What happens when four elderly tennis buddies (seventy-five and up) contemplate their legacy? One day on the courts, the epiphany struck them like a lightning bolt. “We are Curmudgeons now.” For Tom, Bill, Ken, and Ord, this was a life changing moment. — It didn’t take long for the newly-minted band of brothers to come to the attention of the local community. The four were featured in the widely-respected Alpine Hills Newsletter this month. The extensive backgrounder was based on interviews with the Grand High Curmudgeon himself:
“No longer playing USTA and feeling the pressure to win for the team, we play for our preferred mode of measuring a successful day on the court – trash talk, laughter, insults, gotchas and stories of the good old days before the tyranny of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and the like disrupted the course of human evolution.”
We embrace our exalted status and the serenity that comes with it, taking pride in the freedom to say whatever comes to mind regardless of the attendant social mores – ah, the release of decades of pent up annoyances and irritations. We are The Curmudgeons!”
UPDATE NOTE: The original version of this article used the (sic) term morays to refer to the prevailing and, to the curmudgeons, disgusting, practice of political correctness. Thus the reference to the Moray Eel (which by the way is not the least slimy, but does have sharp teeth). However, being reminded that several of them attended Ivy League Universities and might be embarrassing their alma maters enough already, they have asked us to correct the term in subsequent printings.
If you’re curious whether that older man hobbling around the court next to you cursing is a true curmudgeon, it is easy to tell, as curmudgeons 80 and over are awarded Green T-shirts with the group’s newly-revealed tennis logo to celebrate their ascendancy to full curmudgeon status. Fledglings and Apprentices don the blue version.
The Curmudgeon Quarterly 