Lawn, tennis and love . . .

Saturday. Sofa. Coffee.

It is a perfect summer morning up here on the hill, the cooler night air still lingering while the birds and the noisy bugs set off their alarms. Of course that will change by late morning. Everything changes. It is the nature of life.

Okay, that was a bit philosophical, but on Saturday morning here on the sofa with my coffee that is okay. The rule for everybody on Saturday should be that you do what you want to and don't do what you don't want to before noon,  unless your action or inaction is injurious to someone else.  I propose that as a constitutional amendment, a notion clearly articulated by our forefathers when they talked about the "pursuit of happiness" and "inalienable rights."

So,  I want to talk a little more about my dad this morning, because for the last year or two I would spend a portion of Saturday with Dad.  The last normal Saturday we shared was only a couple of months ago, when we attacked the formidable lawn together, riding the tractor and the lawnmowers, weed-eating and lopping, and taking breaks to fix whatever equipment we had broken that hour. It was a beautiful late spring day. The yard looked great after I gathered up all the tools and machines strewn about the grounds.  We worked together, yet apart most of the time. We would laugh, with and at each other, as the one riding the equipment that was still functioning drove by and waved at the other who stood, aiming and figuring about how to get going again. If the problem was formidable, there would be a conference, and we would work together to fix it or decide to park it.   What a great day.

I have been amused in recent decades at my dad's interest in yard work.  He accumulated an arsenal of equipment to use, break, and repair.  A tractor, two riding lawnmowers, weed-eaters, loppers and other instruments adorned his carport, tool shed, and pole shed in the last years.  He kept his acreage groomed and it seemed to be one of his favorite past-times.

This amused me because I never saw him touch a lawn-care implement while I was growing up. I saw Danny mow a lot.  My mom mowed from time to time. And it seemed like I mowed forever. With a lawnmower that was held together with a coat hanger. We had to get a new one once after I caught the old one on fire, but that's a different story.  I'm glad he finally got to share in the joy.

But there was a time when we did other things on summer Saturdays.  One of them was tennis.

If you were at the funeral, or read my last post, you might get the idea that my dad was this kind, thoughtful man concerned only about the well-being and happiness of others.

That may have been a slight exaggeration.  If you ever played tennis against him, you know what I mean.

Dad was not an orthodox tennis player.  In warming up, if he ever really warmed up, you never saw him stroke the ball cleanly with a little top spin.  His back-hand looked like he never really figured out how that was supposed to be done.  And that never really changed after the match started.

My dad loved to win.  But just as important, it seemed, was torturing his opponent. He was the master of spin. Perhaps this was a result of his political or broadcast or sales experiences, but it was most lethal on the tennis court.  He delivered thousands of serves that were never touched.   The ball would leave his racquet, rotating on its axis so fast that the seams of the ball disappeared, pass a micron or two above the net, bounce on the outside line of the service square, and scoot immediately, about three inches off the court, sometimes almost rolling, toward the side fence of the court, out of reach of the futile lunge of an uninitiated opponent.  A couple of these serves inevitably led a wise opponent to cheat to the outside, further and further until finally they got a racquet on the ball before the second bounce.  The next serve would then be straight down the center court line, with little spin, again untouched until the humbled opponent walked back to pick it up. He would laugh.

He was the champion of dinking.  Dinking is putting a shot just over the net, so softly that the ball barely bounces.  Young, athletic opponents would celebrate very brief victories as they raced, headlong, toward the net, scraping their racquets on the court before picking up the shot for the return.  Then they watched helplessly as Dad softly lobbed the ball over their head into the backcourt.  Dad would be laughing as the younger player would race backward to return the softly bounced ball back at the baseline. It seemed he was hoping that his opponent would be successful, because, if he were successful, there was another opportunity for the deadly dink, and the whole cat and mouse game could continue. An unexperienced player would be worn out after the first couple of points.

He loved to win.  But it almost seemed he loved to play the game even more. We played and played back then. It was important to win because there was only one court, and you got to keep playing as long as you won.

But most of all is that time we all spent together. Our whole family played. And lots and lots of friends played.  And laughed.  And sweated. And talked.

In scoring tennis, love means no point has been made.

The way dad played, there weren't too many love games.

I miss you dad.

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