A Moment

Each morning at 8am I play pickle-ball.  Across the road from the pickle ball courts are several tennis courts. At 830 tennis players congregate there.

I used to be a decent singles tennis player. In 2000 I was the number one ranked 3.5 tennis player in New England. This included players from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and parts of Connecticut. The designation sounds more grand than it actually was.  It is based on how a player competes in tournaments. Most of the tournaments are in the Boston area, so great players from other states might not want to travel hours to compete-especially since in 60 minutes they might get eliminated and have to drive back.  Still, I won five or six tournaments consecutively, and while I am not certain as of this writing, I believe 8 or 9 tournaments during the season.   I also had not been defeated in 3.5 league competition for two years running. Three fives, are not as good as Fours, or Four Fives, but the competition particularly in the leagues was serious.

Okay, so I was better than the average bear. Then sometime in 2013 I ran into a serious of ailments which required surgeries.  A few years back I picked up pickle ball and now can hold my own on those courts. Not a champion, but I am decent.

Today, I decided it was too long since I had played tennis.  After my pickle ball 8 am, I intended to go across the street and play tennis. How long would it take me to get back to form? There were some good players across the street, but nobody looked as good as I was when I played seriously.

After pickle ball, I get on the tennis courts and in the next ten minutes I had a moment.

During the warmups I could not get the hang of the bouncing ball. Used to the whiffle ball of pickle ball, the tennis ball kept comically hopping over my racket. I must have looked like one prize goof jumping up and trying to hit it.  Fine, i would get used to it. It was doubles not singles and this wasn't the US OPEN.  I started serving.  They played "first ball in" which means that the first ball that goes in starts play.  I hit a serve that could not be returned. It was lucky just well placed. "So" I thought "this is going to come back easily."

Then I double faulted three straight times. Six times in a row I could not get the ball over the net.  The others were kind, but this was the sort of thing that drove me bats when I played. Some person saying he could play, but could not put the ball in play. Our team was down, 15-40 when I finally served the ball over the net.  The opponent returned it. I chased after it.  Then I did an imitation of the flying Wallendas, missing the shot, and falling ass over tea kettle, losing my tennis racket, and stopping play on both courts. Seven others came over to ask me how I was. 

My pride was hurt more than anything else, though I would have preferred not to land smack on one of my artificial hips.  I had two cuts that looked worse than they were. One of the players was a nurse and he came over with assorted stuff to clean my cuts. I felt like a fool with a capital f. 

The players, all ten years younger than me, were being so kind and while I was grateful for their assistance, it has made me stop and wonder if I have lost it.  Now, I know I should not have expected to play effortlessly, but gee I could not time the ball at all, or serve, or run down the ball. Good lord.  

One of the players said he was feeling good at 66. I feel great at nearly 74, but there was a moment which reminded me that our heads and our bodies are not necessarily on the same page.  For someone who self identifies as an athlete and proud of it, it was humbling to truly (and I am not sugarcoating it) look like a circus clown without the red nose as I chased down the only ball that was returned.

There's a ball machine so maybe I will go out and practice and see if I can try to redeem myself, but there was a moment there, and is a moment now, which makes me reassess where I am.

Septuagenarian

 I will be 74 in October.

And I just ate a whole quart of ice cream because the Celtics beat the Heat with one/tenth of a second left in their season.

If you did not hear me during the last four minutes of the game you must live west of the Mississippi.  We had our slider open and, in retrospect, I am surprised the local constable did not knock on my door for a Wellness check.

I had no money on the game.  I almost never bet on sports, (except when I wrote the basketball book). I am just a fan.

Earlier today I went to see a division 3 softball game.  No tv cameras, but it was still exciting.  Many times in my life someone has seen me get excited about a sporting event and asked me "why?"  My dad, who never ever bet on sports, would say, "I feel bad for those who don't get excited about sporting events." Not sure I feel bad for those folks because many may have other hobbies that thrill them.  But there is a reason why the Boston Garden will be jammed on Memorial Day with screaming people like me.

