Page 79 - REALLY What A time Book IX

REALLY SO WHAT
What A Time

TENNIS

Later, there were all kinds of twists and cuts, added to all these
moves. But, for these years this was the basics and they
worked okay.

The maintenance crew liked having us boys around. They
would let us maintain the courts. There were usually 8-9 of us
that played each summer. They would open the courts every
morning when they arrived and several times a week would
roll out the equipment for us to prepare the courts.
It was usually a three step process. The first was to wet down
the clay. The hose was so large that I couldn’t handle it in the
beginning. Like a fire hose. The older boys would sprinkle
the courts. I and others would then rake them. These rakes
were four feet wide and had wooden spokes. They smoothed
and flatten everything. Sometimes we would rake them three
times a week, or whenever they really needed it.

The third step was to chalk the lines of the court. After ,
playing a little while the chalk would get rubbed out.
Particularly on the baseline and in the serving court. There
were pins at each corner that helped guide the chalk roller. It
was a large metal bottle full of liquid chalk. The maintenance
guys mixed it up for us. Once laid down it would dry and
thereby last longer.
We never played any tournaments among ourselves. Mainly,
because our games and sports were almost always ‘pick-up’
games where we made the rules and supervised ourselves.
There was seldom any adult oversight as they all worked.

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