High school tennis by Mike

Based on a 1955 Mounder, I think I know the people in this story. (nbruce, blogger)

"I happen to know someone who holds a world record. He holds the record for the world's longest tennis racket throw. (Unsubstantiated of course, it has never been entered into the official record books because, I suppose of embarrassment). My doubles partner in high school had a terrible temper, it was pretty funny, you know? He'd miss a crucial shot in an important match and he'd jump up and down, hit his racket on the court surface, and sometimes break it.

It was all his fault when I began to manifest the same behavior. ( Notice how I'm blaming him). We were in high school and he and I were winning a match against our rival team from Rochelle, Illinois. The coach, Lew Behrens was watching, and one of us settled under a lob in order to put it away for the final point in the first set, and hit the ball on the racket frame, rather than the strings, and the ball went into orbit over the fence and into the adjacent ball field. Well, I turned in anger and threw my racket high and far. It helicoptered onto the roof of the high school. How am I admitting this? Oh, the embarrassment! The coach admonished me, but not too much to affect my game, but he then loaned me HIS racket with the appropriate threat.

After the match, which we fortunately won, without any more foolish tantrums, I had to go fetch my racket somehow. So, I went inside to find the school custodian, Art Goldberg, and borrow a ladder. I found him in a stall in the Men's Room. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Mr Goldberg, where can I find a long ladder?
Art:  It's in the back.... Why do you need a ladder?
Me: Well I need to get on the roof.
Art: Oh, well it is in the back room behind....... Why do you need to get on the roof?
Me:  Something of mine is up there.
Art:  Oh, look in the storage..... What of yours is up there?
Me: My tennis racket.
Art: Oh. Well, get the ladder out and... How did it get up THERE?
Me: Uhhh.. I threw it there, I guess.

 By this time Art flushed and came out of the stall and said, "Oh it's you, Well I'm not surprised. I'll get it for you this time, but next time you'll need a new racket!"

 Bless his heart.

1954 Mounder photos

 

Neighborhood sporting events

Mike contributes this memory of the old neighborhood:

"There was a barn in the back of the house where we lived on Main, but the barn in back of that belonged to Otto and Mae Herzfeldt. Greeley Myers and I built a basketball court in the upper story of our barn where all the neighborhood guys would gather to play hoops--Nels Potter, Mike and Dave Powers, Duane Blake, Gerald Blake, Greeley, John LeVar. Others I seem to remember playing were Marv Leopold, Jon Martin and maybe Lloyd Pretsch and Steve Brinker. Maybe Greeley would remember more detail. We used to choose up teams and smell armpits--(big joke back then). They all participated at one time or other, until someone fell through the floor and landed on top of Marge Tice's car's hood. He wasn't injured but put a considerable dent in the aforementioned auto. This not only made an impression in the hood, but also one on my father and Miss Tice. We promised to repair the hole in the floor before we played again, but that did not make my father happy. He removed the ladder that was nailed to the wall where we gained entrance to our gym and the future basketball schedule was cancelled.

There were great baseball games too in back of the Powers house in that field. I think that a car wash is there now. I don't remember any games in the street. I remember Dave Powers got hit in the head with a ball, but no damage except a large hematoma. His head looked like a basketball with a growth. All I can remember him saying was "I'm telling Mom"."

Memories, a poem

Lynne F. submitted a prose poem for the blog about memories, and I looked through Nancy's photos and thought this one of some of us looking in the distance might fit. We are actually watching a spring baseball game (March 1953), and it must have been muddy so we're standing on a board. Look at those white shoes! I sort of like the far away look, like we're trying to figure out what will happen. Tina, who is now a great grandmother, looks right at the camera and smiles; Lynne, who grew into a real sports fan, is looking somewhere else.


Left to right: Lynne (back turned), Sylvia H., Carol S. (class of 58), Priscilla D., Norma C., Marion D. (partially hidden), Francine K., Sara Y. and Tina K.

". . . but memories remain forever. Real memories of happier, more innocent days before we came to know the world. But they are always with us, running parallel to the present, shining like stars in a cup of water, as some poet said, lighting up our path, and never going out." by Lynne Fleming Wilburn, 2002