Snow on the Tennis Courts

This is, supposedly, a tennis blog, so it is logical to provide some tennis photos now and then. This is what the tennis courts in my neighborhood are looking like this month, snow covered and lonely. No one has played on these courts for at least a month, and it is probable that no one will play here for another 2-3 months. In my high school days on the Iron Range, our out door courts were used as a skating rink in the winter, so that when spring came the tennis team shoveled off the courts, removing the snow and ice, so that we could begin playing on them before the season was over. This picture reminds me of those days.



We had an epic struggle at geezer tennis night at Wooddale last night. We had a rare occurrence, wherein we went two sets without a single service break. It was so closely fought that we were unable to finish the second set, because we ran out of time. The scores 7-6, 6-6 (out of time). There is also a rumor afoot, fed by some of my geezer pals, that the real estate developer, who bought the Lilydale tennis club to build condos, was forced to let the property go back to the bank. The subprime mortgage mess seems to have stymied his plans for riches as he stymied our tennis playing agenda when he bought our club out from under us. The condo market has softened so much, that it almost doesn't exist any more. The condo speculators, who may have bought one of his units as investment property, are on the run or hiding their money in their socks. There may be poetry there somewhere.

I hear via email that Jim Holden's book, "Tennis in the Northland" will be published soon and will be available in April or May. He says it's about 600 pages of true stories about high school tennis in Minnesota. He thinks it'll be costing about $35 in hard cover. It perhaps has a limited audience, but I'm hoping that the Coen brothers make a movie of the best parts. Or maybe not.