A Moment Not a Rematch

In September 1982 I played Aaron Krickstein and lost quickly in the first round of a tennis tournament.

(If you don't know who Aaron Krickstein is, this story loses a lot of its juice.)

He went on to have many great successes, but his most famous match came in 1991 when he played in what has been called the most re-watched match in history. Connors v. Krickstein was the go-to clip for broadcasters when there was a rain delay at the US Open. Every time the heavens opened there was Aaron losing to a 39-year old rejuvenated Connors.

Granader v. Krickstein was seen by few and remembered by one, and it's been replayed many times - in my head.

I don't recall the exact date, but I know we were so young our moms had to drive us and they sat courtside chatting. Aaron was the number one seed. I was his first round victim. The match took 35 minutes.

We never saw each other again.

Why would we?

The following year Aaron upset 15th-seeded Vitas Gerulaitis, in the third round of the US Open, while I was cruising my Cutlas Supreme to High School. When he was losing to Connors, I was finishing up law school.

The years passed, I followed his career, his wins, his injuries, a car crash that set him back.

I was rooting for him, because he was a part of my history whether he knew it or not. The more famous he became, the better my story got.

So when I overheard a friend at a dinner party mention Aaron Krickstein, I jumped. He is a tennis pro near where we live in Florida. "I play with him twice a week, why don’t you come by,” she offered.

And so I did.

I know they say don't meet your heroes, because they disappoint. But he is not my hero, he is simply part of my hero's journey.

Walking up to meet him I was conscious not to jump into my stupid story about our unremarkable match. But my friend said, "this is kind of a rematch."

"Have we played?" he asked without looking up, he was putting a grip on a racquet.

Well, that was my cue and I told my tale. With a smile he asked, "who won?" But he knew, since he still owns the record for the longest winning streak in Michigan tennis history and probably remembers his few losses.

It was a moment, not a rematch. 

Our match 43 years ago was for me, a peak athletic achievement. To him it was less than meaningless, it was embarrassing, his mother had said. He was on a path to go pro but needed to play in these local tournaments to keep his eligibility. Why would he want to play 15 year-olds when he was already the 15 and 18-and-under Champ?

And so as these two 58-year old men batted a ball from opposite sides of the net I couldn't help but think how far apart we were. My mind was racing that I can't believe I'm hitting with this guy again. And he must have been thinking: "What's for lunch?"

I was another tennis lesson on another Tuesday morning, like a thousand Tuesdays he’s experienced in the last 30 years of teaching.

Why does this matter to me? Why would I tell people about a tennis match I lost 40 years ago? 

Is it simply a way of informing some unlucky listener that in the reflected glory of Aaron's run, I was once a player too?

And what did I want from this second meeting? 

His success gave me the greatest gift: A lifelong memory and a story to tell. And I wanted to give him something in return, but I had nothing he wanted. He did the hard work and I was the lucky beneficiary. Maybe I just wanted him to know that.

Looking at 60...From 58

Here comes Sixty...

No, I'm not sixty...yet, but I feel like Sally Albright.

In the movie "When Harry Met Sally" she breaks down in a long Kleenex-filled crying jag about not being married. And finally it peaks when she comes clean with the revelation that her problem is...she's going to be forty!

"When?" Harry asks.

"Someday"

"In eight years," Harry reminds her.

"But it's there! It's like a big dead end!

Milestone birthdays are mostly mental, but somehow my body seems to have gotten the memo before I did.

This past year was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of snowbirds, it was the age of morning back pain, it was the epoch of qualifying for the 55 and over tennis tournaments, it was the epoch of knee braces, it was the season of sunscreen, it was the season of statins, it was the spring of selling Marketresearch.com, it was the winter of Dry January.

Here is a fun sampling of the comments and questions I received in last 365 days:

    - After a an x-ray the doctor told me "You have normal deterioration for a man your age."

    - At a recent physical therapy session I was asked: "What color did your hair used to be?"

    - Upon learning my age one "youngish" person said: "I didn't think you were that old?" And they were being nice!

    - I used to think plaque was something on my teeth, not my heart valves. The doctor recommended statins. "How long should I take them?" "Forever," he replied with a straight face.

I should have seen this coming. After a haircut my smock looks like I was caught in a small snow squall. 

Isn't it always the pictures that tell us the story we don't tell ourselves. Those moments you get a glimpse into how the rest of the world sees you, physically. 

Forty was supposed to be the big one, but I barely noticed it. The kids were 9, 7 and 5 and it was less mid-life crisis-y than I'd been told.