 

Norton and a Daly Double

 I have, for years--since college--been a devoted fan of the 1950s series, The Honeymooners. I'd watched the series now and again when I was in my teens, but sometime in my junior year when the program aired nightly on an Albany station, I saw the program every day, to the point that I knew eventually all thirty nine episodes and could identify which episode one was during the first seconds of a program.  I went to the first Honeymooner's Convention in 1984, received for my 50th birthday (alas before the internet made this gift unnecessary) VCR tape recordings of all 39 shows.  I read the very extensive biography of Gleason, called The Great One, and am now a member of a number of facebook groups populated with folks like me.  In one post I saw that there had been a biography of Art Carney called, go figure, Art Carney: A Biography.  I took it out of our library and read it a few weeks back.  If you're a zealot like I am, you might find it valuable.  Even for me, I thought the book was a superficial chronology which did not tell me much more than I already knew.  Carney was a considerate man, shy--certainly compared to Gleason--and a hard drinker.  I knew he liked to bang them back, but did not know how at times his drinking interfered with his work on broadway.  He was extraordinarily talented in terms of the kinds of roles he could play, and was self-effacing to a fault. I did not know that he did not get along with Walter Matthau with whom he starred in the original Broadway version of The Odd Couple, nor with Lily Tomlin with whom he starred in The Late Show a movie that came out in the late 70s. Both Matthau and Tomlin improvised so much that it was difficult for Carney to react. I found this interesting because Gleason was notorious for not rehearsing and improvising, yet Carney as Norton had no trouble with Gleason or the Norton role.  In short, while I kind of sort of am glad I read the book, I think if you are not a big fan, you would find it too superficial to be of much value. I noted that in the beginning of the book, the author (Michael Seth Starr) thanks dozens of people for being willing to be interviewed. Art Carney (still alive when the book was published) is not listed.

Where I heard of Just What Kind of Mother are You, a novel by Paula Daly, I don't know. My guess is that it was listed somewhere as an outstanding debut novel.  I thought it was very good.  At first it seemed like a typical whodunit with a perp whose thoughts are written in italics interspersed with the main narrative of the novel. However, the book is more complex than a boiler plate mystery with a number of multidimensional players.  There are two main characters. When the focus is on one, the story is written in the first person. When the focus is on the other, it is written in the third person. I think the author handles this well.  While some characters certainly behave unconventionally particularly when you realize at the end what has occurred, the reader--at least I--recognizes that a point in the novel is that many families and many people that are, on the surface, conventional have their own very unconventional histories and motivations. The book reminded me of the line at the very beginning of Anna Karenina: "...every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. "  A women, the mother of three, feels as if she has left her friend down. The friend's daughter is missing at a time when the community knows a pedophile is on the loose.  Meanwhile a detective, very effectively drawn, is attempting to locate the pedophile.  The book is well tied up at the end.  While the book describes aberrant and disturbing behaviors, I nevertheless found the story and craziness believable. Recommended.

I liked the book so much that I looked for the next novel by the author. I couldn't get it easily, so I found the most recent one she penned.  This one, Clear My Name,  was not nearly as good as her debut novel. The story is not credible in many ways.  The relationships just don't pass the sniff test for being likely. In this one a woman who works for a non profit that tries to free prisoners who have been inappropriately convicted, attempts to exonerate a woman convicted of murdering her husband's lover.  That someone could kill a spouse's lover is not implausible, the coincidences in this book are not plausible. Also some characters are not realistic. The main character--the lead sleuth attempting to find evidence to exonerate the client-- has been given a trainee who is ostensibly learning how to do the investigative work. She, the trainee, is naive and not suitable. There is no explanation for why she was kerplunked to be the assistant. There is a biological mother who happens to run into the daughter she gave up for adoption and this daughter is a source of information about the crime. Finally, the main character simply would not do what she did at the end--not because she wouldn't have thought it was the right thing to do, but because of the enormous consequences of doing it.  I would pass on this Daly novel, but I will give another one a try down the road because of how much I liked her debut.

Take the Money and Run

 I am not always (or often) correct with football predictions, but I had both games yesterday. I thought KC and Philly would win.  I thought KC would win by more than three and who knew that both quarterbacks for the 49ers would be injured. Still I had the games right.

