Obvious, But Only After I Saw It

Have you ever noticed something that was in front of you for years, or decades, and wondered how you hadn't noticed it all that time, because now it seems so obvious?

One thing my dad was exceptionally good at was tennis. Even after he got a bit older, and overweight, so that he no longer ran after all the volleys, his serve continued to be amazing. Just a rocket. And in his college yearbooks, in the photos of the varsity tennis team, he didn't seem to be carrying an ounce of fat. His muscles bulged, cut, from his neck down to his calves. The phrase "like a greyhound" could be applied. He was the #1 singles player on the team, and his fame extended far beyond that little college. Long after college, celebrities passing through town would want to play tennis against the phenom.

But as far as competitive tennis was concerned, college was as far as he went. He did as was expected of him after graduation, got married, had kids and went into the family business, education, was a high-school history teacher, then a guidance counselor, then a principal. I asked him once if thought he might have have been able to be a pro tennis player instead of a teacher. He said he thought he had been good enough to have a chance to make a living at tennis. He made no indication that he regretted not attempting that tennis pro career, but then he never talked about his feelings much, at least not with me.

It must be 20 years, and maybe more than twice that, since I first heard the story of how my Dad, when he was a little boy with eight brothers and sisters, would sit by himself on the floor in a corner of the crowded family kitchen with a pot and a wooden spoon, just banging away on the pot with the spoon.

I can't tell you exactly why, but thinking about him sitting there with his pot and his spoon, banging away all day, has always made me very sad. 

I also can't tell you why, after thinking about him sitting there, thinking about it so much over the course of so many years, it has only been a few days since the connection between the pot and the spoon and tennis first occurred to me. Whether I'm right or wrong to think of it as sad, whether or not I've ever had an accurate insight into the state of my father's early childhood, a little boy who spends hours a day, day after day, hitting something with a wooden spoon, will of course have a much better than average chance of becoming a man with an exceptional talent for hitting a ball with a racquet. 

 Books about the history of tennis at Amazon: https://link.amazon/B0j3yW9As