Tennis anyone?

The young and energetic Ratchet and I have been filling our mornings of late playing tennis.  I discovered this delightful game only about a month ago when my exercisey friend, the effervescent  Beck Bleu, ask me if I wanted to give it a try.  We like to have talk-and -walks around the town already in the name of fitness and we even tried racquetball a few times, which I actually enjoyed, but the habit never really kicked in.  And, if truth be told, my club membership has always been a little off and on over the years going along with my off and on exercise style-so that tends to affect play habits as well.

I've always liked the idea of tennis, and then when Becky taught me some of the rules I was intrigued to know if I could actually learn to serve the ball into the proper rectangle and figure out how to control my over the fence tendencies.  

Two weeks later, Ratchet and I having completely taken up the sport, haven't improved hugely at this juncture.  Granted I am a full grown novice.  He is ten, and has named his various serves (none of them being legal no doubt).  He has the "Samurai" which is a winding and swirling of the raquet, that looks a little like Tai Chi or something equally thoughtfull, twisting his wrist all around before he hits the ball.  And then, he does one called the Jedi, which no doubt employs the force at some point to serve the ball with his mind.  This doesn't always work perfectly for him.  

My favorite of his serves would have to be the "Old man Jenkins" though, because he uses his racket as sort of a low cane for a bit before releasing the ball and then "pop", as soon as he hits it he yells in a geriatric voice "Oh my back!"  which never fails to amuse me even though it teeters on the brink of being disrespectful to the elderly.   

I'm always just trying to perfect my grunt while giving just enough but not too much power behind my swing.  I'm afraid I took up the grunt sound in fun, but as it turns out, after trying to play tennis multiple days in a row, I find it's the only thing that gets me through the short hour.  What an exhausting sport!  And we don't even get too many actual volley's going.  We just end up chasing balls so much that all the "non- game playing" is even a pretty nice work out for the both of us. 

Instead of playing the whole time Wednesday morning, we opted to take a little nature hike at the end of campus behind the college soccer fields.  I remembered that back when I attended JBU  there was some sort of hiking trail behind the school. So we took off in that direction, water bottles in hand, to give it a look.  

We soon found a trail out into the woods that was sort of lined with wood chips so I considered it worthy for some "city style" hiking fun.  Not long into the trail however we came upon a brand new wooden bridge spanning over a beautifully clear running creek.  Across this bridge was a gorgeous and new looking lodge style house thats walls were practically all windows.  It also had this tiered decking situation with a couple of chaise lounges at the other side of the bridge from us and very much resembling private property.  

That was the end of that walk as we didn't want to impose on anyone's land in this most secluded location.  But, I was so confused as to what that big beautiful house was doing back there. Did this belong to Mr. Pollard, JBU's president?   It felt as all things in the woods do to me, like we were the first to discover this scenic area. And my inner realtor kept wondering how I could get to this house by street to investigate further.  With all the windows in it however, we had quickly become the scenery to whatever lucky soul might be inside the house, and I didn't dare do anything that hinted at trespassing and would cause myself yet another run in with the law.  

Yes, my friends, I said "another".   On Tuesday night I was nearly sited for disturbing the peace.  I was sitting in a gazebo at one of the parklike areas in our town cackling away with a couple of girlfriends in the 11:00pm-12:00am hours of the night when a policemen drove up and shined his flashlight upon us.  He slowly walked over expecting to catch some raucous teens up to a pile of no good and then broke into a smile when he saw three somewhat classy(well decent anyway) 30 somethings perched, ever watchful of bugs, upon the benches inside the structure.  I, ever the rule follower asked "Are we not allowed to be here?" in a squeaky timid voice.  And he chuckled and said "Oh no, you're fine.  We just got a call complaining that there was a whole lotta noise coming from over here, so I came to check it out."  We said how sorry we were but I, then completely scared straight, had to endure belly laugh worthy conversation for another hour or so, burying my face in the crook of my arm as to stay within the noise requirements of our little sleeping city. 

So you see why I didn't need any more trouble with the authorities.  I was a couple fingerprints from spending the night in the pokey as it was.  After a few minutes  of enjoying the view, we decided to go back the way we came and try to find another path that would lead us to a new adventure.  

And what more could you ask on a nature hike than to run smack into a natural waste facility.  We discovered as we tramped down tall grasses trying to follow some tire marks that had veered  off a gravel road on another corner of the soccer field, a strange looking domed structure a little ways in the distance.  This clearly was some sort of top secret project that the government had placed in our city, unbeknownst to the majority of our residents. Being hidden so cleverly near JBU, yet completely disguised by densely packed trees surrounding it in a conspiratory circle, this place truly smelled of controversy.  We of course soon found out what we were smelling was better described as disgusting than controversial as our noses were finally able to tell our brains what was going on.  

There in front of us were the round troughs of waste being stirred slowly with what looked like giant clock hands and moving at the same pace, so slowly they weren't appearing in motion at all to our widely gazing eyes.  There were other containers in use that all seemed to be containing poo at different stages in the defunking process.  The ones farthest from us had the driest and most soil-like qualities.  I imagined the great dome was a greenhouse type of lid covering and dehydrating all of the paper products into a giant stack of stationery that we would all be licking and sticking in the very near future- all the while wondering if the glue on it was made from old horses.  "That might be the least of our tongue's worries"  I thought to myself as my mind processed with the same murkiness of the plant in front of me.  

The most fascinating and laughable part of the chain link fence enclosed plant just happened to be right in front of us.  There was this thing that looked like a tiny oil derek that functioned as a the gatekeeper to the other larger structures.  It made this automated clicking sound that to me seemed very much like something Stephen King described in his Gunslinger series about a mostly abandoned "world that had moved on".  It was so unnatural in its clumsy movement; as though it was the only functioning thing  left from an earlier time.  There were no humans here, aside from the unauthorized Ratchet and myself. And as we looked down from the awful clunking machinery, we saw some rusty muck collecting grates attempting to cover something below.  But these grates were haphazardly placed with two giant sections missing, exposing a current of brown water flowing underneath.  As we stood with wrinkled noses, watching the current flow into the oil derek shaped pump, we started to notice lumps floating by and realized we could in fact be watching the excrement of all the different townspeople we knew gathering into this one singular place.  It could be OUR leavings that had traveled miles down the road to this odd clunky pump that would determine, with a wave past a dumpster, what would carry on or be stamped "to solid for treatment plant use" with the occasional toothbrush or cell phone that lost its usefulness at first contact with toilet water.   

This was all very strange to take in.  We know for a fact that waste must be managed.  Yet, as you see it in the process, it kind of makes you want to stop voiding all together.  I think it might have given me the feeling that one gets when going to a meat factory to watch the process that we so enjoy taking for granted.  I, for one, know that should I ever want to enjoy a hotdog or a chicken nugget again (but this may not be the time to entertain thoughts of food) I most assuredly should not go near the place that makes them happen. No, I may not be ready to fully explore that type of raw wilderness.   I'll stick with seeing the finished (well, not THIS finished) product of most things.  I am not one who can always appreciate the steps in between.  It's best to leave the "Dirty jobs" to Mike Rowe and the nice people who can stomach such transformations I think.  

Now, where was I?  Oh yes.  Tennis anyone?