Being of advanced age, I often wake at night. And goodness knows what runs through my mind.
Last night, for instance, I was a youngster again in Washington, D.C. We had a great expanse of lawn on one side of our home. On a portion of it was our clay tennis court. I was in charge of rolling it with a large, heavy roller. I also would run string along the proper lines and push a lime-filled roller along the lines to complete the court.
I became quite a good tennis is player and was called on frequently to play my father’s better players, including one who had been on the tennis team at the Naval Academy.
Unlike my then-chubby and more intelligent brother, Douglas, I seemed always to be engaged in some sport — from tennis to baseball or football. Meanwhile, Douglas read more and more, and became a smart, if slightly slovenly, child.
Being an active person, as well as the older brother, I was appointed the one who mowed the acreage, which was the large lower lawn, and did so with a hand push-mower, the kind you had to push through the wiry crab-grass.
As I lay awake last night, I also thought of the great fun we had in the early evenings when we would play “red light-green light” and throw a ball high into the air to attract bats, who would chase the ball down near us.
Last night, I thought, too, of the Gray girls, Ellen and Carolyn, who lived in the house next to us at the end of the large lawn. They and Junior Robertson, Pauline Manning and others would join in the fun.
I was in love with Ellen Gray. She was a year or two years older than I. She had striking features and a wholesome complexion. I recall trying, and perhaps succeeded in kissing her once. Partly what attracted me was that Ellen was more athletic than her younger sister.
One day, when my brother seemed to have disappeared for most of a day, he informed me that he and Ellen had walked to the Avalon theatre, some four miles away to see a movie.
How dare he go alone with Ellen! And why on earth should this attractive and “much older woman” accompany my relatively worthless shrimp of a brother on something resembling a date? Doug told me later that day he could not explain it.
But to me at this late date, at my now old age, married twice, and with my share of lovers along the way, the revelation was disturbing to me, and apparently still is.
How harsh those nighttime memories can be.
Douglas, now is a trim and handsome grandfather nearly four years younger than me. Living in California and happily married to a lovely woman. Together we have seven grandchildren. Undoubtedly he never thinks of Ellen Gray.
But I, being a spiteful character, still resent his trying to “steal” my girl.
Tait Trussell is an old guy and fourth-generation professional journalist who writes extensively about aging issues among a myriad of diverse topics.