The Chiefs are 1.5 dogs against the Eagles. I will preface what's next by writing that I thought Carter would beat Reagan.  That said, take the Chiefs and run. This will be a slaughter along the lines of the early superbowls.  The Chiefs will beat the Eagles like they stole something.  Hurts is a good but not great quarterback. Mahomes is great.  

Take the Money and Run.

On a social impact note, in the 70s when the Steelers started a black quarterback it made the cover of Sports Illustrated.  Both quarterbacks in this year's superbowl are black.  We are getting to a point--and it took long enough--that the race of football quarterbacks is nothing to note.

Hell

 I went to visit my parents' gravesite earlier today.  In classic Florida form it was bright and sunny when I left the library for the ten minute drive to the cemetery. Within a minute the skies became dark. When I made my turn onto route 441, there was the kind of deluge that makes drivers consider pulling over to the side of the road because they can barely see.  I forged ahead and the rain lightened up a bit.  By the time I turned into the cemetery grounds, it was just drizzling.  I drove to the area where the stone sits, and waited in the car for the rain to subside completely.  Which it did.  I then grabbed the chair I had put in the car for the visit and plod up the wet grassy hill, found the stone, and sat.

A half hour later I returned to where my car was parked.  I saw that there now was a car behind me. A woman, maybe a year or two younger than me, was standing shakily by the vehicle.  She had what looked like a tissue in her hand and was wiping the rain drops off of her car.  It was a hopeless endeavor if drying the car was indeed what she was seeking to do.  Had we not been in a cemetery, had the tissue been a towel, had there been a bucket of sudsy water near the tire, had the woman not been so visibly sad--her movements would have looked like those of a carwash employee who was in the final stages of cleaning a vehicle.  She kept rubbing the car with the tissue.

When I approached my car, she smiled at me, or attempted to smile through her tears.  I said hello and she responded similarly.  She looked like she was having a difficult moment and so I asked her if this was a tough day. She nodded.  Yes, she said.  "You visiting someone?" I said. "Yes" she said again through tears.  "My son."  "Oh", I said "Your son.  I'm sorry"  She thanked me and told me that her son was now gone for a year and a half and had been only 32.  None of this came out of her without tears. I asked if it had been a COVID related death.  She said no and then murmured that she did not want me to ask about the cause.  She asked me what brought me to the cemetery. I told her and she said that a few months after she buried her son, she also buried her own mother.  She kept wiping the car with a tissue.  Her mother she said had been 92, and had lived a good long life, leaving out what she was tacitly saying clearly, "but my son was only 32."

She said she knew she would see her son again.  I wished her good luck. She said she did not believe in luck, she believed in (and then pointed to the sky).  She was so shaky that I asked if she lived nearby as I was worried that this person might have trouble driving given her sadness.  She thanked me but told me not to worry--she was fine--and lived close by.

I said goodbye and went to my car. As I was driving away I wondered about the emotional toll this young man's death had taken on his mother. A year and a half later, she was still distraught to the point of making me wonder if she could drive. Now maybe this was the boy's birthday; maybe it was her birthday; maybe it was another anniversary of some sort.  And the significance of the date was what fueled the sadness. But I did not get that sense. It seemed like for this woman every day, or at least for a time within each day, she had trouble coping because of her young man's death.  I've not been there; but I can imagine how the sadness could irreparably damage one's perspective and potential to experience joy.

