In my teen years it was not uncommon for our family to travel to Lagrange County, IN, from our Michigan home and spend at night or two at my maternal grandmother’s family’s cottage on Oliver Lake in conjunction with the Fourth of July holiday weekend.
It was a small cottage on a small lake in northcentral Indiana. Rustic in nature, there was no heat, no air conditioning, and no indoor bathing facilities. … Um, grab your soap and shampoo and head to the lake if you want to get clean, pal!
There also wasn’t much of an entertainment center, but then again, when you’re young and you have a lake at your disposal, indoor entertainment was only necessary in the event of lightning. That said, the cottage featured an old clock radio with access to a few AM stations (Fort Wayne’s WOWO, for sure) and a local FM channel or two. There was also an old 19-inch black and white TV (resplendent with an antenna shooting up out of the back). Beyond these, your best bet for indoor entertainment was a deck of cards, a coloring book, or a good nap.
On those early July weekends when our family was there, invariably I’d wake up Saturday and Sunday mornings and make my way downstairs and enjoy whatever box of cereal was available (Please be Cocoa Puffs, please be Cocoa Puffs!). Inexplicably, to me at least, the television was usually on and tuned to NBC’s coverage of Wimbledon. To this day I’m unsure who the tennis fan was in my cousins’ family (perhaps it was just plain laziness to not go change the channel?), but it was in this crampled little cottage that I received my first exposure to the game.
I wouldn’t classify myself as a tennis fan in those days, but I began to learn the players and some of the rules. Trying to track the action on that tiny B&W TV was challenging, but it provided something to occupy my time until the outdoor temperature had sufficiently warmed and I’d waited the requisite 20 minutes after eating before hitting the water.
Looking back on it, it was certainly the salad days of Wimbledon on television. Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova seemed to face each other in the Ladies Finals annually (in fact, from 1976 to 1988, they played for the title nine of 13 times, advantage Navratilova, 7-2). On the Gentlemen’s side, it always seemed to be Bjorn Borg or John McEnroe in the final. In fact, one of – or both of – them were in the final every year from 1976-1984. Borg won five straight (1976-80) and McEnroe three of four beginning with his victory over Borg in 1981.
This year I’ll be in London for both the Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s semifinal and championship matches. There are no current plans to try and score a ticket. I don’t suspect my discretionary income reaches the level it will take to gain entry. Nor, for that matter, do I anticipate having the sort of wardrobe that appears to be necessary to cohabitate in the same space as the Royal Family.
That said, if we happened to be in the neighborhood it’d be pretty cool to experience the vibe.
In a nod to knowing that we’ll be there, I did sign up to the All England Lawn and Tennis Club (AELTC) email list. Over the weekend, in anticipation of action beginning this week, AELTC sent along a variety of ways to experience the event without actually attending. To wit:
- Chefs from the club share recipes regularly that the ambitious among us are able to replicate at home.
- A game for your cellphone, Break Point, that fans are able to download.
- The Virtual Hill is a way to actually be there … more or less.
- All the video from a days action may be found here.
A far cry, it would seem, from peering at that old black and white television trying to make out the ball while listening for the current score, but nonetheless the same lines painted on the same patch of grass in London. Pretty neat how far this fortnight has come yet still remained the same. I’m looking forward to it.