1
Irvington, NJ, 1950’s: A public court in walking distance of our house. Arriving early and staying late. Playing with brothers, sisters, friends—whoever comes by. Feeling more energized as each hour passes.
2
Ithaca, NY, early 1970’s: I am athletic. Herb is not. I play tennis. He doesn’t. Our friend Bill does. I ask Herb to watch my young daughter, Blixy, so I can play tennis with Bill.
Herb and I split.
3
New Jersey, mid-1970’s: When Adrian watches my tape at VideoDate—a pre-internet dating service—and hears me say I like to play tennis, he asks me out.
Adrian is a serious athlete and when we play against each other, I can barely win a point. We play tennis at Club Med in Cancun, where he takes me on vacation before we get married. We play tennis at a nudist camp we visit in southern Jersey, where I wear clothes only for the tennis, to absorb the sweat.
But we also play as a team and we take lessons together, and whatever new town I make him move to, we join the local tennis scene.
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Though we play together on teams and in local tournaments, Adrian plays his serious tennis against men. That’s fine, because I have other things to do.
When I am teaching at Morehead State University in Kentucky, Adrian plays tennis with the physics professor and the tennis coach. I play occasionally with the women’s athletic director, but she beats me badly every time. Even so, one year Adrian and I win the faculty mixed-doubles tournament.
By the time we move to Ithaca in 2000, Adrian is almost ready for a knee replacement and his right shoulder is not doing well. In our first mixed doubles tournament here, we lose in the first round. But we lose to a great guy—Dirk Dugan, an orthopedic surgeon.
After Adrian’s knee replacement surgery, Dirk tells him he should play only doubles tennis except “when you’re playing against your wife.”
Does Dirk think I am that bad, or that I will go easy on Adrian?
Adrian has never been easy on me all the years we played tennis together. That’s what I’m thinking as I carefully hit the ball to him on each return so he won’t have to run after it.
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A few years later, after surgery on his right shoulder, it is too painful for Adrian to play tennis. But only when it becomes impossible does he give it up completely.
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Adrian and I always loved to watch tennis also. On one of our first dates he took me to a tournament in Philadelphia where we saw Jimmy Connors play.
Over the years we faithfully watched Wimbledon, the U.S. Open, and other tournaments on TV.
It was hard, at the end, when he asked me what “add” meant when it showed up on the scoreboard. Tennis had been a part of us since there’d been an “us.”
4
Now I get to play tennis only at family reunions. My three older brothers and I always have a serious tournament. We let other family members play, too, but the tournament with the four of us is the official event, which is why my sisters say that my parents had four sons.
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One year at the family reunion in San Diego, I was waiting for the tennis tournament to start, but my three brothers were playing a game with one of their sons. By the time they finished that match, they didn’t have the energy to play with me.
I was furious.
I coerced one of my sisters-in-law to play with me long beyond the point she wanted to. Everyone else at the family reunion except my brothers and me played for the fun of it.
I go crazy at family reunions.
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I tried to get my grandkids to learn to play tennis. I signed my grandson up for lessons a few years ago, but he hated them, so we quit.
Last summer I got my granddaughter Rachel out on the court a few times, but I got winded chasing her wild balls.
I didn’t think I had the strength to do it again this summer. We play ping-pong and badminton instead.
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I don’t know what will happen with the tennis tournament at the next family reunion, but I am planning to take a deep breath and not care.