But turning sixty is different. I've been to lots of 60th birthday parties, and one thing I've heard in the toasts and roasts is it does something to the system. It focuses the mind.

"Intentionality," one friend said. "It makes you think, What am I doing? How am I spending my time?"

Other observations from this year:

    Parts are past their warranty: More friends had pieces and parts removed and re-placed: ACL, shoulders, rotator cuffs, knees and hips. 

    Less drinking (some of you): When the cocktail menu comes, there's a lot more, "Oh, just a glass of wine," and a surprising amount of Michelob Ultra.

    Attire: Friends come outside with floppy hats and enough sunscreen to make them look like Jason from Halloween.

    Equipment: They prepare for golf and tennis like gladiators entering the arena—knee and elbow braces, ankle wraps, and an entire CVS worth of kinesiology tape.

I've been recommended or gifted no less than 10 times the book Outlive: the Science and Art of Longevity.

What else do I hear from my fellow Generation X'ers: We're no longer the kid in the room. That there was a time, only moments ago, when we were the youngest person in the board meeting and somehow that slipped out from under us.

While jolting, in many ways it's Clarifying.

In writing a short story an ending is supposed to be "surprising, but inevitable."

Sixty is no dead end, and fifty-eight is an opportunity.

These changes are surprising, but also inevitable.

Hometown Jersey

Friends called and said, “Well, you can’t lose…”

Really?

The team I grew up with, rooted for and watched go on an unprecedented losing streak, had a chance to make it to the Super Bowl. But in their way was the team of my adopted hometown. The team my children love and who are the best story of this NFL season.

I’ve lived in Washington for 35 years, I lived in Detroit for 20.

Which one means more?

Seinfeld does a bit about loyalty to a sports team, which he says is hard to justify these days because the players, coaches and owners keep changing. Teams leave town.

“You’re actually rooting for the clothes” he jokes. “You are standing and yelling and cheering for your clothes to beat the clothes from another city.”

It goes a bit deeper.

The schedule and the stars aligned for the Detroit Lions and the Washington Commanders to meet in the D (Detroit). And as the game approached my adult children shunned me when I said I would be wearing a Lions hat.

With the Premier League in the UK there is no question, you cheer based on lineage. Your family history is rooted in your father's favorite team and therefore you root for your father’s team…forever. Full stop! It’s generational and doesn’t matter where you live or how far you’ve moved, you follow that tradition like it’s religion. Because it is.

So I headed to Detroit, feeling like a traitor wearing my Commanders sweatshirt, getting dirty looks from everyone I passed. That’s one thing about Detroit you know where that plane is going because people are wearing hats and shirts with the state, city or school logo. And so I’d pull out my Lions hat on occasion, trying to cool the stench from the stink eyes that were laid on me.

Why this hometown hold on me?

Investment.

Not in dollars but in memories. Regardless of how many years I spent living someplace else, the amount of time I've spent thinking about the place where I grew up exceeds every other place by a factor. "Where are you from," is the most oft asked intro question and how you answer it says a lot about you.

Most people of my vintage can recall the starting lineup from their childhood teams more readily than the current roster. The ’84 Tigers, ’89 Pistons, no problem. Even some of the stinker Lions teams have carved a pathway in my brain where current names don’t stick.

And so when I come to Detroit and pass the world’s biggest tire, or the Joe Louis statue, the Ren Cen or I bite into a Lafayette Coney Island hotdog - which looks and smells just as it did when I was a kid - I am rooting for more than just a team. I am cheering for much more than the current roster of players who weren't alive when I last spent Thanksgiving at the Pontiac Silverdome. I am bleeding for more than a jersey.

I am rooting for a city that hasn’t had a football championship in 70 years (Read about the curse of Bobby Layne). A city that’s been through hell and back and a fan base that never stopped believing. Because unlike Washington we don’t have a history of championships, we are seeking our first Super Bowl appearance.

And so when I cheer for the Silver and Blue I am cheering for my childhood and all that it represented to me. When I see those colors and those helmets, even though they have changed over the years, I see myself wrapped in all the excitement of a child who wants to stay til the bitter end, no matter how bad traffic will be.

I remember what it was like to be a kid in love with my hometown team, and when I root for them, in that city, I am that kid again.

One Shot at 57

One Shot

The morning did not start out great. I woke with a head feeling heavy from sinus and post-New Years list-making. I was a little rattled about going because even at 57 these tournamnents make me nervous.

So I drive to the course, thinking about all I need to do and so I miss the exit and have to turn around to arrive with only a few minutes til tee-off.

