Amen

I do not like to use this picture of our barn.  Why?  Well it does NOT show how we used the barn when we were growing up.  Where the gas tank is, that is where we pulled the hay rack so that we could toss hay into the hay room.  The large hole that Dad cut.  What the heck.  I am sure he used it for his garage which we never had when we were home.  Regardless there is a reason I use this picture today.  It is not infrequently that people say something like this when they are talking about a tennis player. "He was a handball player and that is why he has great reflexes".  "He was a fireman in his professional life and they had a racquetball court in the station.  He played often and that is why he has great instincts in tennis"  Well I will have nobody talking about me like that but IF (I know it is a HUGE IF) anyone were to ask where Carmen got his playing instincts this might be the answer.  THE BARN!  I would spend many many hours in the summer throwing the rubber like baseball against the south side of the barn.  I know I have written about it in the past but..  I often would put the scraper/loader on the back of the Ford tractor and then drive back and forth in the barnyard on the south side of the barn.  When all was level with no cow pies I would put a piece of rotted plywood about 30 feet from the south wall and game was on.  As the ball bounced off of the barn wall I would jump, go to my right, go to my left and scoop up the ball as if I were a good player.  With that kind of great training I say that prepared me for attacking the tennis ball with gusto and it may have been every good as a racquetball court, right???

That takes me into what happened on the tennis court yesterday.  My team won 2 of 3 courts so we won the match BUT.  Maybe I should say one of the courts was won on forfeit.  Two of their guys showed up at 2:00 for a 1:30 match.  They ended up playing but it had to be a forfeit.  My court #2 won a fun match BUT Karl and I on court #1 came up short.  The difference in our match was when they had a "put away shot" they did a great job.  When we (mostly I) had a put away shot my return was timid and they hit it back.  I talked to our two pros after the match (they watched) and came away with two things that I need to change.  One is I need to have the mentality of putting it away and the other is I need better footwork in order to get my body in position for the put away shot.  I can add that our opponents were good but really I felt we could have won.  The score was 2-6 and      3-6.  In the second set we were tied at 3-3 and went to several deuces before they won the point.  That was the turning point.  I should say that they were a fun team to play.  The captain, who showed up late, is from Eagan Minnesota and his sons played tennis at St. Paul Academy where the boys went to school.  His oldest graduated a year ahead of John.  That figures as he is 80 and I might add a good tennis player.

Terry and I have some things to do today for our departure tomorrow.  Terry wants to bring some oranges from our orange tree so I will pick them today.  I would say we have about 50 or so great looking oranges on the tree.  Terry has some things she wants to bring to Kim and of course we have Tori's blanket that we can not forget.  We want to get out tomorrow no later than 8:00 but before that would be nice.  It is 600 miles so about an 8 1/2-9 hour trip.  

I titled my blog today amen.  Meaning yesterday was the end of the fall tennis league.  It will be nice to have a month break which gives me some time to get one or two more players for the team.  IF we can not add players it will be a long winter.

Everyone should know that Gerrit Cole signed his baseball contract with the Yankees yesterday.  IF he pitches in the same number of games next year and throws the same number of pitches as he did last summer he will get $10,700 for EACH pitch he throws!!!!!  If he goes to a full count on the first batter he will have earned more than the average teacher salary before the second batter comes to bat.  A far far cry from throwing the ball against the barn wall in 1959!  Keep in mind that a pitcher usually throws 80-95 pitches each game!

Enough for this morning.  I play tennis at 10:30 and am short one player.  I need to go to the courts early to see if I can get another player for my foursome.  FP is gone and it kind of helped me forget the loss on the court yesterday.