I Knew This Would Happen

Danny wants tennis lessons. This didn't exactly come as a shock, but I was surprised how excited he was when I agreed. Previously, our lives only became disrupted around major tournaments, now I'm afraid we've been sentenced to, "All tennis, all the time." I have no one to blame but myself...and Andy Murray. I know more about the life, times, and tennis career of Mr. Murray than I ever wanted to thanks to my child's interest. It could be worse, he could be into American football. Or Star Trek.

I played tennis recreationally as a teenager, and badly. We might have been stoned. I mean come on...everyone was. It wasn't like there was anything else to do all summer.  The friend I played with most was close to seven feet tall, scrawny, and half-blind ( and usually high), so he almost always missed the ball by absurd distance, and we'd stand on the court doubled over laughing as pensioners sat by watching and wondering what was so funny. We were terrible at tennis, and we weren't much better at softball ("I've got it...I've got it...WHACK!" into the side of a building). Danny on the other hand couldn't do anything just for fun if his life depended on it. He's not competitive so much as a perfectionist-he likes to do things well. He's not the most coordinated person I know, but maybe that can improve with practise.

One thing he has going for him is the new technology. Tennis rackets weighed a ton when I was a teenager-they were heavy wood. I might have been encouraged to attempt serious play had I been able to swing the damn thing with reasonable ease. The materials today are so light, it is almost like playing a different game.

I think Danny will take it more seriously than I did as a youngster, and I'm pretty sure his control-freak-perfectionist tendencies will keep him from the temptation to smoke a couple spliffs before hitting the courts.