Net!

In the past, I used to watch Wimbledon or at least have it on in the background because it was a summer thing. To me, it was much like having baseball on the tv in the background. These summer sounds go as far back as my childhood. I'd hear them drifting out of the windows from the homes on this street.

I can't play tennis. I can't even understand it's scoring system. 15-Love? Be that as it may, I still had it on TV like having the Bristol 4^th of July parade on TV. It was tradition. That until a friend managed to saturate me with more tennis than I could stand to learn about in years. I haven't watched Wimbledon in years.

The friend, in his own words, would've been a tennis bum had he not been forced to find a stable career in the Navy. A tennis bum I found out was a professional or semi-professional player who would go from tournament to tournament looking for backers who would put you up with home, food and spending money. He thought that would be the life of O'Reilly. A top seeded player makes too much money to need that, but the lower seeds, in order to go from there to there, not winning much at all, need their Sugar Daddies. It's a great life of doing basically nothing and be paid for it.

He had apparently enough talent in his teens to be considered for a high level tennis camp in New Hampshire. The problem was that it cost some money and his Dad was dead set against this as a career.

“If I pay another $1000 a year, I can get you into Holy Cross! What you gonna do with a tennis career? What if you don't win? You think I'm gonna waste money on that?!”

So off to Holy Cross he goes and ending up in the Navy touring the world.

“I figure out another way of being a tennis bum. When the ship was docked and I had time off, I'd go out, still in uniform with my rank showing and hit up the local tennis clubs. Nine times out of ten, I'd get into the more exclusive clubs due to my rank.”

“My tennis style is that of Monica Seles, two handed. I'd give them a run for their money or cream the shit out of the local talent at these clubs. They'd be amazed because a two handed player isn't seen that much. Of course, there were times I was used to wipe up the floor by a top seeded player.”

He tells me there were times when some local or regional rich prick would offer to have him at their villa, to stay for a while.

“That's how professional tennis bums make it. They get taken in as “pets” by the rich who show off the fact they have a top rated player living with them. It's all about being a leech. I leeched only a bit when I was invited back for a few days.”

One time, in Villefranche Sur Mer, a seaside resort on France's Gold Coast, I radio phoned up my ship that was sitting in the harbor and told the bridge to look over to me, waving from the villa's balcony.”

“Lookie here! Do you see me? The bedroom I'm sleeping in now is courtyard filled with olive trees and grapevines....what are you guys doing today?”

These tennis stories I like hearing about. But when someone who is sooo passionate about a hobby or whatever, gets into it in the minutest technical detail, scoffs at you for not knowing what a baseline is or just goes off the edge of the Earth on a subject...it gets tiring. You can't keep up. Now when Wimbledon is on, my phone can ring off the hook.

“Are you watching? Did you see the latest? She's only a fifth tier seed...she's walloping them all!”

“Noooo...I am not watching.” I say.

“Why NOT?”

I don't dare admit what I'm thinking which is: “I.don't.care.”

Then again, I can bore the shit out of him when I start discussing room modes, reverb delay time and other aspects of sound reinforcement when it comes to stereos. The dead silence on the other end of the phone is a major tipoff but I don't notice it. Why? I'm engrossed in my own hobby as I talk about it.

“Hey, I found a new way to position the speakers using the Golden Ratio. It's simple! All you have to do is find the ratio from all dimensions of the room, crank it through, then get a tape measure and then mark off on the floor....”

Or...

“Whaddaya mean you don't know what a Clair Line Array is? Roger Waters used it in his Wall Tour! It hangs from the towers..it's fucking huge..you can't miss it!”

He's probably looking out his window by now...that's what I do when I hear about tennis.

Ok, I guess we're both equal in tormenting the other with our various hobbies we take too damn far.