At lunch last week with my friend David, I mentioned that I was going to be covering the U.S. Open.
"We went there when I was a boy," he said. "We saw Althea Gibson."
He pronounced her name tentatively; it had probably been decades since he'd mouthed it. David is not a tennis fan, but it was perfectly fitting that he had once watched one of the game's legends. A privileged upbringing and a bookish life have made David an occasional witness, and an encyclopedic connoisseur, of excellence in all fields. There have been times when he has left the periphery and actually touched greatness: Living in London in the mid-70s he ran into a man on the sidewalk - a full-frontal crash - whom he recognized as Graham Greene.
I told him that it seemed frivolous to write about a tennis tournament while the world was going to pieces.
"Yes," he agreed. "But fun."
(For the next two weeks you can find me at www.worldtennismagazine.com, after which I'll be heading to the Czech Republic for a few days. See you back here on Sept. 19.)