Newsgroups: talk.bizarre,alt.butt.harp,alt.prose,rec.arts.prose
From: richh@netcom.com (richh)
Subject: RICHH:  LOST AND FOUND--PART 1
Message-ID: <richhCryy9r.KM6@netcom.com>
Date: Sat, 25 Jun 1994 20:01:03 GMT
Lines: 99


     My dad was table tennis champion at Ohio State some fifty
years ago when he was an undergrad.  He didn't push me into the
sport but let me pick it up on my own.  He let me win until I was
about ten, but every game he'd do something nuts--some impossible
behind-the-back drop shot that would backspin itself over to his
side before I could even reach it; a lob that looked like a balloon
but had so much topspin that it would scream off the edge of the
table; and my favorite: this killer slice that somehow came to a
dead stop, doubled back on itself and did a slow roll across the
table mocking you every inch of its journey.  I loved playing my
dad.  
     When I was thirteen my father(who'd had a heart attack before
I was born) had double-bypass surgery.  He slowed down.  His drop-
shots still killed but soon I was able to beat him regularly.  My
mom would usually be a spectator, sometimes play me when my dad
needed a breather.  We had fun.
     That same year a new family moved in to our cul-de-sac.  They
were Asian and had two sons:  Trevor, who was my age and Kevin, who
was a year older.  They'd become my best friends throughout high
school and I ended up sharing a house with Kevin a couple years at
Cornell(the same purple house that the Gresge would make famous
before blowing it up).  Trevor and Kevin were both athletic and we
played some fierce table tennis in each others' basements, our
fathers coaching.  Trevor used a forehand grip while Kevin played
Western.  Basement table tennis isn't well-suited to an Eastern
grip since you can't stand twenty feet back from the table but
Trevor was fast as all hell and won his share.
     "Drop shot," my dad would yell.  "Drop shot Trevor.  He can't
play close to the table."
     "More topspin," his dad would yell back.  "Slam.  Kill!"
     
     One day, while cruising through a sporting goods store, I saw
it:  my dream paddle.  A Stiga, three layers, one side nibbed one
smooth.  It had its own zippered case and cost more than I could
ever pay.  
     "Trevor," I whispered.  "Cover me."
     "What?"  He looked down and saw the open cases.  "Okay.  Hurry
up."
     I slipped the Stiga into a generic box and paid eight bucks
for the sixty dollar paddle.
     I won eight games out of ten with that paddle.  Since both the
nibbed and smooth side were the same color your opponent could
never be certain how much topspin was coming back.  The very next
year same-color different-surfaced paddles were banned from
tournament play.  After that, I swore that I would only use the
smooth side.  I still won;  it was still a Stiga.

     The next year racquetball swept the nation and Trevor and I
were soon playing tournaments.  The ball moved too fast for my
dad(who has cataracts) to really see what was going on but he never
missed a match that counted.  It was enough for him just watch.
     
     In high school Trevor lettered in gymnastics and I in tennis. 
At Cornell, Kevin and I played ultimate and guts.   Trevor kept on
with gymnastics at Princeton.  One visit home from school I wanted
to play some table tennis with my dad.  But my Stiga was gone.  
     "People lose things," said my mom.  "Play with a generic."
     I did, and subsequently lost.  
     "You gonna try next time, son?"
     "I *was* trying.  You've been practicing."  Truth was, I was
rusty and my parents *had* been playing a lot, especially with both
sons away at school now.
     So I was graduated.  I didn't become a journalist like my dad
but instead drifted around for a few years, reading, doing odd
jobs, getting high.  I'm sure this was not what my dad had in mind
for me but everyone has to find his own path.
     
     Last year for Father's Day my dad was in the hospital with a
shattered kneecap.  He had tripped while he and my mom were taking
their daily walk through the neighborhood.  I had come home to
visit and spend time with my mom.  Upstairs I was looking for an
old story I'd written while in college.
     "Check in the closet in our bedroom," my mom said.
     Photo albums:  my brother and I in the bathtub when I was six
and he three; my parents wedding pictures; I at my high school
graduation; all my dad's magazine articles which my mom had clipped
and saved; coupons that had expired in the seventies; a letter of
recommendation written for me by a dean at Princeton who lived
across the street from us.  I used to mow his lawn when I was in
junior high.  He shot himself when I was in college.  
     Way in the back of the closet was an old file cabinet.  I
opened it up.  More pictures of me, letters, condoms(?!), all my
report cards from elementary school through my college transcripts. 
It was a whole history of me file that my dad had been keeping
diligently since I was born.  It was private and I closed the
cabinet.
     The phone rang.  I heard my mom downstairs speaking.
     "Okay...okay...right away...no danger...you're *sure*...on our
way."
     I drove my mom to the hospital.  My father died a few hours
later from complications that resulted from his heart condition. 
How a heart as large as my father's can work against you is still
a mystery to me.  
     The whereabouts of the Stiga are in question,  but if it's
where I think it is, at least it's safe.

RICHH