The 70th birthday usually is a huge event in the life of a Chinese. However it is not such a big deal for me since I have been in the West for too long. But I had decided earlier that I wanted to launch my tennis career the year when I turn 70. So I entered the 2008 Southern Indoor Tennis Tournament in early January because it was held locally at the Vanderbilt Indoor Tennis Facility. Unfortunately the results were not very encouraging, yet I took comfort in the fact that I only got one bagel out of four sets of play! With that inauspicious start of my second career and with the approach of my birthday, I decided to buy myself a tennis lesson for a birthday present. So I asked Peter to give me a ‘serve and volley’ lesson on January 31st, my birthday. Unfortunately that day fell on Thursday and he had to go to Kentucky to tend his oil fields. The lesson was thus moved up a day earlier. During the lesson he suggested that I should have targets in mind while volleying. I jested that ‘I wish I could play like Martha (one of his students having lessons for nearly 30 years and could volley with extreme angles) but I don’t have 30 years because I am turning 70 tomorrow’. After the lesson he said it would be my birthday present from him. Consequently my birthday activities started one day earlier despite the fact that I was feeling a bit guilty for receiving a free lesson. Upon returning home and having some snacks, I took a cat nap and was surprised upon waking to find there was a power outage in the house due to the passing thunderstorm. Not being able to show case my rice porridge cooking ability without electricity, as Katherine was at the club playing her regular doubles game and wouldn’t be back until around noon, I drove to the club to inform her about the power outage and took her to a Japanese restaurant for lunch. So we had our birthday eat-out also one day earlier which suited me just fine because I was engaged to have lunch with someone the next day.
I woke up early in the morning on my birthday and went to the computer to check if the weather would be mild enough for out-door tennis. Unfortunately the weather map indicated that it was snowing at that moment. So I went to open the door leading to the newly-rebuild deck to check if it was indeed snowing. Instead of seeing the snow I found a Fed-Ex envelope sitting in the cold, most likely being delivered the day before. It turned out to be a birthday card from Karin and Melvin with photo imprints of arms-raising Milo as well as the smiling grandparents holding their precious grandson. The timely arrival of the card made my 70th birthday a very pleasant early start.
With the happy frame of mind, I went to the club to play a scheduled doubles game and came back home around 10 a.m. I then took a quick shower because I had to go to Mr. Edward Nelson’s office and to have lunch with him somewhere. He is a MBA High School graduate and played football there. He is also a graduate of University of the South in Sewanee and served as an intelligence agent after college during the Korean War, stationing in Japan and monitoring the activities of communists and ultra nationalists there. He can still speak some Japanese. Later he became a very successful banker, was the president of the Commerce Union Bank in Nashville which was later bought out by the Bank of America. Currently he is the president of the Nelson Capital Corp. with a plush office on West End Ave. The reason I knew him was because I practically lived at the Westside Athletic Club, thus I got to know most of the tennis teaching pros there. Whenever they needed an extra hand for a doubles game they would inevitably call on me. On one occasion I was chanced to pair with Ed in a doubles game and he seemed to have enjoyed playing with me. A week later I was invited to play doubles with Mr. and Mrs. Nelson on Saturday at Belle Meade Country Club where they are members. Ed was my partner and his wife paired with the teaching pro. She could hit balls with precision and power so we didn’t have a chance but we did put up a good fight. Ed later told me some of his tennis friends called her ‘black widow’. And I have since been invited back a few more times.
One Monday I got a call from Ed asking me to have lunch with him on Thursday (Jan. 31st). I went to his office around 11 and he was on the phone when I entered. So I sat on the waiting room sofa admiring the two photos which were prominently displayed on the side table. One showed George W. shaking hands with Ed with the Air Force One parked in the background. The other one showed a younger Ed being flanked by Mohammad Ali and Wilma Rudolph, both were Olympic gold medalists. After his phone call he showed me some of his mementos scattering around his office and also told me about his years as a spy in Japan. I jokingly asked if he contacted CIA to find out my birthday and invited me for lunch to help celebrate my 70th birthday. But I believe it was just a pure coincident. Anyway he took me to the Belle Meade Country Club and we had a nice lunch while exchanging information about our families. When I told him our 1-year old grandson’s name is Milo he mentioned about ‘the Milo of Croton, a magnificent wrestler’ in Greek Mythology. I told him Milo’s Chinese name literally means ‘supremely grand’. Afterwards he took me to his house for a brief visit and I kidded his wife about her spy husband finding out about my birthday and took me to lunch. It turned out his wife was also born in the same year as mine. They have a very nice house and a very impressive backyard garden which is huge. They invited Katherine and me to come back in the springtime to look at her garden when the flowers are in full bloom and that should be something worth seeing. When I was leaving she motioned me to wait while she went to a room to fetch something to give me for a birthday gift. It turned out to be a Maine Woodsman’s Weatherstick, it points upward when the weather is fine but bends down if it’s a foul day. I nailed it on our deck upon my return and we have been enjoying looking at the stick pointing up and down since (I believe it is merely a consequence of the moisture content in the air).
On Monday afternoon while opening up the garage door to go fetching the mail, I heard a big thump and it turned out to be a big UPS-delivered package being knocked down by the opening door. Upon unpacking, it revealed a portable tennis ball machine, a surprise birthday gift from Melvin and Irwin. It was something badly needed by us and Katherine had in fact been bugging me to acquire one for some time. Thus it is fitting that my extended birthday celebration started with a free tennis lesson and ended with a free tennis machine to further improve my skill. I thank everyone for making my 70th birthday such an enjoyable event.
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