Regular readers know that the unspoken, but golden, rule of the Curmudgeons is that are not only geezers, but that they are guys. They would no more invite women into their club than in their younger days they would invite girls into their tree fort. However, in a rare surge of brain activity, Grand High Curmudgeon Ord realized that there was more to life than Rugby, Beer, and forgetting the score in Tennis.

He invited two lovely young ladies, Denise and Karen, to join the Curmudgeon regulars on the court. As a noble and charitable gesture, they agreed to help show the Curmudgeons how tennis should actually be played. This was a bit of an eye-opener for regulars Ord, Ken, and Tom, as they hadn’t realized that the white lines are in bounds, and that it is legal to actually run after the ball.

In honor of their service, the Curmudgeons gifted Denise and Karen pathetically oversized logo shirts, perhaps thinking that they could be worn as one-piece dresses. Or perhaps because they’d never bought a gift for a woman before.

In keeping with Curmudgeon and historic “Eating Club” traditions, the ladies were asked to leave the room before the core Curmudgeons — Ord, Tom, and Ken — dove into the cake. As is also customary, utensils were prohibited.

We can only hope that this is the start of a new, enlightened, era for the Curmudgeons, although it is hard to predict whether they’ll remember any of this when next month rolls around.

One of the founding members of Curmeudgeon tennis has unfortunately decided that either the competition is too tough, or the weather is too good for him. Bill “I can bounce the ball over the net 999 times out of 1000” Leckonby is moving to Rossmoor (I assume because he has the smart sense to follow his wife Judy, who is much too good for him.) Out of a sense of respect, honor, and pity, he has been awarded an Honorary Doctor of Curmudgeonry.

For the first time ever, a co-founder Curmudgeon has given up their post. There is wild speculation about whether the Honorary Doctor of Curmudgeonry, Bill Leckonby, had decided that he was no longer competitive, or that he was hoping to find more agreeable opponents.

Either way, he is headed off to the East Bay, where he awaits a maze of Pickleball courts, and golf carts driven by unsteady denizens.

We all wish Bill the best. For many of us he will be remembered by his ability to ceremoniously return a ball to the server by bouncing it on his side of the net and then over. An amazing display of cricket skills, but might have contributed to his 40% passes complete stat at a school best known for its non-athletic mascot.

In honor of his service, Leckonby has been awarded the degree of Honorary Doctor of Curmudgeonry:

Curmudgeon University

The Curmudgeon High Council upon the recommendation of the recipients of this graduate’s unseemly vitriol and irascibility have conferred

William Leckonby

the degree of Honorary Doctor of Curmudgeonry with all the rights, privileges, and honors pertaining thereto namely to be cantankerous, irritable, bad tempered, a faultfinder and complainer without remorse.

On the twenty-fifth of October in the year two thousand and twenty-two

Aspiring to get in on the groundswell of popularity emerging for Curmudgeon Tennis, there is no shortage of fans coming out of the woodwork. Our phone lines are swamped with those hoping to learn what it takes to become a Curmudgeon (Spoiler Alert: Get old, grumpy, but still sentient enough to write pithy emails. Extra credit given for any artificial joints.) Our email is also overflowing with both high praise and horrific invective. One entry from a rightfully-struggling poet did catch our attention:

Gentlemen, Beyond their prime.
A world Sublime.
Sometimes fun,
But never kind.

Old men, with great conviction,
Curmudgeon men, days of fiction.
Limping onto courts for glory,
Never think to say, I’m sorry.

They wrap and strap,
Their braces on.
And Make bad calls,
Each day they’re born.

And yet, they always knew,
A greater day, Was never due.
A chance to play, A day to compete,
Would forever, make a Curmudgeon day Complete!

— Aspiring Curmudgeon Craig 🙏

NOTE: This piece is strictly the opinion of whomever the heck it was that wrote it. The Curmudgeon High Council denies any attempt to link them with bad calls, and resents the identification of its members with braces. Those mighty shielding devices are instead, like the similar ones worn by MLB players, designed to protect them from injury when the Buck-Twenty-Five serves of their opponents miss the mark.

