Slept in late again...hung around Matt’s until about 2:00. We met up with all of Matt’s family at the Scandinavian Festival. The Scandi Fest is basically the Sterling Fair except everyone involved wears a blue vest. We watched some traditional dancing performed by students in national dress. It was kind of a snoozer. Then it was tennis time...
When I first asked Matt if he wanted to play doubles with me in the Scandi tourney, he wasn’t sure his body and skills could hack it, but after seeing him hit the other day, I knew we had a chance. Keep in mind, Matt hadn’t picked up a racket in twenty years. We would have to win four rounds to win the Scandi title. Round one, I thought we were going to have some trouble because they looked good....older guys who had clearly played a before...sometimes the older guys are the most dangerous. We took care of business. Next we took on the typical teenager who tried to hit the ball as hard as he could, but fortunately, he hit too many of them off the fence in the air. We took that match too. In our third match, we had some problems. Two high school kids...one was super aggressive at the net. We were only playing one set against every opponent and at one point in the match was 4 all. We managed to win the next two games, winning 6-4 and headed to the finals. While we gave them a good fight, we didn’t play well enough to win the finals...it’s as simple as that. When all was said and done, we kept in mind that Matt hadn’t played in twenty years and had a lot more fun than maybe he anticipated. His emotions went from early skepticism to intensity. With all the childhood sports moments we shared, it was great to do it again.
Playing the actual game of tennis is one thing...it has its value for fitness and competition, but tennis has had a much greater affect on my life. Learning the skills of the game has provided me so many opportunities to share great experiences with many types of people, be it in the next town or even a far away country. When you are young you are unable to understand the potential benefits of so much of what you do. The game continues to give back to me and I am so glad I got involved with it back in high school.
After the tourney we went back to Matt’s where Rina served up some chicken and mac & cheese. We took a shower and then took the hour drive up into the woods, near Oakridge, Oregon for some fishing tomorrow on the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the Willamette River
When I first asked Matt if he wanted to play doubles with me in the Scandi tourney, he wasn’t sure his body and skills could hack it, but after seeing him hit the other day, I knew we had a chance. Keep in mind, Matt hadn’t picked up a racket in twenty years. We would have to win four rounds to win the Scandi title. Round one, I thought we were going to have some trouble because they looked good....older guys who had clearly played a before...sometimes the older guys are the most dangerous. We took care of business. Next we took on the typical teenager who tried to hit the ball as hard as he could, but fortunately, he hit too many of them off the fence in the air. We took that match too. In our third match, we had some problems. Two high school kids...one was super aggressive at the net. We were only playing one set against every opponent and at one point in the match was 4 all. We managed to win the next two games, winning 6-4 and headed to the finals. While we gave them a good fight, we didn’t play well enough to win the finals...it’s as simple as that. When all was said and done, we kept in mind that Matt hadn’t played in twenty years and had a lot more fun than maybe he anticipated. His emotions went from early skepticism to intensity. With all the childhood sports moments we shared, it was great to do it again.
Playing the actual game of tennis is one thing...it has its value for fitness and competition, but tennis has had a much greater affect on my life. Learning the skills of the game has provided me so many opportunities to share great experiences with many types of people, be it in the next town or even a far away country. When you are young you are unable to understand the potential benefits of so much of what you do. The game continues to give back to me and I am so glad I got involved with it back in high school.
After the tourney we went back to Matt’s where Rina served up some chicken and mac & cheese. We took a shower and then took the hour drive up into the woods, near Oakridge, Oregon for some fishing tomorrow on the North Fork of the Middle Fork of the Willamette River
No comments:
Post a Comment