Tennis and Hemingway

When Michael was at camp, they showed all the kids how to play tennis. Michael played and won the camp tournament, and won a new tennis raquet. He demanded to go to the tennis courts and play as soon as he got home. I was only able to arrange that once, with Kate's son last Saturday. Mike said they played ten minutes then got in the pool and spent the rest of the time there. [Hey, it's hot. I don't blame them!]

Today, I sent this email to Bruce, and several others:
Michael had his first individual tennis lesson this morning, and I attended with him. He did great. He listened to Coach Tom, learned quickly, and showed off that powerful left arm of his.

Obviously, he needs practice in the basics, and the serve is a bit of a challenge, but he will get there. Within the first 5 minutes, with Coach lobbing the ball over the net to watch Michael hit, he turned to me and said “He can really HIT."

When Michael serves, he has to hold the racquet under his short arm, and toss the ball with his left hand, high in the air. That gives him time to grab the racquet and get in position to hit the serve.

At one point, Coach was showing Michael how to serve in the correct area of the court, and he told Michael to just throw the ball, into the right square. Michael did OK, but didn't get the ball in the right place. Then Coach asked if he’d ever played baseball and Michael said nope. Coach showed him a baseball throwing stance. Michael copied it perfectly, and threw the tennis ball so hard it was a major league line drive, right into the back fence. The next one was also powerful but went into the perfect spot on the court. Coach said “You SURE you’ve never played baseball?!"

I paid for 6 individual lessons, which we can accomplish before school starts on August 11.

Coach invited Michael to be on the tennis team. He is going to practice with the 8 & 9 year olds this week, until he gets the hang of it, then probably next week move up to be with kids his own age. I think he’s just starting Mike with the younger kids because of his inexperience.

I don’t know if this is going to really conflict with soccer this fall or not. If so, and I can’t work out the scheduling, I will ask Michael to choose the sport he prefers. It could be tennis. Last year Michael got rather frustrated with soccer, at times, due to being so small and the other boys getting to the ball quicker. Michael wasn’t able to score much. Since tennis is an individual sport, his size isn’t as important. The choice will be his, however, if the schedules conflict

When we got home, Michael said he was really tired, and he might not be able to do any schoolwork. I laughed. Granny will straighten him out on that.

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Today is Ernest Hemingway's birthday. If he weren't dead, he would be 109 years old. I have always been fascinated by his life, but not all that crazy about his books. I read The Sun Also Rises, and one of the books published postunmously, but never found him terribly readable. Too dry. Too macho.

His life, on the other hand, was intriguing. He was married 4 times. He and Scott Fitzgerald obviously had a fascinating friendship. I love the movie In Love and War, which is about his early years as a soldier in World War I. I own that one.

This is his house in Key West, which I want to buy so I can re-paint the shutters:

Comments

[Karen]

Hi Dee,

What color would you paint the shutters? I'd like to own that house too -- along with Frank Lloyd-Wright's fallingwater in Pennsylvania.