An Early Tennis Memory—Larry Yakubowski In 1972, I was twelve years old. I delivered the Poughkeepsie Journal to over a hundred customers every day for 4 years. I'd stuff those papers into my baskets on that old green Raleigh bicycle. I always read the Sports section before I started delivering. I started seeing names like Ashe, Smith, King, Court, Lutz, Wade, and Borg. Simple, monosyllabic names. Of course, there was Evert, Connors, Goolagong, and Laver too. Nastase and Navratilova made things less simple the way Vietnam and Watergate did, which were the front page stories. But it was easier to read the tennis stories. I started to love tennis. I remember buying a pair of Adidas John Newcombe kangaroo skin tennis shoes from the Sundance Sports Shop at the Haviland Mall in Hyde Park at the conclusion of my paper route. I loved those shoes. I didn't tell my mother they were made of kangaroo skin. She would not approve. I don't know why I became so drawn to tennis: the racquets were beautiful, the clothes were stylish, and the players all had their own games—their own blend of offense and defense. I liked that. Own your game, own your strokes, and impose yourself! Here I come! What are you going to do about it?