A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Puntzie Sounds All Right

It's the organism that takes walks with Puntzie that needs re-tooling and re-work.

[bottle]

Nazi Goons

Nazi goons were not exactly known for their good sense of humor.

[bottle]

Too Much

Too much sentimental slobbering over highly ranked tennis players. What you got for all of us other tennis players?

[bottle]

Answer to a Question

Because you can't leave anything alone.

[bottle]

Higganum, Connecticut, 1950's

I flirt with Patty Gessner. Another guy likes Patty too. During recess, out on the playground, he picks a fight. We're throwing roundhouse haymakers and missing by a lot. Suddenly I feel a pair of arms clamp my own arms to my side. It is the seventh grade teacher. He keeps my arms pinned while the other guy hits me.

That's how it felt recently in the forum when I wasn't reading don_budge's posts but he was reading mine and reacting in his inimitable fashion.

Well, never mind. In a few years Patty and I and the guy who hit me found ourselves in another school seven miles up the river in Middletown.

Hope, my recent partner, was in that school too. But it was time for Patty and me to graduate, and Patty's mother had written the graduation song.

We are leaving Central school-- ooh ah ooh.
And we hate to go away-- ah ooh ah.
We've enjoyed our brand new school-- ooh ah ooh.
And we wish that we could stay-- ooh ooh ooh.

The years have passed,
We're here at last
Now leaving dear old C.G.S. (Central Grammar School).
Though there's a tear
In every eye
We're moving on to separate lives.

CLASSMATES, now a fond farewell-- ah ooh ah,
For we hate to say goodbye.
We will all remember you-- ooh ah ooh.
Even though we say adieu
Even though we say adieu.

[bottle]

Oughtta quit right there, right? Usually, though, I do whatever I feel like.

[bottle]

Have you noticed that nobody participates in your innocuous nonsense?

The important thing is that I keep going. Whether anybody reads me doesn't matter.

(Hmm, let me see, 57,756 views as of today.)

[bottle]

In Earlier Days at TennisPlayer

Bungalo Bill and I were locked in mortal debate. He had been, I believe, in the stable of Vic Braden teaching pros. Me, I had been the crew coach at Skidmore College and West Virginia University.

One day I got an email from Ben Ford, a tour technician who decided to recognize me as a fellow technician although he purposefully misspelled the word as "technition."

I was amazed to learn that in this big world there could be such a thing as a tour technition, a person who travels with the famous touring pros we all love too much.

I think now of a herd of stampeding caribou. The stragglers and puny ones at the edge or rear are likely to be picked off by a wolf, a lion, or a tennis technition.

Middling or lower ranked tour players, it seemed to me-- the ones about to go into Real Estate-- were Ben's prime customers.

They would come to him and explain that since they couldn't win, could he maybe give them a new stroke or two?

He then (and he explained this part to me so I am not guessing here), did what I used to do-- self-feed, hit a wall, use a ball machine while designing all the way.

The dozen crack-ridden Rouge River Park courts in Detroit do not come with a ball machine but I still do the other stuff before deeming myself ready to travel to where there are players besides myself.

And I like to name any new stroke I come up with, always have, as part of an effort to give it identity, hence edge.

Should you give some thing a nice name or a cold number? A cold number for a hurricane according to one of my seventh grade students.

Well, Ben followed my arguments for a while. In Bungalo Bill, he said, I had run into a cut shot artist. And Bungalo and bottle both knew enough tennis to be dangerous.

Dangerous? Just the opposite of innocuous as in the previous post. So which is it, reader, you decide.

I'll tell you this. My old forehand, The Ziegenfuss, carried a lot of arm before body pivot took over-- same idea as an Ellie-bam.

And if you believe, as I do, that arm work independent from bod is essential to Federfores and other more modern forehands, that arm work may best be delivered in a longitudinal way, i.e., from butt of racket to its tip.

This scheme makes racket spiral inside out to rise on outer edge of the ball.

[don_budge]

That guy should restrain himself whenever it comes to women's tennis, lest people think that A. he doesn't like women and B. he doesn't like Afro-Americans. And TennisPlayer might well ask why it doesn't have women in its discussion board the way it once did and how it could increase the number of women on its subscription roll.

The story of Sloane Stephens' recovery from surgery (and the extent of that recovery) is more intriguing than whether some expat in Sweden is still licking his wounds from Billie Jean's victory over Bobby Riggs many decades ago. So yes, something is as dumbed down as it can possibly get but not what the expat thinks.

I won't return here for several days to avoid a likely squawk and altercation usually in the form of foul obscenity from more than one person and worthy of the president himself. Let's just hope the expat, muttering under his breath that no one is going to push him around or mess with him since he is a tough guy from Detroit, doesn't give a case of rabies to his dog Puntzie.

Well let's see...you have brought my wife into this. My father and my dog. You have really dug a hole for yourself. It isn't that I am a tough guy from Detroit...it's only that you are quite the opposite.

You are the biggest bigot and wannabe bully I have ever met in my life. This is from one that knows. Trust me. You know what I hate more than anything? That's right...bullies and bigots. Guess why?

The match sucked. It was a stinker and I feel sorry for anyone stupid enough to attend such a fiasco. You are another story altogether.

Read once again below John Escher...Fyodor is writing about you and your ilk. Social Justice Warriors.

