Fiend at Court Unplugged
When I came across a couple of 80’s era tennis outfits featured in “The 80’s Called: Vintage Elesse Tennis Clothes,” I was wondering if the house of the Umpire Who Gave Birth to me would eventually surrender a picture of me wearing those ensembles from my playing days. I had a lot of time to sift through boxes of old photos last week as Texas endured 3rd world country performance of the power grid amidst winter storms. Fun times.
I believe that this action shot of me was taken in the fall of 1982. Based on the shadows and the background, the venue is court 5 at Hamilton Tennis Center in Wichita Falls. It is most certainly a “City Champion” portrait. The reason I have it pegged to that year is because Chris Evert wore the same outfit while winning Wimbledon earlier in that year.
This begs the obvious question: Who Wore it Better? I mean, Chrissie has to be awarded style points for the fact that she wore the ensemble while winning a Championship at Wimbledon. On the other hand, I think my photo shows a great deal of flair.
There is something oddly familiar about the picture, which is a strange thing to say about a photo of oneself. It has suddenly occurred to me that the look I was throwing down looks just like Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. I would accuse him of stealing my look, but that movie also came out in 1982.
I am happy to share that this is the final Fiend at Court “Unplugged” retrospective on content from 2020. When I first launched into that theme at the turn of the new year, I had anticipated that it would take about three posts to review all the previous content of that site and complete the “go-backs.” This post brings the total number in that series up to twenty two.
Next weekend the Unplugged series will return to the random synaptic firings of my engineer brain. There has been a lot of pressure building up on that front.
