The other day, when Brett, one of the pros at East Hampton Indoor Tennis, noted that Jon Diat, The Star’s fishing writer, and I, its sportswriter, were among the few who wore masks when playing there, I said we did so because “we’re tyrannized by our wives.”
That drew the laugh I’d hoped for, but I was just kidding — I think I can speak for both of us when I say we’re grateful for their concern. It’s really not onerous, and, as I said in a recent column, mask wearing while playing in my case has had the added benefit of muffling foul outbursts.
Apparently it was always thus: My parents told me that I once threw a tantrum all the way from Bennington, Vt., to Bay Head, N.J. I bring this up to make the observation that when it comes to the arc of my life that five to six hours of caterwauling may have been, in terms of expended energy, its zenith.
Seriously, I don’t hold much truck with “the arcs of our lives.” I’d rather think mine’s been like the stock market in the past decade, on a steady ascent when all is said and done — thanks, I should add, to Mary.
“Ever upward,” our governor says, as we wizened wretches continue to flail about in vaccine hell. Pop-up sites are announced after they’ve popped up, and the ancient affinity between the eastern end of Long Island and Connecticut has, I gather, been severed. No more New Yorkers, I’ve heard they’ve been saying at the CVS near the New London ferry landing.
So, you might ask . . . wait, wait, this just in. . . . The governor is going to extend vaccinations to those who have “comorbidities.” A good thing, I say. After you, after you. . . . I doubt they include in that category stage four terminal alliteration, but that’s okay.
So, you might ask, as I was saying, today being my 81st birthday, what I’ve learned after all these years: that we are to a significant degree wretches, but that grace, which inclines us to the good, abounds.