Book Reviews

   Lessons in Chemistry is a very popular book.  I checked last night when I completed it and close to 1500 people are on a waiting list in my library system to get the book. I must have read a review early on and requested it then, because I got it almost immediately way before the line became so long. In short, my recommendation is not to rush to get to the back of the line.  Lessons in Chemistry is a one note book.  It is engagingly written and the one note is an important one--which is why, I'll opine, the book is so popular. However, the characters are major league stick figures and most of them are wholly and literally incredible.  That is, not believable. You have an elementary school kid reading at a college level. A dog with a vocabulary, a wildly popular television show that would not get the traction that it does in the story.  All this criticism written, the one note the book makes is a significant one. The book takes place in the early 1960s. A woman Chemist is being dissed because she is a woman. Women in the book are relegated to servile positions and even brilliant female scientists are given menial jobs.  The main character, Elizabeth, is an unwavering truth speaker and iconoclast. She refuses to marry the man she loves, does not care that their child is "illegitimate", challenges organized religion, conventional journalism, the educational system, and women who go along with the male dominated status quo.  In this way the book is refreshing.  Elizabeth, having been canned as a Chemist, has a cooking show in which she describes how to cook in terms of Chemistry. The tv executives are certain it will be a bomb but it is a stunning success despite the highly academic nature of the program.  The book's stunning success is more understandable than the fictional 1960 tv show. People in 2023 are still victimized by conventions, and 1960 Elizabeth challenges the oppressors.  The ending is ridiculous.  Three stars out of five tops.

Someone on facebook asked the public for book recommendations.  Several responses suggested  The One in a Million Boy.  I took it out.  It is a sweet and more often than not engaging novel about a 104 year old woman who is befriended by, and befriends, a boy scout who has been assigned to help the woman. The boy is fascinated by records and figures the woman could be in the Guinness Book in a number of categories.  Other characters are the boy's father and mother (estranged from each other), band members the dad--a guitarist-plays with, the scoutmaster, and assorted others.  The boy tapes interviews with the wholly with-it 104 year old woman and these are interspersed throughout. We learn about her life before World War 1, her parents, marriage, and a dear friend.  The problem with the book is that it is disjointed. There are a number of parts meant to congeal and they don't.  Are there enough sweet parts to recommend the book? Yes, but if I was going to make a list of must reads, this would not be on it.  Snowed in, poking around your bookshelves, see this lying around--you could do worse.

I was in a local library in December, and saw a holiday time display that included a book called The Matzah Ball.  A librarian must have liked it or thought in this non Jewish area where the library was located, it would be good to suggest a book that would represent a minority group around Christmas time.  The book is about a Jewish woman who is a very successful author of Christmas books. In addition, she is fascinated by Christmas. She keeps her fascination under wraps because she comes from a very observant family and she too has a strong Jewish background. There is a dear childhood friend who is the son of two prominent lesbian lawyers, a romantic involvement with another man, the main character's father who is a prominent Rabbi, and an event--a high end "Matzah Ball" where Jews meet up around Christmas time to celebrate hanukkah.  The book is, as my grandfather would say, "ridikalus".  It is billed as an adult novel, but i had to check half way through to make sure, because it reads like a young adult.  It screams "hallmark movie" with-go figure--a couple falling in love, alienating each other and--wait for it--getting back together at the end for a happily ever after ending. Ridickalus.  A positive about the book is that the author imparts some important points about Judaism (for example Hanukkah is NOT a major holiday) that are good to point out, and also some tidbits about Judaism and Hebrew that I, a somewhat knowledgeable member of the tribe, had not known about and found interesting.  My recommendation is if you like Hallmark movies that are ridickalus, this is right up your alley.  If not, run away from the display where the book is highlighted. 

Circle

 One of my favorite crooners in the 70s was the late Harry Chapin.  He became famous for a song, Taxi, and then wrote, prolifically, for ten years until he died in an automobile accident.  Sad day for me when I heard that news.  Among his oeuvre (first time I believe that I have used this word in a sentence) was Circle.  It contains the recurring lyric, All My life's a Circle, Sunrise and Sundown, the moon rolls through the night time til the day break comes around. 

Monday night had to be one of the most depressing evenings of my life.  Two and a half days after falling down a staircase backwards and ramming my back into a wall, I was convinced that I had another long rehabilitation ahead of me. I anticipated the pain in my back would dissipate but it had not.  In fact, that Monday night it was worse than it had been. i could not get into a comfortable position in bed; tried sleeping in a chair without success; couldn't cough without feeling jarring pain, and just couldn't get out of a sense of gloom.  I've often told people--and meant it-- when they were in throes of sadness to "look at the bright side" because there almost always is one.  So I tried telling this to myself and was not persuasive. 