You might think, if you were poorly-informed, that our septo-octo-nearly-nano-generian Curmudgeons would be hunkering down in their prepper bunkers thanking their lucky stars they weren’t in a hard-hit nursing home at the start of the Covid-19 crisis. But as our loyal readers can probably guess, our local immortals are already back on court.

Realizing that some safety precautions are necessary, the CHC (Curmudgeon High Council) looked around for best practices. But the idea of installing an expensive and quirky quick-turnaround lab testing machine didn’t appeal to them. (Yes, and they’re cheap). Neither did constant temperature checks, as most of them are pretty hot-blooded anyway. So they came up with the near fool-proof idea of having players wear their Curmudgeon T-Shirts to ensure they were okay to play after the lockdown.

As an example, we obtained this off-the-record email from the GHC (Grand High Curmudgeon) to a returning associate. Who, despite having quarantined himself for weeks and weeks as part of celebrating the birth of his first grandson, was not entirely trusted not to spread the plague: “As this is the first time you’ve played since we were ordered off the courts, make sure to wear your Associate Curmudgeon t-Shirt when you show up, so that we know that you are not a virus-infected instigator, and are instead an upstanding member of the ‘to hell with that, we’ll do what we want’ club.”

Covid-19 has caused no lack of changes in how we live, but today has brought one of the most astonishing. The normally isolationist Curmudgeon High Council is considering mass adoption of members into an extended family. This shocking development has been caused by the re-opening of their beloved Tennis Courts to families only.

Unfortunately, this deceptively-brilliant strategy has already run into some sticky problems. First, there is the small problem of who is adopting whom, since outside of Oliver Twist, loosely-associated gangs of cronies are not considered legal families. Needless to say, all the members of the Curmudgeon High Council assumed they would be the one to “wear the pants in the family.” None were too keen about having to claim “I’m someone else’s dependent” on their tax return, let alone be told when they have to go to bed and how much time they can waste watching old tennis matches on TV.

Second, when they approached the County Registrar with their proposal, they were informed that they’d of course need to live in the same house. Everyone knows that it isn’t possible to fit the egos of two curmudgeons in the same house at the same time, so that turned out to be another thorny issue.

If they can figure out a way to work through these seemingly-insurmountable problems, then their novel approach to getting out and about during the stay-at-home order might well catch on.

In a stunning attempt to seize power over all Curmudgeon dealings, the Grand High Curmudgeon has used his storied past to consolidate his reign. Leveraging the undeniable fact that he is nearly 2/3 Titanium, an ancient metal, (and 1/3 Cutty Sark), he is claiming that instead of being merely really old and sort-of cranky, he is an ancient relic worthy of worship.

No, science fans, we’re not making this up. We have the words from the GHC himself:

“FYI Bono, my titanium, extracted from the planet’s crust, is millions of years old. Titanium is the ninth-most abundant element in Earth‘s crust (0.63% by mass)^[22] and the seventh-most abundant metal. It is present as oxides in most igneous rocks, in sediments derived from them, in living things, and natural bodies of water.”

So far, fellow Curmudgeons seem a little taken aback. They aren’t sure whether this endangers their constitutionally-protected status as curmudgeons, and is part of a massive power grab, or is merely a “preening display.”

We are proud to announce the ascension of two current and fledgling curmudgeons. “Backboard Bill” has been promoted to the rank of Senior Curmudgeon upon the clockwork-like passage of the 80th anniversary of his birth. “Cynical Craig” likewise has edged closer to the Associate Curmudgeon status he so desperately wants, at least based on his daily rants. We are proud to welcome both to their new, elevated, status among the Curmudgeon community. We plan to hold a celebration for both of them as soon as we are allowed out of the house. Curmudgeons, after all, are both an endangered species, and an at-risk community. Signed — The Curmudgeon High Council

PS As befits Curmudgeons, the photo is a random, unlicensed, sample stock image that they got off the internet. They realize that they will be answering to a different judge long before anyone tracks them down and attempts to claw back the $1 they would have owed otherwise.

