Monday, September 1, 2008

Labor Day Weekend - Tennis

Our little community has a mixed doubles tennis tournament every Labor Day, on clay courts, no less.

My cousin Dan marched off Sunday before softball, saying that his drubbing would be so quick he'd be back in time for the third inning.

Instead he made the finals.

The men of our family all possess a peculiar grace on the tennis court. Part confused stork, part badly miscast Nijinsky, we leap about after the ball, often missing it completely but looking pretty damn cool in the process.

Dan has a particularly memorable repertoire of moves, some of which I managed to capture:

The Planets Are In Alignment:

Head, left hand, racket and ball appear perfectly lined up. However, zoom lens distortion and the camera angle fail to reveal the fact that the ball is several feet to Dan's left.




Stalag 17:

A little-known fact is that Dan and I were abducted by the Lizard People some years back. They experimented on us a bit, but were quite decent by way of providing recreational facilities. Here Dan recreates our method for disposing of the loose dirt from our tunnel. (While everyone is looking at the ball, the left hand is sprinkling the soil on the clay court.)

In the end we didn't escape; we were traded to the Red Chinese for two mid-level Halliburton execs and eventually abandoned, penniless, in Hong Kong. We pawned the chips the reptilians left in our necks and came home on a tramp steamer. I am not making this up.







Chairman Mao, Call the Chiropractor: A winning combination of odd posture and receding hairline make this a fan favorite.





Twelve O'Clock High: Dan is distracted by attacking Japanese Zeros.

1 comment:

Tony Ventresca said...

Good photos, good words. I hope the Lizard People didn't perform anal probing on you (it's not as much fun as it sounds).