I spend my seven minutes of warm-up chopping up more turf than a full round. And then to top it off, I meet my partner for the day. He is wearing a scarlet and gray pull-over with the Ohio State University logo on it.

This was not going to be my day.

He is from Columbus, Ohio State has just beaten the number one team in the country and he wants to talk about it.

But we got off the first tee and had a decent front nine. We struggled on the back and limped home. As we putted out I was telling the caddie to bring my clubs to the car.

But as the other teams finished it became clear that our score was good enough for second place and according to tournament rules the top two teams play for the prize money.

After the final group putted in we approach the first playoff hole, with an uneventful tie, no blood.

On the second the other team poked a nice shot on the green, just past the hole for a make-able putt. It was my turn. The distance was between clubs. but I grabbed the longer one, I didn’t want to swing too hard.

By now all the golfers from the various groups, including those from the practice tee and the dining area were watching. I knew I couldn’t stand nervously on the tee and breath and think and worry. I needed to just take my shot.

I took a chunky practice swing and pulled the trigger. It looked good in the air, but it was always gonna be about the distance. It hit the green short of the hole, one-hopped and IN!

I couldn’t see it, but the "roar" of the small crowd told me, there would be no need for my putter.

Hugs, excitement, high fives, smiles, back pats all around.

When I find out that a guy was filming I got very excited and had to watch. How lucky I was to have it. I sent it to my family group chat to the following responses:

Daughter One: Who is that?

Daughter two: I'm confused?

Son: It’s a good thing you got it on video because I wouldn’t have believed you. 

Wife: Are you almost done? Dinner resy is for 7:30.

So what does it all mean?

Not much. 

Maybe a little bit about showing up, even when you're not feeling your best. Do some things that make you uncomfortable like standing up in front of a bunch of people you don' t know and try to hit a ball straight, because sometimes it goes in. Don't be distracted by scarlet and gray when the sky is perfectly blue and the greens are, well, green. 

As kids, every day, there are is a chance to win on the sports fields, grades in school and constant measurements as we get taller or stronger. 

In middle age we are still chasing these rushes but they are harder to find. Work victories become less meaningful, a win on the pickle ball court gives you a lift or your fantasy football player scores a late touchdown. 

But there is something unique about golf where you can stand where the best golfers in the world could stand and you can hit the same shot just as well, or better. Same clubs, same ball, same distance.

I'm never gonna hit a home run off Shohei Ohtani, catch a pass from Jayden Daniels, score goal for the Red Wings, catch an alley-oop from Steph Curry.

But I can get a hole in one and no one can beat that score on that hole.

The "crowds" are smaller, the "roar" wouldn't wake a sleeping baby, but walking up the green to get my ball, I know who I am.

I'm Tiger Woods. 

Not to my wife, or my kids or the anonymous guys I'm high fiving, but for that moment and the drive home there is nothing better than the quiet satisfaction of getting this small job done.

 

In the Wild it's always Mother's Day, even on Father's Day

 In the grasslands of Kenya it’s always Mother’s day

Even on Father’s Day.

One thing is clear when on Safari, it’s the mothers who rule.

Father’s Day is a minor holiday in our home, and I suspect most houses, as compared to Mother’s Day. 

Nothing illustrates the mother/father divide more than a recent viral video caught on a doorbell cam of a 3-year old girl walking out the front door with her dad. He is balancing his metal coffee thermos and his car keys while she is just walking along holding a doll and looking out to the front yard. 

Apropos of nothing she says: “I Love you, Dad” to which he replies, “I love you too."

He locks the door behind them and then she adds: “Not as much as mommy.” 

The dad looks down at the girl, then at his coffee, an expression of resignation on his face and says: "Alright, thank you for that."

Everything in the safari is mother based, except the mating.

Elephants move across the fields, two mammoth moms surround the baby who is mostly hidden by the tall grass. Until she is exposed, but when she is, the trunks and stumps of legs mask the “small” creature from the dangers that lurk day and night.

Before they cross the river the moms step into the rushing water to test the depth and then they take the first movement to cross it, followed by a baby, followed by another mother who protects it from the crocodiles who might eat them, or the hippos who might topple them over.

 
The baby giraffe hides amid the mom's legs, the baby suckling as the mother looks out for danger, a father nowhere to be found.

Even the baby Rhino, weighing in at a couple hundred pounds with a hind that can withstand a bullet doesn't leave the mother's side in the first months.

But in the Mist the baby Gorilla, who shares 98% of our DNA, breast feeds one moment and is whacked against a tree the next by a mama gorilla who needs to provide nourishment and mete out punishment. The child bounces right back.

