Mayhem, blood at Hardie Park tennis courts in Cayucos

February 25, 2024

By DELL FRANKLIN

Editor’s Note: The following series, “Life in Radically Gentrifying Cayucos by the Sea,” to be posted biweekly includes the notes, thoughts, and opinions of an original American voice: author Dell Franklin. 

Franklin’s memoir, “The ballplayer’s Son” is currently on Amazon.

Since the Monte Young tennis courts in Morro Bay are locked up indefinitely due to the storm knocking over the fencing, on a Saturday morning at around 8:30, my tennis partner Ethan and I showed up at the Hardie Park courts in Cayucos. These courts and the background are inferior to Monte Young, and it is almost always windier, especially on mornings.

But we were thankful to have a court and perfect weather after a week of rain as we commenced warming up on the non-pickleball court, when a great big shiny pickup rolled up and a wholesome young family—slender, athletic, pretty blond wife; slim, athletic husband; and three blond children, all around 5 or 6—fairly leaped out of the truck, the couple holding tennis rackets, the kids with various toys and balls and one of those racing cars a tot can scoot around in and pretend he’s at the Indianapolis Speedway.

Ethan and I didn’t say anything about this golden couple ignoring tennis etiquette by allowing their revved-up children to play inside the cage. We weren’t at a country club.

When we waved at them, they ignored us. The couple immediately began swatting the ball around, athletic, intense, but unskilled, keeping score, while the children made a play area of things.

We were, again, thankful to have a court to play on and were soon involved in long rallies. At one point, while going for a ball, I dodged the little blond boy tearing past me in his car and almost twisted an ankle, and finally the mother ordered the boy not to run his little car on our side of the court.

I quickly suggested to the mother that the children play outside the court so as to avoid a collision where somebody might be injured. Both parents ignored me. They were extremely zeroed in on their competition.

We kept hitting–bad tennis etiquette be damned. We were having some long demanding rallies that were totally gratifying as well as taxing. Our plan is always to just rally and rally and rally until exhaustion takes over, which arrives first in my case since I am 18 years older than Ethan.

In fact, we were in one of our best, longest rallies of the day, or any day, when the racing car slammed into my shins, nearly knocking me over as the kid went flying and the car broke up into segments. The wife dashed over, the father standing speechless on his side of the net while the wife apologized and asked if I was okay.

Then she looked down and saw that both my shins were were gashed while blood streamed down to my sweat socks.

“Oh my, you’re bleeding,” she said.

“Yes,” I said, “I am old and my skin is thin and easily torn when rammed by mini cars.”

The father stood with racket in hand, still speechless, content to allow his wife to deal with the situation.

“Are you going to be okay?” the wife asked. “Can I find something for the bleeding?”

“No, I have Band-Aids in the car.”

To her miscreant child, who’d slammed into me and bounced out unscathed, she said, “Honey, apologize to the man and give him a big hug.”

“No need,” I said, roughing the kid’s head. “It’s not your fault. You’re just a kid.”

Now all five of them stared as I went to my car and found two supersized Band-Aids from the dollar store, applied them, and returned to the court.

The tennis family quickly gathered their gear to make an exit from the courts. There was blood on my shins below where I had applied the Band-Aids, still oozing to the socks. I asked the wife if she had anything to wipe off the blood and she said, “Oh yes, baby wipes,” and handed me a slew of them.

I used one to wipe off the blood and handed the rest to the husband, who still had not uttered a word, seemed to be checking me out intently, with a perplexed and disapproving, almost hostile expression on his face, which perplexed me, and I wondered, “Are there a lot of people in America like this?”

Such a beautiful family—picture book, right out of a modern day Norman Rockwell magazine cover. The kind of family readily used in TV ads. Eat those Wheaties! Guzzle the Gatorade!

They were soon gone, and Ethan said, “They’re from a religious cult. They didn’t want anything to do with us, until they had to.”

“What do you think they’d have said early on if I’d reminded them it’s bad tennis etiquette to bring young rambunctious children with racing cars onto a court when two adult players with some skill are playing on the next court?”

“They would have been stymied. They’re not that advanced socially to handle it.”

We played another half hour.

It took me until the next day to figure out the perplexed, disapproving and almost hostile expression in the eyes of the husband as he studied me: I was wearing a red ball cap with white lettering in Russian on the crown that when translated reads, “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

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