Tennis Anyone?

Recently a nephew appeared out of the mist and emailed me in response to a letter I sent him outlining a family email group that was getting some action. It has been years since we've communicated and it brought back memories.

His mother taught me to play tennis when I was perhaps 10 - 12 years old. This would have been in 1954 - 56. My brother and his wife Micky lived in Midland, MI. Dean, my brother, was a fledgling chemist at Dow Chemical and Micky his beautiful young wife.

Micky came from a family well known in the Upper Peninsula for its athletic prowess. I believe at least one of her brothers played for the University of Michigan tennis team. The father had built a tennis court along side the family home and business in little Traunick, MI. Micky's Mom and Dad ran a general store and U.S. Post Office in Traunick and raised a family of 9 children.

Micky was quite an athlete in her own right. I know my sister ran against her at the Alger County track meet where schools in the area met for a showdown each year in another little community called Chatham, MI. (My sister won)

I wanted to play tennis. I had made my wishes known to my father. Finally, when I made a trip from Munising to Midland to spend a week with my brother, my Dad gave me $25 to buy a tennis racket. I do not know when I went to Midland, but when ever these trips took place usually my Mother and Father drove me to Indian River, MI and Dean, my brother would drive from Midland and pick me up. We would likewise work the same exchange for the return trip. These were days before the Mackinac Bridge and the crossing from St. Ignace to Mackinaw City was made by car ferry.

Monday came and Micky and I set out for downtown Midland to buy a tennis racket while Dean set off for the Dow plant he worked at. Micky help me select a racket that fit my young frame and yet was large enough that I could grow into it in later years. I believe it was a signature racket and the name on the racket was Don Budge. It had a wooden head, and the small face typical of the rackets used in those days. I even got a racket press which added prestige to the whole show.

After that Micky took me to a park where there were tennis courts. She patiently taught me how to play. I remember spending a lot of time throwing the ball in the air just right so you could achieve the classic overhand serve. We spent what seemed to be hours volleying and Mick patiently exercise my young body. Micky was surprisingly good, she had the footwork down, a nice stroke and could place the ball wherever she wanted at will. Micky was a good teacher, maybe she missed an opportunity to teach tennis and who knows what her life might have been like.

After a week of daily practice and patient workouts I returned home. One of the hardest thing Micky had to do was teach me the scoring system. I have always thought Love a peculiar substitute for zero. In the tie games AD IN or AD OUT was another set of strange expressions. I got the hang of it though and returned to the U.P. having a good set of basics thanks to my sister-in-law Micky.

We had no tennis team in high school in Munising. About the most we had was down at the Bay Shore Park there were a couple of tennis courts overlooking Munising Bay where you could get a work out playing those in town who knew the game. I fared well, and always had enjoyment playing the game.

I never took up the game as an adult other than an occasional match here or there. However, I always remembered Micky's lessons, particularly on how high to throw the ball for the serve. In later years I did become a fair Racquetball player. I joined a club, took third in the Class B men's club tourney and enjoy many years of "Rollout Bleu!"

Now, I still think about playing tennis, it can be an old man's sport too you know. There isn't much opportunity here in Arkansas. The closest club that would have organized leagues is in Jonesboro some 25 miles distant. Other than that you'd have to play pick up games at the local parks here in Paragould and I don't feel the enthusiasm for that. So who knows, maybe some day before I'm too old I'll pick up a racket and play some again. I will always remember Micky if I do.

Why Do I Like the NCAA Basketball Tournament?

I have said before, I was born and raised in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This is a remote area of the United States that is dominated by wilderness. My family never owned a TV until 1956 when I was 11 years old. Our child play was dominated by the creative fires of our imaginations. However, I did like the evenings after a long day when I curled up in my bed in my room that looked out on Munising Bay. Sometimes I would build a fort of pillows on my bed and pretend that I was Hopalong Cassidy or Lash LaRue taking care of the bad guys. Like those Saturday afternoon matinee's, my guns never ran out of ammunition.

One night I was in bed, had my fort built and was fiddling around with an old radio my father had given me. We did not get particularly good radio reception where I lived, but we could get Chicago and there were one or two cities in the UP that had stations. I have no idea how old I was. Knowing the address I was living at when this story I am about to relate I was older than 8 but less than 11.

In the mid-1950's the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) was "the" tournament. The NCAA tournament was leftovers. It was not until some years later that the NCAA tournament became the dominate tournament. As I lay in bed fiddling with the radio listening for call signs to see where I was drawing the signal from I happened on a basketball game. It was the St. Louis Bilikens vs the Maryland Terapins playing in the NIT. I became fascinated at the pace of the game. I am sure it was not as rapid as many college teams play today, but it seemed quick. The announcers added great color and their voices resonated the excitement of the moment.

I had no idea what a Biliken was, St. Louis was a large city I'd heard of but had no knowledge. Maryland, way out there on the East Coast, wow! These were places and names of schools I'd never heard of, yet here they are playing a game in a national tournament. It just seemed like such a huge event.

I do not know who won the game. In fact, checking past records neither of these teams were the champions of the NIT during this time period. However, the fact that teams from so distant places would travel to New York City and play a basketball tournament created quite an impression on my young mind.

Since that time I have enjoyed college basketball especially the "Big Dance." It is such an event, teams from all parts of the nation go to cities all around the nation to compete. Little teams have an opportunity and I am always looking for which Cinderella team will come forward and how far will they go. Many times I can have a NCAA game on, work around the house and listen to the commentary. When I can't see the TV and hear the announcers, often I get transported back to that little bedroom in northern Michigan listening to two teams I've never heard of playing a national tournament. What a thrill

It is one of those times that who wins isn't so important to me as the experience. I hope you have a good day.

