Tennis Anyone?

Writers Write! And when they are not writing, which should be most of the time, they are reading or having sex. Well, at least the reading part, works. The Los Angeles Times is a great read and that is why I prefer it over the rubbish served up to us daily from the San Diego local newspaper which I won’t even dignify in this space. The articles in the Times are far superior than anything I ever see locally. I will admit that I rarely even look locally any longer. Today, an article about a tennis player who died this week. It wasn’t her death at 89 which caught my eye. It was the generosity of the woman who came to her aid and refused to stand by when she was being evicted from her Santa Monica apartment years ago. Yes, she was a wealthy woman, but she didn’t know this tennis legend who had played at Wimbledon. In fact, they had never even met until she came in to the picture and brought her rent current. It made me wonder why a complete stranger would step up for someone and those who had a previous connection can be so distant and even hurtful. It is a subject I know well. A decade ago, I created a legacy at my high school. I founded the Hall of Fame whereby an independent committee chooses up to 10 classmates every two years and enshrines them for a lifetime in the school’s Hall of Fame. My intention was to honor these superstars (to date three classes of HOFers have been chosen with a total of 28 selected). In addition I wanted the students attending the school and those who would soon be walking the same halls as tens of thousands before them, to know what it is like to become a legend and spark a dream that may someday be realized. Our high school has been graduating seniors since June 1957 and the number is probably over 30,000 alumni. In the 10 years I have been promoting the Hall of Fame, I have spoken to a few thousand from many in the over 50 classes I have selected. Most of the conversations have been benign, but some have left me shaking my head in disbelief. I have had a few alumni who have threatened me never to call them again. Did I tell you we graduated from the same school? Some have claimed they were not interested. Not interested in the fact that your school now has a Hall of Fame? And there was the continuing deal of graduates, like those from my own class, who believed that my only reason for being involved in this pursuit was to bring fame upon myself. Now that might be the funniest joke of all. From high school pranks, I moved on to a private school in Miami where I taught for 5 years and graduated over 500 from a very select senior class. One of my graduates is now with Apple and a modern day billionaire. Yet, when I needed a helping hand, many of these graduates who considered me the greatest teacher in the history of the world could not be bothered with my artistic fall from grace. When I suggested to some that they might like to invest in a play of mine and connect with me once again, they acted as if I wanted them to model for pornographic pictures.—and ran the other way. As my work with LifeStory helped me to build a third American fortune, I came across many of my students who told me they had shared similar experiences with their classmates. One of my students told me that she needed a few hundred dollars to get her daughter home and it was an emergency situation. She bared her soul and went to social media and begged her former classmates to help her. This was a student who was once very well to do and had helped many of her classmates share her personal wealth when they were in school. She had never asked for a single thing before. One classmate sent her a $20 gift card. Do you think that was a cruel joke? She has learned the hard way about her classmates. I have learned the hard way about mine. I continue to toil as a greeter for the Hall of Fame. It is a labor of love and I can deal with the arrows and small minds. All of this has made me a wiser man. I remember my 95 year old grandmother’s words when I asked her if she would like to do it all over again. She looked at me as if I had lost my mind. “No,” she said finally. “I think I’ve had quite enough, thank you.”