Whoever thought Fridays wouldn't be your favorite day?

Due to the cutbacks in city budgets these days, Bitsy Grant is now closed on Fridays. This puts a lot of very active, tennis loving, Bitsy fans in a fowl mood. A day without tennis is a day without sunshine. Give me tennis or give me death?! You can't even sit on the porch and rock and philosophize on Fridays. When times are tough, some people think it's a good idea to keep as much of a normal routine as possible, to keep up your community, to pull together and share a meal or a game and stay connected. Rally the troops, keep your chin up, eyes on the prize and muddle through together. It's hard to do when your "town square" is shut down.

When the center is closed on Fridays, in other words, brace yourself, that means all the clay courts are locked up. Now just sit a minute and think on that. There are folks that would rather play than eat, who arrange their whole lives to live out of a car, if need be, in order to play tennis, and most of em play at BITSY. Maybe it's a spiritual or religious thing, I don't know, but tennis is a lot cheaper than therapy or golf, and besides: EVERYONE CAN PLAY.

But if your joints can take it, and you are desperate enough, you can head down to the hard courts and probably still get in a game or at least find a hitting partner. Bernie Segal (Middle Man--cause that's what he was in the diamond business and also Florida State doubles champ and Orange Bowl Jr. Champ and SEC singles champ) was there but he'd already hit. POOH. I love to hit with Bernie. He's my favorite. He's the most consistent guy out there of any age and he's got to be pushing 60, right Bernie man? Plus, his son took my sister out on her most favorite date of her pre-married life. Not bad. Me thinks the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Bernie just likes to hit during the week, around 1: 30 everyday, and then he plays every Saturday with HOT DOG, and Terrel and Joe. These are all super great players, EXTREMELY fascinating and important people in the tennis universe of Bitsy. Stay tuned.

Anyway, back to the Friday/hardcourts: Ernie Garrison hit with some lady we didn't know and Mr. Maxwell (Pac Man) and I watched some pretty good women in a T2 match looked like. Mr. Maxwell was especially, and I do mean ESPECIALLY festive in a BRIGHT RED cashmere sport coat, Christmas bow tie and BLACK ALLIGATOR LOAFERS. MY, MY! Having just attended one of his many social and/or philanthropic events. Mr. Maxwell is nothing if not the arbiter of good taste; he was surely raised right and generally cuts a pleasantly wide and entertaining path.

Back to the hard courts on "closed down Friday". After not too long, the clouds covered up the sun and we got to shivering out on the bleachers where we were watching those women play. So we didn't get to hit or to stay all the way til the shank o' the e'nin and enjoy the Tree Bar again, but we sure remembered what fun it was last night. STILL, truth be told, although we are proud and happy and relieved and grateful to have our new tree, we really miss our old girl. She was grand and strong and lush til her last day. I imagine we'll be needing a sunbrella come summer time until Deuce gets her spread going. In the meantime, just to show you how much we appreciate our new girl: click on the link below to see the blow by blow of just how carefully and professionally we planted our new 6ish inch caliper WHITE OAK THE KING OF TREES (or queen in this case, we like to think) from TREES ATLANTA. THANKS! (and thank goodness there was a TECH GRAD participating or we might never have gotten her in right!) Also, stay tuned on the whole TREES ATLANTA deal. These people are truly and bodaciously great people. Hats off! And just thinking about the great things they did for Bitsy and how our new TREE BAR has been officially inaugurated and will grow for generations to come--makes this Friday not so bad after all.