The next day, on Tuesday, I was scheduled to see my doc and I imagined that the xrays she would prescribe would reveal that I had broken a rib when I went unconventionally from the second floor to the first. A trip I had planned, to do some work and also relax would inevitably have to be put on hold.  I tried putting on the Honeymooners, the old 50s tv show, which often buoys my spirits. Did not do the trick. Watched Jeopardy which I'd taped--still could not find the zs.  Eventually I asked Donna if we had a heating pad. She went and got one and I reclined on it, and finally fell asleep.

I was told a few years back when I had to take a medication that the drug could cause mood swings. For the record I hate taking drugs. Except for an aspirin to dull pain when I was playing tennis competitively, I took absolutely nothing until about ten years ago when a doc prescribed two drugs, one for blood pressure and another to combat plaque build up.  I was reluctant to take either. I imagined a conversation my body had with me when I started taking the pills.

Hey, Al, what are you swallowing there.

It's for blood pressure.

No need. We got it Al. Keep exercising, eat something nourishing now and again, and we will take it from there. Don't swallow this poison.

Doc said it will be helpful.

"Doc said it would be helpful." That's the drug companies talking. Trust us in here. We can handle it.

I'm inclined to agree with you, but this is supposed to reduce the chances of stroke. Don't want a stroke..

Son of a bitch. I'm telling you, we got this. You pour this crap into the system and it is going to have an impact.  You're going to get sluggish, not be able to enjoy time.

Maybe.

Listen to us pal. don't burden us with this witch doctor potions disguised as cure alls.  If big pharma, wasn't making a mint on this, you would not be taking it.

Some drugs are helpful.

Maybe, but you are going to get low.

Anyway,  I have been taking the drugs for a while.  And I wonder if getting low or as low as I can get is because of the drugs. 

Or is it because in the last year, four of my contemporaries have died and, concurrently, I have lost my sense of my invulnerability highlighted by not being able to negotiate a staircase without inadvertently testing the laws of gravity.

I had begun to play pickleball and was enjoying it and getting good at it. I'd joined a team. I got a text from the pickleball captain wanting to know when I would be available for a league competition. I had joined the Y, and was back on the elliptical and swimming and even shooting baskets in the gym.   

I got to the doc early. It was my first time meeting with her.  The appointment was supposed to be my annual physical with a new pcp.  She was very thorough.  Examined my back, listened to my lungs and offered what I thought were miraculous conclusions. She did not think I had broken any ribs nor punctured my a lung.  I was delighted but asked why I felt this pain. She said in a monotone, with a heavy dose of duh in it. "Because you fell backwards down eleven steps and smashed into a wall.   You're lucky you did not crack your spine or skull. You can walk. Now, you can practice on the stairs like someone not auditioning for the circus." Or words to that effect.

I took a bunch of xrays.  They came back mostly negative. The radiologist saw something but thinks it is not a big deal so I have to get an MRI to be sure.  However, essentially, I am fine. Not in for a long rehab.

On Tuesday after the doctor's appointment I felt like a tremendous dark cloud had left.. Metaphorically (and actually) the sun came out.  I was told I could take my trip. I did not think of my self as an erstwhile jock relegated to inevitable deterioration.  I went out and walked. I ate a jelly doughnut. Went to the library. Chatted up a librarian. The daybreak came around.

I don't know any longer if I am a glass half full guy.  I don't know if my recurring half empty attitude is a function of the drugs I am taking.  However, I don't think my reaction to the injury was healthy. The world was not coming to an end. There was pizza to eat, sports to watch, books to read, stories to write, embraces to enjoy, intimacy, memories of love and loving. On Monday night none of that had a chance of surfacing and remaining in my head. The fall was  absolutely, horrendous and frightening. It hurt slamming into that wall. I was legitimately embarrassed not to be able to negotiate the stairs. But I was unable to acknowledge that the nighttime would give way to daybreak. The moon does roll through the night time 'til the daybreak comes around.  It is important to remember that. The daybreak comes around.