Meanwhile the balding silver back beats his chest to show his virility to an impressed throng of women.

But then as the sun peaks through the clouds a Father's Day moment emerges. 

It's mid-morning, after a full hour of munching leaves and branches the male gorilla lays on his back and lets out a fart that seems to last forever and exhaust him. Meanwhile the rest of the gorillas are busy grooming him by picking the nits from his hair and eating them.

The male gorilla just lays there, indifferent to the way his family cares for him. And I wonder if maybe even in the rainforest it was Father's Day.

For the two weeks of this trip I chose not to shave, growing a grey beard that was universally panned by the family fashion police. On this Father's Day I chose to shave it just before dinner. As I walked the dining room I rubbed my soft cheek up against my children's faces. Smiled at them. Let the fading rays of the day shine on my hairless face. But no one noticed. The new clean shave didn't elicit even a raised eyebrow.

"Does anyone notice anything different?" I asked as we sat down to dinner.

Three nods of no. Until one of the children asked: "Did you get a haircut?" 

And they all laughed.

In the end there is no denying the place of the modern dad in the modern family.

Yes, texts in the family group chat go unnoticed, "interesting" articles and "funny" jokes go unread, but there are moments when you are reminded that you do matter and that for a moment, you are loved.

Just not as much as mom.

 

Moments in Israel, After October 7th

In the morning and the evening Tel Aviv is still Golden.

The beach is busy with runners, bikers and surfers wading in the water for some of the world’s smallest waves. The sound of balls hitting rackets. But when you take a step closer and look at the faces or ask a question just below the surface you can see all is not well. Actually, nothing is well.

The Nova festival was in an open field with skinny trees. When you are there you realize how naked they were. There was no place to hide. You stand among the makeshift graves and the wind whips and the sand covers it all.

 

It was the end of Succoth. Throughout the Kibbutz the Succah still stands, paper rings garlanded from side to side, wind comes through the bullet holes.

ah

The hostage families worry the world is forgetting:

-- A man on dialysis has two sons in captivity: “My kidney donors are in Gaza”

-- Another says, “how dare I eat soup or take a nap when my kids haven’t or can’t.”

Another man spoke to his brother on the phone as the terrorist broke into his house: “This is the end,” the brother said.

Once he realized what was happening a partygoer at the Nova festival called his mother to say: “The party is over.”

“This is not my personal story, it’s our story,” a hostage relative said. “We are representative of the problem for the world, the Jewish world.”

            “Israel was a shelter of the Jew, but not anymore.  We are at zero square and can’t do it alone.”

            “Israel and America have the same goal,” another said. “We just do things differently because we are closer to the flame.”

            “Trust in everything is challenged, except the future of the state of Israel.”

Trust in the Land of Confusion

 Trust is not a word you often hear in the Middle East. But many of the people who lived in Israel near the Gaza border trusted their neighbors to the West.

Even the Israeli government was convinced Hamas was deterred and focused on civil and domestic affairs.

But Hamas spent its money on tunnels and weapons, the time was used planning a raid to cause what they hoped would be an uprising from all corners of the Middle East, including the Israeli Arabs. This has not happened.

On the morning of October 7^th there was confusion across Israel. One person said they thought it was thunder, others assumed it was a “typical” siren call.

Most learned of the severity of the problem by seeing a short video on WhatsApp of a truck of terrorists driving through Sderot, a city just a few miles from Gaza.

It was Saturday. It was a holiday. They were inside our borders.

October 7^th broke a pillar of David Ben-Gurion’s philosophy. He said that when Israel fights she must do it in enemy territory to protect civilians and shorten the conflict. He said if they cross into Israel, we lose.

While Israel slept, Hamas rampaged through the streets killing indiscriminately.

“WhatsApp is their Yad Vashem” someone said, indicating that their phones are filled with memories and memorials to that day.

We were unprepared. Perhaps the best illustration is the Mammad.

Since the 1990s every house in Israel is required to have a Mammad, a safe room to protect them from bombs that regularly fall. But these rooms often don’t lock, why should they, they are built to protect against objects from the sky. They never expected a terrorist at their door.

Many Israelis tried saving their families by holding the door of their “safe” room shut.

As usual the citizens of Israel have risen faster than the government. As one Israeli said: “Governments don’t know how to swallow such a situation, civil society has acted faster and worked better. We are very good a reacting.”

And what’s next?

As one man noted: It will take a year to win the fight, ten to rebuild and a generation to de-radicalize.