An Old Fishing Buddy

Yesterday I had an opportunity to phone a childhood friend. His real name is Joe, really! Joe and I grew up two houses from each other in a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Munising sat at the bottom of a huge bowl formed by glaciated limestone hills. Munising is snuggly nestled at the base of these surrounding hills that rise perhaps as high as 350 to 400 feet above the bay. Munising Bay is one of only a few naturally protected deep water bays on all of Lake Superior. Sitting directly in front of Munising offering the bay shelter is Grand Island. The bay while it looks long and narrow is actually about two and one half miles by two and one half miles. The north channel takes you out into Lake Superior and you would be bound for the locks at Sault Ste. Marie, MI. The west channel likewise takes you into the open water of Lake Superior only you would be heading towards Marquette and Duluth, MN. Quite often when Lake Superior blows up as only Lake Superior can, you will find several large cargo ships anchored in Munising Bay on the lee side of the island.

Without making this much longer than the reader might be interested in, the subject of this story is a fine little trout stream that meanders through a cut in the hills surrounding Munising and eventually empties into Munising Bay in the southeast side of the bay near our only industry in town, the paper mill.

As a young boy in the mid-1950's Joe and I fished this river a lot. We lived in the West end of Munising, and were several miles from the trout stream called the Anna River. However, we locals always referred to the stream as the Annie River. River is an over statement, it was a stream, often no wider than fifteen or twenty feet. However, the stream ran from south of the hills surrounding Munising, through a cut in the hills and on into Munising itself.

Many times, after school on a Friday afternoon Joe and I would grab our empty Campbell soup cans and head up to Chipmunk Valley to dig worms. Joe had found a valley in the hill on the West side of Munising not too far from where we lived. It had silted in over the years creating an ideal cool moist soil that held and incredible amount of worms. So, after school off we'd go, dig two soup cans of worms, pack some dirt around them, and back home to wait for Saturday morning. Each of us would ready our fishing gear on our own and meet at an agreed to time in front of my house because I lived on the way to the stream.

In late May, early June the mornings were cool if not downright cold. However, a jacket sufficed and off we went on our bicycles. Just as we came to the end of Superior St. on the right hand side of the road was a gas station. We would stop there and I would buy a pack of cigars, Rum Soaked Crooks. A cigar I would still like to find and puff on from time to time to relieve the sweet taste and odor.

Then off again, another couple of miles to our "put in site." Our "put in site" was where we would walk our bicycles off the road, lay them down in deep grass then walk another half mile or so to where we would fish. The stream meandered so much we had four or five hours of fishing before we came to where we stashed the bikes.

We did not own waders so we had to walk the path that followed the stream. There was a rail road that used the same cut in the hills to service Munising so we often had the opportunity to cross the stream using the trestle to cross the stream.

The water was cold and pure. It was clear and you could see the sandy bottom easily. Pools that held our prey were a little blurry because of the water movement and depth, but our philosophy was if you could not see the fish, they couldn't see you. Water under cut the bank in many places forming pockets that you eased up on the tested for fish.

Our method of fishing was simple. We were bait fishermen, a fly fisherman would've had a real challenge as the stream meandered through forest and trees that grew right up to and mostly overhung the stream. It was beautiful, but I am sure a fly fisherman would've been frustrated. We used old spinning rods, but never really casted, most of our fishing was by what I call the swing method. You'd let out about seven feet of line holding the rod tip up so you didn't drag the bait in the water, then get as much slack line in your hand as you could extend your arm, finally by swinging the bait slowly and letting go of the slack line you could place the bait from twelve to fourteen feet from you if you were any good. It was a good technique for the surroundings.

Our bait was an simple single blade spinner with a fairly small hook on it. A split shot about six inches above the spinner allowed the spinner to work in the deeper pools and allowed us to get our bait down into the trouts lair unless we had a riffle that was of sufficient force that it just rolled the spinner downstream. The bait worked well. Some people used a ball of worms and had success, but from what I saw most who fished the small streams of the U.P. used spinners.

The size limit for trout was seven inches which Joe and I had marked off on our poles with electricians tape. We did not carry a creel (fish basket) as it made riding a bike more difficult to have the basket slapping at your legs. If we got some fish, which we did with some regularity, we'd carry them on a stick we'd pick up along the stream bank. Then when we were ready to go home we'd wrap the fish in a plastic bag we carried and put them in a jacket pocket. You had to be economical in how you carried your gear. We did not have bikes that had carriage racks and knew nothing of baskets, totes or any other equipment used to carry gear while riding a bike.

Many a day was spent slapping at mosquitoes, this was before mosquito dope like Off or Cutter's. The grass along the river smelled sweet, the stream was rapid and pure and burbled along through the woods making a sound like none I've ever heard. If we got thirsty we bent over and drank from the stream, if we got hot we splashed water on our heads. Life was simple, we caught Rainbow and Brook Trout, we didn't feed our families, however we did manage a nice trout meal from time to time.

When Joe and I were young this is how we spent a lot of time during the late spring and summers. Digging worms in Chipmunk Valley, riding bikes for several miles, smoking Rum Soaked Crooks, and slapping mosquitoes just seem like it was part of life's rhythm. Joe and I are good friends.