I recently attended the funeral for a much-loved gentleman.  His health had declined over the past couple of years, and he had spoken with his children about his expectations upon his passing. 

“Play Frank Sinatra,” his son recounted to the funeral attendees.  “Serve good food, but not too expensive.  Serve good drinks, but not too much.  Celebrate, and don’t be sad.”

“Anything you want me to say in your eulogy?” his son had asked.

“Yes; say, ‘Thank you to everyone for giving me such a wonderful life.’”

I’ve thought so much about his message since that sunny morning; and, particularly, the people who are interwoven into our stories every day in ways that aren’t obvious or expected. In my case, there were two Teds (that’s not a nickname for something; they were both named Ted) who hopped unremarkably into my timeline decades ago and had been completely forgotten until the other day, when they became part of my present.

Here’s something I bet you wouldn’t have guessed: I have taken many, many tennis lessons.  How many tennis lessons, you may be wondering?  The exact number it takes for one to be experienced at tennis and still suck.

In the late 1980s, my family took one look at me and decided that I was the next Martina Navratilova, which made sense because I was left-handed and wore glasses and went into exile in response to the Czechoslovakian communist government.  Like Martina, I began my tennis career at age 8, at my grandparents’ country club in Scotch Plains, New Jersey.  (Here’s another something: The country club didn’t accept my grandfather as a member the first time he applied because he was Jewish.  History is neat!)  My tennis instructor was a man named Ted, who had a teeny-tiny pierced earring because it was a progressive country club that accepted nontraditional country club things like earrings and Jews.  Ted was somewhere between the age of 18 and 45 and was not at all impressed by North Dakota’s next tennis star.

“Arm straight,” Ted told me.

“Okay,” I said.  I straightened my arm out like a tree branch. 

He bounced me the ball.  I swung at empty air, since contacting the actual ball would have required me to bend my arm.

“Keep your arm straight, but move your BODY,” he instructed.

“Okay,” I said, arm still straight.

He bounced me the ball.  I stepped back and swung my body around in a circle like a perpendicular foosball figure.  I did not hit the ball.

After a full week of lessons, Ted suggested to my grandmother that I would probably be better suited for some of the club’s other activities, like eating.

Fast-forward and fly over four or so years to the island of Jamaica.  What better way for a pre-teen to vacation in the Caribbean than with tennis lessons?!  Of course, by then I was an old sport at tennis, having played and sucked into the 1990s.

Once again, my instructor’s name was Ted.  What this Ted lacked in earrings he made up for in being Jamaican and using the phrase, “No problem.”

“Yes, no problem,” Ted smiled widely.  “You keep your wrist straight and hit the ball.”

“Okay,” I said, licking my super-rad hot pink and purple braces. 

He bounced me the ball, and I hit it into the adjacent court.

“No problem, no problem,” Ted said.  “But your wrist was not straight.”

Ted pushed up the two hundred friendship bracelets that adorned my arm and wrapped his hand around my wrist.

“Straight like this,” he said.  “You got it, no problem.”

“Okay,” I said.

He bounced me the ball.  I hit it into the wrong court.

“Wrist straight,” he said.

“My wrist was straight,” I said.

“If your wrist was straight, then I am a skinny white girl,” Ted said.

I retired from tennis sometime after I started junior high because – actually, I can’t remember why.  Probably the sucking thing, or maybe because Martina had also retired by this point.  I didn’t care because we played badminton in junior high gym and I was so much better at badminton that I won a soda for beating everyone in a gym class badminton tournament, NO BIG DEAL.

Fast-forward again, this time to early August of 2023.  Kyle had gifted me pickleball paddles for our anniversary.  Pickleball takes all the best parts of badminton and tennis and turns it into a game in which you use a small, hard racket to hit a wiffle ball over a short net.  Like badminton and as opposed to tennis, you do not need to have straight anything for pickleball.

“Would anyone like to play pickleball?”  I asked my family one evening.

“I’ll go,” our twelve-year-old, who has reached the age where he would rather hang out with his friends, said.

At the court, Twelve and I hit the ball back and forth gently until we got the hang of it, and then it was every man and Mom for himself.  We played for 30 minutes longer than we had planned per Twelve’s request.  In the end, I let him beat me by one point (and now it’s typed on the Internet so it’s true).

“You’re really good at pickleball,” he said as we walked back to our bikes.  “Maybe even better than Dad.”

“Well, I’ve taken a lot of tennis lessons,” I told him.

“Cool,” he said.  He put his arm around me, and I mentally thanked the Teds for their part in giving me a wonderful life.

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The photo above is of me at the pickleball court. My shirt says “Hug Dealer” in case you’ve ever thought, “Man, Amanda must be so cool.”

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This week on North Dakota Today, we talked about the Rollin’ on the River Marathon and a lemonade stand to benefit the Central Cass Treehouse.  Check it out! (North Dakota Today)

The Fargo 12U Little League All Stars were the first North Dakota team to ever play in the Little League World Series.  This is a post about one of their stops along the way and everything about this, including the comments section, is nice. (Facebook)

Oh, you want more cute posts and comments about the Fargo team at the Little League World Series??  Okay, here you go. (Facebook)

Speaking of “Oh, fer cute,” if you’ve ever seen this in action it’s c-u-t-e. (KFYR TV)

Minot’s Renae Korslien is retiring after 50 years of corn dogs and tilt-a-whirls. (KFYR TV)

The Jamestown High School Choir and Band will be traveling to Pearl Harbor on December 7 to represent North Dakota on National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. (Jamestown Sun)

Fargo’s Natalie Shaw has been cast as Cady Heron in the touring musical, “Mean Girls.” (Fargo Forum)

As a reminder, I’ll be appearing on North Dakota Today on Monday mornings. Tune in, and send me the people and stories that are nice.  Thank you in advance!

ALSO as a reminder, Kyle now has a North Dakota hockey podcast on Pulltab Sports. It’s called “North Dakota After Dark” and he hosts it with our friends Kelly and Corey. It’s pretty dumb, pretty funny, and I said, “KYLE, you can’t say that” at least 3x when they were recording…so be warned. Episode 7 is now up. Click here to listen.

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