Point of View: Beam Me Up

   Elizabeth Kotz recently put me on to Electro Mix, little packets of minerals — heavy metals, her husband, Steve, told me — that I have found to be quite effective when playing tennis in humid heat.

    I had never known what electrolytes were — I still don’t — though Mary has always told me they’re very important and that I should not neglect them. Well, I’m here to tell you that one packet of Electro Mix dissolved in a bottle of water when exercising provides a marvelous boost; I can literally feel the electrolytes bounding around inside me. Indeed, as I should have said the other day as a three-hour agon on Buckskill’s grass courts was under way, “I sing the body electrolytic.”

    The next thing, someone’s going to tell me Electro Mix provides an improper edge. I hope not, even though I have said that after a certain age — 50, say — drugs ought to be mandated.

    And then there’s Tuesdays at Robbie’s, where, for an hour, I am put through the wringer, to such an extent that, as with the miracle mix of magnesium, calcium, and potassium, I can feel the salutary results.

    From wringer to ringer! Well, not quite that, but my serving shoulder is stronger, less achy, I’m holding the racket at the end rather than choking up, which I’ve done for the past two or so years convinced I was becoming weaker with age. In fact, during last winter’s men’s doubles league, I remember asking Tim Ross to “beam me down, Scotty, beam me down.”

    They say warp speed is theoretically possible — I read it this week in The Times — so perhaps I should stop thinking of age as some kind of impenetrable barrier.

    What was it Bobby Harris, the 67-year-old high jumper, who was to have competed in the Senior Games in Cleveland last week, once said to me? “You don’t stop playing because you get old — you get old because you stop playing.”

    “When East Hampton Indoor’s league starts up again this fall, I’m going to say to Tim, ‘Beam me up, Scotty!’ ” I said to Mary this morning.

    She urged caution, but I’m more inclined to throw caution to the wind these days — if only there were some.