After several days of grumping about the cancellation of their bi-weekly geriatric tennis matches, The Grand High Curmudgeon took to the airwaves to explain that their group is uniquely positioned to tackle one of the newest challenges created by the COVID-19 Virus. In an email to their members, he writes:

“We are now inundated with new terminology “social distancing” which will no doubt permeate our language beyond our lifetimes. I’m starting to puke every time I read it or hear it. Importantly, Curmudgeons have no need for such language as we are Anti-Social by definition and therefore have no requirement for the concept since the general population knows to steer clear of us. Furthermore, there is no necessity for a new phrase when we have our longstanding approach to space management, “Get the fuck away from me asshole.”“

“Ah, that thought has made my day,

— Grand High Curmudgeon”

After realizing that his family’s ancestral home, Fort Ord, had become a toxic waste dump full of old artillery shells, Supreme Curmudgeon Ord cleverly pawned it off at below market rates to various arms of the government. He used the proceeds to develop his wildly-profitable Yellow Fever vaccine, in memory of his formerly-famous Uncle Edward Ord who died of the disease. Now that the site has been cleaned up and is a favorite of hikers, Ord realized he had the perfect way to spoil their fun and get some of those unsightly RVs off the streets of Palo Alto. He became the lead donor on the 22 million dollar project to build a trailer park and Pickleball Stadium on the site.

As part of the agreement, Ord had to agree to pay to remove the 700,000 pounds of his old body parts he had dumped there over the years. In exchange, he got the Parks Department to agree that there would always be a home for Apprentice Curmudgeon Todd’s RV, affectionately nick-named “The Beast.” When asked about this out-of-character display of generosity, SC Ord growled, “Good Riddance. I didn’t like seeing the thing parked around the courts anyway.”

The Curmudgeon’s fame as the premier collection of senior tennis players in Silicon Valley is under threat, as another group of tennis veterans with 200 years of playing time between them have stolen the limelight with a featured mention in the widely-read Alpine Hills Weekly Update.

The Weekly raved about the quintet: “There are five friends have been playing together at Alpine for decades. The total number of years as AH members is over 200 years! It doesn’t matter to them if it’s wet or cold they love their tennis and friendship!! Left to right: Jim Lipman, Steve Rowe, Ken Whyburn, Gary Conway (not pictured Tom Tebben)”

Rubbing salt in the wound, no mention was made of the larger, but perhaps less-experienced, Curmudgeons.

It didn’t take long after the inaugural publication of the Curmudgeon Quarterly (Review) for it to become embroiled in controversy. As an homage to the storied history and decades of impressive achievements of the Curmudgeon High Council, an image of the scene of their youthful triumphs is featured on the Review’s website. However, the CHC has a progressive wing that wants to look forward — by replacing the photo with one of the current venue. We eagerly await the ruling of the CHC on this matter of grave import.

Not realizing the futility of her efforts (after all, once your opponent cites memory loss as one of their major attributes, how far are you going to get?) our heroic poet has taken another stab at setting the record straight, in this well-written letter:

Dear Curmudgeon High Council,

Please send a list of the Apprentice Curmudgeons so that I might honor your request to forward to them (all ten?) an advance copy of Curmudgeons at Court for their perusal.

Also, I am awaiting your permission to forward to them your praise-worthy (and praise-full) response to my submission of said poem as I am unsure about possible confidentiality issues due to your exalted position as Supreme Representative of The High Council of Curmudgeons.  

With your approval to send the poem, do you also wish that I  include both your refutation to and my defense of the observation I offer in verses about the sentimental glue between and among your infamous band?  Perhaps the wiser option might be to have all such correspondence come directly from on-high? I am, after all, loathe to contravene any Curmudgeon rules. 

On the matter of my debating skills with regard to our — yours and my — disagreement about my perspective and your rebuttal revelation about the ’true’ attitudinal reactions between battling Curmudgeons concerning their wins and losses, I appreciate your kind comments.  

While you and I might continue to debate the issue, you need not concern yourself with my utter dismay at your revelation that Curmudgeon husbands purposely misrepresent to their spouse(s) the true nature of their group’s attitudes toward wins and losses. Though I am crestfallen, fear not that it might require any intervention from The High Council of Curmudgeons!  I assure you that I will address the inconsistency in the household privacy, which it merits.  (Still, be advised that I do not wish to alter my verses in order to include a perspective currently not my own; for now, I’ll let the ‘truth’ you insist upon remain in manly territory of which I am ignorant, and may wish to remain so!)

