21 For the 3rd Time
I celebrated another birthday this month and am once more assured that it really is true that the older you get, the faster they come around. And the deeper I get into this decade of my life, the more I reflect on impressions and lessons left with me by a wise and wonderful old gentleman
I met many years ago.
I was fresh out of college when I met the wily and delightful Mr. Frank Hunt, who had moved to town while I was away at school. I had met him in Church but other than that, had no other occasion to cross paths with him. After all, I was 20 something and he was 70 something, so it never crossed my mind that we might have anything in common.
All that changed the day I was shocked to learn that he was a lifelong tennis player and shared my passion for the sport. I couldn't imagine him on a tennis court, particularly since he was not even able to kneel at the Church altar for Communion due to his age and apparent infirmities. But when he picked up a tennis racquet, you could see the twinkle in his eye and the spring pick up in his step as he showed glimmers of his younger years.
When we discovered each other and started playing tennis together, I was close to 25 and Mr. Hunt was about 75. I will never forget the first time we met at the court and Mr. Hunt, ever the tradionalist, came decked out in all white, as if he were about to stride onto Center Court at Wimbledon. With his baggy shorts that fell nearly to his knobby knees and long white socks that crept up to his knees from below, he looked every bit like a character from a Norman Rockwell painting on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post. His quaint, nostalgic and slightly rumpled appearance only belied the magic this man could conjure up with a tennis racquet.
It only took a couple of shots for me to realize that I had my hands full that day, despite the 50 years difference in our age. It also didn't take long to figure out that the only way to win was to keep the ball away from him because if he ever got his racquet on the ball, his shots were pure poison.
It just didn't seem fair. Mr. Hunt was obviously a more accomplished player than me but the toll of 75 years on his body trumped the skills that had served him so well for so many years.
I learned many valuable lessons from Mr. Hunt which not only made me a better tennis player but also a better person. He instilled in me to never give up when I was behind and equally important, to never let up when I was ahead. He stoked a competitive fire in me that I had not known before while equally emphasizing the importance of honor, integrity, courtesy, decorum, and respect for your opponent and the game. But the one thing that really hit home with me and that has haunted me all these years since, was the gradual realization that Mr. Hunt wasn't just another old geezer stumbling around the court, but that he was actually a young man trapped in an old man's body. I have never looked at an old person
the same way since.
Now Mr. Hunt is gone, many moons have passed and the roles are changing. It's been way too long since I picked up a racquet and when I do again, you can bet that I will not be the youngest guy on the court. No doubt there will be some who see me as just another old geezer, while I find myself marching inexorably toward that dreadful day, when I too, may find myself as a young man trapped in an old man's body.
When you are 25 years old you can't imagine that day ever happening, but as I see it looming before me now, I can only hope that I can accept my fate with the grace and the dignity of the late, great Mr. Frank Hunt.
