Love 40

The U.S. Open is well under way in New York, and, as ever in September, I’m returned to high school, most likely junior and senior years.

You wouldn’t think pro tennis would draw that much interest in a boys’ Catholic high school in the late 1960s, but it did, at least with the people I moved with from class to class.  There was a buzz in the hallways at the start of the school year, courtesy of Arthur Ashe and maybe Bill Cosby.  For whatever reasons, Cosby’s TV show “I Spy” appealed to my demographic.  We all wanted to travel the world as spies who used tennis as their cover, I guess.

I played tennis with all the finesse of Moose Skowron.  I hit the ball hard and far, only the first of which is ever a good thing.  I’d convinced myself I could walk on at DePaul University and earn a scholarship; that was a whole lot more exciting (see “I Spy,” above) than my job at the time, stocking shelves at the Walgreens on 59^th and Pulaski.  But once I started at De Paul, reality set in, and I kept stocking those shelves.

Clare caught my interest in tennis, and we played a few times when she was in grade school; Morton West also held summer camps, where she drew the attention of the school tennis coach.  My daughter hit the ball hard while keeping it inbounds more than I ever did.  But there are choices in life, and she went with hitting balls that were harder and, in the end, bigger.

Still, it’s coming on Labor Day, and I’m back at St. Laurence.