I learned to play tennis on the public courts at Deer Park Junior High School in the suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland.   They offered clinics for kids during summer mornings—the courts were obviously reserved for children at those hours.  But, in return, there were signs indicating “Adults have preference on weekends.”

In addition, there were also all kinds of written and unwritten rules and norms.  You play for no more than an hour if others are waiting, you never retrieve a ball from behind the baseline of the next court while their ball was in play, and you “reserve” a court by putting your racket in the fence under the sign with the number of the court you wanted.

Were the courts always perfect?  No.  There is a certain “unevenness” in what to expect out of public tennis courts.  Some are in pretty good shape.  Others have major cracks, causing the ball to travel in all sorts of directions.  Yet others have grass and even large plants growing out of the cracks.  Nets can be too high or too low and with a crank that feels soldered in one position.  Some courts have fairly decent drainage, while others have puddles on them even 5 days after a rain shower.  It is rare to find public courts with lights but when you find them, what a treat!

On occasion, I have had the privilege of playing on fancier courts—Yale University has 20+ courts which get re-paved each summer in preparation for a tournament which for many summers was the final pro tournament leading up to the US Open.  I once played in an old-fashioned private club in the Philadelphia suburbs where white shorts and shirts and shoes were REQUIRED.  I have played in some pretty fancy tennis bubbles.  And of course there are the 26 clay courts of Central Park in Manhattan which have procedures and codes of conduct all their own (rules about how and when to sign up; leaving the courts the MINUTE the alarm sounds on the hour, etc.).

When I look back on the entirety of my tennis playing life so far, I think most tennis has been played on public courts.   The experience of growing up on the public courts made a big impression on me and likely for thousands of others.

There is a certain charm to public courts.  There is almost always a free court (though it may have cracks or branches falling from a tree which hasn’t been trimmed in a decade, and which is dripping slippery sap on the court).  You can often get a game with other tennis lovers just hanging out and looking for a game.   You often see a dad with a bag or basket of balls, throwing or hitting to an 8-year-old daughter who may or may not be the next Serena or Venus Williams.

And when all else fails, there is the practice wall.  But don’t worry.  Some desperate 3-some will find you and ask you to fill in—even if you will be the only guy for miles in the women’s doubles match!

For those of us accustomed to spending every summer at an overnight summer camp, the concept of a Sunday is foreign.   Sunday at a Jewish summer camp is a “yom ragil”—a regular day.   It is kind of like Sunday in Israel. 

As we coped with the heat and humidity of camp summers, we knew that we could cool off in the agam (lake) or in the misrad, the main office, where the a/c was always blasting.  Yet, I sometimes thought of those “stuck” in the hot city during the summer.  I couldn’t’ get the 1966 Lovin’ Spoonful song, “Summer in the City,” out of my head.  I will censor some lyrics but the song starts:

Hot town, summer in the city

Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty

Been down, isn't it a pity

Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city

All around, people looking half dead

Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head…

If “summer in the city” seemed a world away from camp, then what would “summer in the suburbs” be like?  After many weeks in the suburbs, I can say that I have finally seen a non-camp Sunday, and I can share two memorable highlights—a nightly happening, and a “once per summer” event.  

In our neighborhood, all of the neighbors assemble social distance-style near the home of beloved 90-something neighbor Dick, where his wife and another neighbor set up music stands and play a series of songs each night at sunset on flute and recorder.   The Star Spangled Banner and a few others make the nightly setlist. We were even treated to Shalom Aleichem on a recent Friday night. (Photos below from the recent neighborhood birthday gathering in Dick’s honor).

Today was the once-per-summer “One Day Giveaway”—“a community tag sale where everything is free!”  Neighbors look forward to this day.  They register online and can view a map of the dozens of other neighbors giving away stuff   It is officially 12-5, though early birds are often rewarded with the best worms—books, clothes, aquariums, ladders, desks and chairs, vegetable seedlings and more.  The key is to get rid of more than you take it, though it seems like many happily had it backwards!

I am sad about no camp, but am enjoying exposure to a world I had no idea exists–nightly music, free stuff and all the free tennis you can tolerate—assuming you beat the other players to the 6 nearby public courts!  (Perhaps more on that in a future blog).

Welcome to Summer in the Suburbs!