"I have already hinted that all sorts of low-class individuals had made an appearance among us. In troubled times of uncertainty or transition all sorts of low individuals appear everywhere. I am not talking about the so-called "progressives", who are always in a greater hurry than everyone else (that is their chief concern) and whose aims, though mostly absurd, are more or less definite. No, I am speaking only of the rabble. This rabble, which you will find in any society, usually rises to the surface in every period of transition, and is not only without any aim, but also without an inkling of an idea, merely expressing with all its strength unrest and impatience.. And yet this rabble without realizing it itself, almost always finds itself under the command of the small crowd of "progressives", who act with a definite aim, and it is they who direct this scum where they like, provided they themselves are not composed of utter idiots, which, however happens, too." Fyodor Dostoyevsky…The Devils, Part III Chapter 1

[don_budge]

In Earlier Days at TennisPlayer

The dozen crack-ridden Rouge River Park courts in Detroit do not come with a ball machine but I still do the other stuff before deeming myself ready to travel to where there are players besides myself.

THIS...is your karma coming home to roost.

Ironically I played my first sanctioned tournament there and lost first round to the number one seed Tony Lamerato 6-0, 6-1. It was 16 and under...I was a late starter. I beat him on his home court at Western Michigan University about five years later in collegiate competition. He was undefeated at the time. It isn't about where you start...it's about where you finish.

[bottle]

Unperceptive Reading of Dostoyevsky is Better than Foul Obscenity (Congratulations)

Question: Did don_budge write about the the U.S. Open dismissal of the seventh or ninth seed on the men's side the way he did the seventh seed on the women's side (Johanna Konta)?

Summary and accusation: don_budge is not qualified to write about women's tennis because he is too negative on the subject of all women's sports and of all female accomplishment in general.

Some kind of love should exist at the core of everything we write.

don_budge is comic in his inflexibility, and I am determined to have fun with him as I make fun of him.

[bottle]

Read once again below John Escher...Fyodor is writing about you and your ilk. Social Justice Warriors.

Social justice warriors created Communist Russia. But they also created modern France and the United States.

[bottle]

Well let's see...you have brought my wife into this. My father and my dog... It isn't that I am a tough guy from Detroit...it's only that you are quite the opposite.

Then Hallelujah!

But YOU (don_budge) brought your wife and dog into this public discussion although we all should be wary of putting wife and dog together in the same sentence. And you on your own mentioned your "dear old dad" many times before I met him and saw that that description was true.

The dog, Puntzie, figured in your reported walks. In one of your walks, Donald Trump had just captured the presidency and all in the world and cool weather of Sweden seemed bright and beautiful to you. To quote William Wordsworth to an old leech gatherer, "This morning gives us promise of a glorious day."

And your wife figured in a difficult horse birth, reported by you, a horse birth with which I had nothing to do. My sister, who knows an unbelievable amount about horses, who can even give them an IQ test with a quick look at their ears and conformation, would like to know more. So would I. We would like to know more about your wife's horse breeding farm of which you have only given us glimpses such as the big kick you received.

Now I freely admit I may have inadvertently connected your wife to black covered trains that ran unimpeded through Sweden in World War II. With the cooperation of the king of Sweden they were carrying supplies for the destruction of Norway and Denmark.

I invoked that bit of history at a time when I was convinced that you are a Nazi. And my concern was with all enablers of Nazis.

So ask your wife, please, if you are a Nazi. And report back on what she says. But only if you want to...

[bottle]

One Dozen Cracked Tennis Courts at Rouge River Park

Some day white people are going to wake up and realize there aren't enough black people to go around.-- James Baldwin

THIS...is your karma coming home to roost.

Early this morning I did self-feed in Grosse Pointe, Michigan where most of the courts are pretty nice. Ironically, I did not enjoy this as much as I do the Rouge Park cracks which send the balls flying in all sorts of weird directions.

And when we consider poor bottle/John Escher's sad fate-- if we even do and there is no particular reason we should-- know he has 178 seventh grade social studies students rather than the 125 he thought. And that, although things could change in a nano-second, this chapter in his life may be more interesting to him than any other.

[bottle]

Written During the Men's Final of the U.S. Open, a Disparagement of All Men in the World

You are the biggest bigot and wannabe bully I have ever met in my life. This is from one that knows. Trust me. You know what I hate more than anything? That's right...bullies and bigots. Guess why?

You got beat up by black kids. My barber in Grosse Pointe also grew up in this part of Detroit. He told me that if I was going to ask kids their opinion of Donald Trump I must bend over backward to be extremely open. I was willing to do that but the situation was different from what the barber imagined. The 178 kids are 100 per cent opposed to Trump. I try to be open anyway and reward kids for offering any counter-argument at all though they never believe it even as they say it.

The barber was alluding to The Detroit Riots. "All I knew," he said, "was that kids were trying to hurt me, and I didn't know why."

No, I'm not a would-be bully but an actual bully just like Nadal or anybody who dictates play on a tennis court. And the court here is the court of public opinion, comprised of those who have read both of our posts. Many times when you think you have gotten the best of me you haven't.

For instance, when for the hundredth time you bring out your tired quote from Dostoyevsky to say once again that I am "scum," you neglect Dostoyevsky's background as a rich kid. And you neglect the great difference in wealth between those who owned manors and those who were TB-ridden peasants/serfs in 19th century Russia. I have drawn your attention to such overwhelming debater's points many times. Your response: Simply ignore them. That doesn't cut it.

Same thing if I infer that social warriors and men of ideas from Burke to Jefferson, Hamilton, Jay and Madison created and passed the United States Constitution, you won't admit that I made a compelling point. Once upon a time everything I said was fine. Then anything I said was awful. This wasn't a change in me. It was you changing when Donald Trump came on the scene.

Again, I'm not a would be bully but an actual bully pushing a propagandist, advertising man or giraffe from South Africa around a tennis court.

Think Ted Cruz if you think this behavior of mine is unattractive. Cruz was a natural to play the prime witch hunter in a Harvard production of Arthur Miller's play "The Crucible." Although many persons would join me in saying he is an even more unattractive man than Donald Trump, we all would also have to admit that while he was an undergraduate at Princeton he won the U.S. Collegiate Debating Championship.