usually hits winners past me. We always play on court 3, the net appears to be at the right height unlike on some of the other courts, and there’s less cracks and less puddles after it rains.
I used to dislike it when my opponents played well, I wanted to win all the time, tennis was my thing so I had to show everyone I was good at it. I had to beat my dad, could never stand to lose to my friends and my little brother who hardly ever played, well I showed him no mercy. Now, its different, and not just because my knees ache the rest of the day after I play. I want to play well, but mainly I just want to have an enjoyable experience for both of us.
I hope she plays as well or better than me every time. I revel in those times we have a long rally or when she hits a winner past me. I want her to do well and get better, and mainly I want to play something I loved once before, but forgot how much I loved it, but rediscovered it on court 3 at 9:00 on Sunday.
Thought for the day…..If you can meet with Victory and Defeat and treat those two imposters just the same
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