The club's closing party, honoring Lucy Fowler, is close upon us: November 7, a Sunday. Mark the date on your calendars. Drinks and, as usual, exquisite nibbles will be served. We expect a big turnout, so 'guests are not encouraged.' Summer members are welcome. (Ooooh, we'll miss Lucy.)
We asked readers to write in and sum up or comment on the season. And we received a number of responses, by phone and e. We should also note that many responses summed up the Red Sox season. We won't pass any more of those along, but here is a sampling of members' comments on the season (and the newspage):
-"At this time of year, every day the courts are playable and the weather permits, one feels one has escaped the indoor courts. A little wind, a few leaves, the occasional mist - all are minor nuisances, whose presence makes playing outside all the sweeter, as a day stored up in the memory against the on-coming winter. And a genuine day of Indian summer, whose warmth recalls the pleasures of August - a gift from the gods.
So whether one salvages another day from autumn or luxuriates in the occasional day of grace, it is a pleasure to be on the courts, to take tennis as long as possible into the fall."
-"Just love the bouncing ball."
-'The biggest things that stand out about the season for me were deaths of members and meagre tournaments. Good Lord, the deaths! And the tournaments - cancelled for lack of interest? What's going on here?'
-"The newspage is very self-referential, the newspage is about the newspage and about the website. Although it does make me laugh and that's why I keep looking at it. Personally, I'd like to see more gossip, but I suppose that gossip would mean trouble. Maybe you could disguise the names and say 'a prominent member of the club' had the misfortune to....'
-"I traveled a lot this year and didn't play much tennis, but I checked in now and then on-line. It always looked like people are smiling and having fun. Is the porch done yet?"
'I always like the "Take a look at what was happening at this time last year" feature. I do take a look. It's fun.'
-"Changes this season were plentiful.
The new deck for tall people is beautiful.
Racquet throws were way up,
there was rarely a pup,
and tournament draws were way less than full."
-"Round robins were much less competitive,
the faces you saw less repetitive,
even vis a vis staff,
whose members were raft,
but as always the grounds were quite sedative."
(We're still soliciting comments and we thank all our contributors.)
Club member, Barbara Wiget, has sent along a longer piece. It is called Slow-Motion Tennis.
And we've had some requests to re-play this item: Club member, Craig Lambert, who is a writer and editor for Harvard Magazine has given us a stylish, pertinent piece on Tennis Communication. Give it a read.
The courts close, technically, on November 15, although sometimes the frost gets into them and closes them prematurely.
Racquet stringing has returned to the club... by way of Mike Zaisser. Mike offers next day service, low prices, and professional quality work. Drop your racquet off at the club, or call Mike at 617 780-1907.
The Java Kid has the tournament draws available on-line (including all of the results):
Rick Rose's fabled doubles clinics are still fabled alright, but they are nowadays held day-to-day. Call the club to see whether they are on or not. The clinics take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.
Take a look
We are leaving previous tournament draws up. And again we'll offer our thanks to our Anonymous Friend, the Java Kid, for posting them and keeping them up to date.
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Tournaments |
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And here's the saga of 2002's tournaments (so's we can compare and contrast):
And the saga of the year before (we're mighty fancy here, and mighty grateful to the Java Kid for doing all this work):
Phew.
Here's a link to the espn site, with pro ranking.
And a club member (let's call him Sol) suggests a link to the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I. The site is rich.
As noted,the CTC book for 2004 is available. Much of the information in the book may now be found here on the website. The information is current. The waiting list for membership, as well as a list of new members is up to date. That information can be found through the 'FAQ' page. The Activites Page (round robins, tournaments, etc) is also up to date. The Rules page is also up to date and we have been urged to urge our readers to "review the rules and refresh their memories on some of the finer points."
'Members', and' Reservation Requests' are not active parts of the site nowadays. 'Timelines' is for adepts.
The Yearbook link will take you to the last newspage from 2003. From there you can see the whole of the Persistant Archive of last year's news.
Website Note: The time and temperature icon below is a link to a Boston weather site.
Joe DeBassio, Webmaster
Website Note II: The honey-comb icon is also a link. It takes the clicker to an archive of all the past news pages so that you can read the news pages for the whole year (2004). The less-than link (<) next to the honeycomb icon will take you to the last issue of the newspage.
