Summer league, here I come

I am now officially a Paper Doll, thanks to Carol Constant who invited me to join the summer tennis league out of Holyoke.

This is a no-pressure league which I think will be good practice for rejoining my regular team in the fall. The women, some of whom I know through Sunday night tennis at Ludlow, are all very nice.

Our practices at Holyoke High School are real urban tennis. Just as there is no crying in baseball, there is no complaining in tennis, but I do need to note that there are distractions galore, what with sirens, kids playing basketball and graffiti on the courts. But tennis if fun anywhere.

I got a taste of this growing up in New York. Sometimes we played at the beautiful courts in Central Park, but you had to make a reservation, and it wasn't always easy to get in. My friend Emily and I played in Lower Manhattan at courts where one time someone passing by tossed an empty bottle onto the court.

We just kept on playing.