Yours sincerely and with all due respect,

W1

In a missive worthy of the Grinch Who Stole Christmas the Curmudgeon High Council (CHC) is determined to prevent others from mistakenly assuming they are a bunch of enlightened, woke, individuals of high moral character. They made this point in yet another slightly-hard-to-decode missive to the author of the only piece of literature ever written about them. As always, we publish it here in full, without further comment:

Wife #1,

Obviously your talents include exceptional debating skills as well as poetic accomplishment. Such thoughtful work deserves a reply. Re your counterargument on athletic collegiality among Curmudgeons, I must remind you that husbands do not always tell their wife (wives) the actual facts surrounding events. Confounding misdirection, memory loss, denial and dismissal are often preferred modes of communication. The ability to perform these feats with a straight face increases with age. Indeed, this is an irrefutable law of nature, well established since the dawn of human occupation of the planet.

Just ask Tom. Oh, forgot, he won’t tell you “what is is.”

The Curmudgeon High Council

The Curmudgeon Quarterly Review (we’ve apparently upgraded our rag to a Review recently) received this spirited reply to the harsh words of the Curmudgeon High Council, which we reprint in full:

Dear Curmudgeon High Council,

I extend heartfelt gratitude to you for the high praise accorded my “marvelous poetic” effort submitted for publication in your much-vaunted Curmudgeon Quarterly Review.

With regard to your citing (though with gentlemanly criticism) what you, The Curmudgeon High Council, consider ill-conceived or misleading presumptions (on my part) of Curmudgeon behavior, I must offer a defense thereto, even as I pledge respect for the tacit  ‘gag order’  on such matters among your group:

Given personal and extensive ‘exposure’ to similar collegiality (notwithstanding the fact that the athletes in question were then college ‘ruggers’ and considerably more juvenile than your Esteemed Curmudgeons), I count myself qualified to speak and write about the glue of sentimental ethos — verboten to be acknowledged by most practitioners of manly attachments via questionably peaceful warring in sport.  Need I say more? (BUT, if I do: My intention is not to offend closeted sensibilities, eager as I am for ultimate publication as well as a continued affiliation with your august group!  That said, I trust that my words of presumptive ‘misperception’ would have little-to-no effect on Curmudgeonly-essential gloating over wins as expected and deserved payback for “humiliating beatings.”)

Per your suggestion, I am pleased to forward copies of Curmudgeons at Court  for the advance reviewof all Curmudgeons and Apprentices within your infamous band.

With sincere appreciation (and advisedly implicit discretion),

Wife #1

Only Curmudgeons could be so base as to eschew compliments, but that’s just what they have done. After we published the epic ode to Curmudgeon Tennis, we heard loud and clear from the Curmudgeon High Council that its members are in fact, well, grouchy. So we’ve published their passive-aggressive response to the poet in full below:

The Curmudgeon High Council wishes to express its sincere appreciation for your marvelous poetic submission for publication in The Curmudgeon Quarterly Review. We are also grateful that you have chosen our world renowned magazine over that lefty, commie New Yorker rag.

Clearly you have labored many hours to capture the heart and soul of Curmudgeon-ness and exhibited exceptional talent in metaphorical language and rhetorical syntax.

With reference to the above we do find, however, that some of your assumptions of Curmudgeon behavior do not jibe with Snopes or various other fact checking sites. For example the presumption that we all get along and appreciate each other regardless of weekly results is somewhat misleading.

In truth we gloat over our wins and take immense satisfaction in our opponents disillusionment over a loss – especially if it happens that they endured a humiliating beating. Our appreciation of your tome is in no way lessoned by your unintentional misperception of collegial Curmudgeon-ness.

More importantly, the other Curmudgeons as well as Apprentices will want to have advance viewing of your work (prior to publication) to celebrate your splendid poetic masterpiece. Please email a Word copy of Curmudgeons at Court so that it can be shared with our infamous band.

With snarly, grumpy and irascible gratitude,

The Curmudgeon High Council