"...taken me for a walk or rubbed my belly"

I’ve taken up tennis here recently.

I’ve only hit myself in the head once.

Hays, on the other hand, hit me once in the leg and once in the face. He was teaching my about "volleying" and apparently I have a little to learn.

He’s our education reporter and has been doing an excellent job of schooling me. Truly, though, he’s been doing a great job of teaching me and I think I’ve been doing a pretty good job of learning a new skill.

Because of my job I wind up with odd periods of free time I try to fill with good things, interesting and productive hobbies like golf, beer brewing, 18th century gunsmithing….

And now tennis.

I figure tennis is one of those skills that you don’t have to be great at, but it’s good to have some basic abilities. Like driving a stick shift. I remember my Dad teaching me to drive a manual. It involved an on ramp to US 64 and the sentiment ‘OK, let’s see what you can do.’

I did pretty well, I recall.

I’d been meaning to pick up tennis for a while now and had been in such discussions with a lot of folks. It’s a group effort of plenty of friends with whom I haven’t had time to check whether they want me to put their names in here, really.

But driving to a shoot a few weeks back with Hays I learned of his tennis background and we decided to give it a whirl a few days later at the courts over by Cleveland Community College.
I got an inexpensive racket and some cheap tennis balls. Maybe as I improve I’ll want to invest in finer equipment, but for now the weak point in my game isn’t the racket.

Still, Hays says I’m doing pretty well. He’s played before and all and seems pretty good at it to me, though I am no judge. I’ve been learning about the rules, the scoring, use of the racket, the scoring….

Baseball’s scoring is very simple. One guy runs across home plate – that’s a point. Heck, they even call it a run. Tennis is Loves and 15s and 40s which are sometimes 45s….

It’s good exercise. The sport seems to involve a lot of chasing down loose balls like a Labrador retriever. I’m getting a lot of exercise there though nobody has yet scruffled me behind the ears, taken me for a walk or rubbed my belly. I’ve played a couple times over the past few weeks and am getting a pretty good hang of it.

Last weekend Hays and I played a set or two. I actually nearly beat him in one game. I’m improving and my goal for our next battle is to win a game or two.

In slightly related news, I’ve also taken up bowling.

I’ve only nearly hit my mentor and managing editor, Alan, once.