Rough Road Ahead

It was with great sadness yesterday that I wrote my eleven year old son Ian an IOU for "one pound of high quality Birnn chocolate," which he earned by beating me in a tennis match to 11-9 . . . I made this promise years ago, when I was sure my children would never be able to defeat me, and while I can offer a number of excuses (we weren't playing with real serves yet, we just get the ball into play and then begin the point, and there was some wind at my back, so I couldn't hit the ball as hard as I wanted for fear of it going out) the fact of the matter is that once I thought the game was in jeopardy, when he was beating me 6-2, I took things very seriously and played my ass off, and I couldn't get anything by him-- I was punching shots deep to his backhand and racing to the net, taking him cross-court, and eventually just hitting everything back, certain he would falter, but he was unassailable, didn't make an unforced error, and finally beat me with a wicked forehand winner that I couldn't touch . . . once we start serving for real, I think I'll get another year  or two of victories, but he's getting better and I'm getting worse, and the inevitably of time is rearing its ugly head.