Southwestern Central Tennis team, circa 1965
Originally uploaded by Brite light photos.
Wahoo!
So even though I'm limping around the house and can barely get outside onto the brick patio, I think I'll pull out my tennis racquet and bash the ball into the back yard for the dog to chase - and retrieve.
The photo today with the blog is of our SWCS tennis team, most likely during junior year given that Ted Bootey is in it, kneeling in front of Coach Tom Priester.
Ted's dad was a judge, you might remember, and it seemed like whenever I got a speeding ticket, he was the justice that heard the case.
I didn't play tennis much in high school, it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I started to enjoy it. I played every afternoon with one of the editors at the Chico Enterprise-Record (where I was editor). We would smash the ball with great abandon to work out our frustrations of working for arguably the most conservative publisher in America.
How conservative? Well, let's say he thought that public education was a waste of taxpayer's good money, for example. Now that I write about education all the time, I'm beginning to understand his point a little better, although the alternatives are pretty unpalatable.
When I did play tennis, usually at the Lakewood Beach tennis courts, I remember there was a decided advantage depending on how hard the wind was blowing off the lake. If you tried to hit into it when it was ripping, the ball would barely make it over the net. Hitting it downwind, you could loft one to Terrace Avenue if you weren't careful.
One afternoon in the spring of our senior year, my 50-plus-year-old aunt, Ethel Puls (Gordy Puls' mother) whipped me in two out of three sets. Must've been that darned wind.
One particular note from this photo:
Standing next to Tom Priester is Merle Butler, who was killed in Vietnam and whose name I always look up when the traveling Vietnam Veteran's Memorial comes to Sacramento.
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