Saying grace with Danny

The post I wrote about tennis and other matters on Sunday was written during the first of two rain delays during the Nadal-Federer epic. At that point I certainly thought the match would be over before Danny arrived to spend some time with me, at 2 pm. Of course, I thought wrong.

Danny will be 10 in 4 weeks. He had never watched a tennis match. I invited him to give it a try. Within ten minutes he was cheering for Federer and rooting hard against Nadal. He had quickly sussed out that I was a mild partisan of Federer, and aligned himself with me. (Of course he has free will in these matters, but his tendency to read and take these little cues from me is among the many, many things I love about him).

By the time the second rain delay occurred at 2-2, 30-love in the fifth set, when I suggested we take a little walk around the neighborhood for some exercise, Danny had become such a tennis fan that he expressed concern we might not be back in time for the resumption of play. I told him that with warmups and so forth there was no way they would be able to play again in less than 20 minutes. So we walked for 20 minutes, and barely made it back in time. But we did.

At one point, as it seemed that neither of these great players would be able to put the other away, Danny asked me, "Do you think they hate each other?"

It was a good question that needed a good answer for an almost-10-year-old.

"No, I think they actually respect each other a lot," I said. I may have added a little to that, or even said that, yes, sometimes people in those situations hate each other. I told him an old Jerry Remy story about how he was told by Carlton Fisk, after joining the Red Sox in the late '70s and talking to Yankee outfielder Mickey Rivers in the outfield during pre-game BP, "For future reference, we do not talk to those guys."

But then, when play had ended (we're back at Wimbledon now), Federer and Nadal -- with remarkable grace that each of them exhibited just moments after such intense and relentless, fighting efforts -- provided an even better answer than I had given Danny. I was pleased that we had watched the tennis together, and equally pleased that we watched the changing-of-the-guards ritual that followed.

Sometimes I think of myself as feisty and old school, but it is equally possible that I simply never had anyone help me to learn about grace. I have to acknowledge that I loved the intensity of Fisk and Burleson et al in the 70s and the lunch-pail, Rambis-clotheslining, Laimbeer walloping Celtics of the 80s.

But it's the 21st century now, I have a son, and it is time we studied grace.

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Tuesday's Soundtrack

On a steamy day like today, it can be important to start slow. But sooner or later the music will take over and set the pace for you, for me, for Ry Cooder and his friends, and all of us.