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11-14-06; #11 |
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A Road Trip with Whitey: Keeping up with John White
By L-J Anjema © Nov 14, 2006 Laurens-Jan Anjema and SquashTalk LLC
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| Traveling with John White (photo ©Debra Tessier ) |
Flying gets to you. It’s all exciting and good fun in the beginning but after a while, when you can literally word the stewardess’ safety instructions before her and (don’t) listen to her “EVEN THOUGH you’re a frequent flyer”, driving from A to B sounds lovely.
So that’s what Whitey (John White) and I decided to do after the US Open in Boston. Instead of waiting in line for hours and almost fully undressing (what? my pants too?!) to go through all sorts of X-ray machines, we decided to go for a lil’ road trip.
City of departure: Boston. Destination: Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love.
My prior suspicions of letting Whitey rent the car got thrown out of the window when he turned up with an awesome, huge and modern black Jeep. After literally half a minute we already got lost; we (read: Whitey) followed the instructions from the tournament hotel, instead of following the instructions ‘starting’ from the Avis rental company street corner… After a few circles around the block downtown Boston we found our way out of the city. This was gonna be a long trip…
After a few hours, zig-zagging through traffic (cars
in America stay on the left even though they drive like grandma) we stopped
somewhere at Mac Donalds for the oh so healthy MacSalad (oh yeah and
some burgers!). Then, sitting in the car, eating our MacFood, ‘the’ infamous
conversation between Whitey and myself took place:
Whitey: “Where are we now, mate?”
LJ: “At a Mac Donalds in New Haven.”
Whitey: “Oh yeah, there!!”
Enough said…
After a long day of fighting over which radio station we’d tune up to (Whitey using the tuning buttons on the steering wheel and me using the regular ones) and stories of the tour (the best one being Joe Kneipp reversing up to three times (!) into the car behind him at a traffic light in Antwerp caus’ he didn’t know where 1st gear was) we arrived at Whitey’s home. Finally, we could sit back and chill out.
Or, so I thought…
From the moment the door opened till way after dinner, kids were screaming, running, kicking, throwing food and other things, fighting, hugging and shouting: “Daddy, daddy, you’re home!! Kids wanted me to hold them, play with them, throw them in the air, play piano with them and make drawings for them while Johnny was upstairs cleaning the bathroom as Tyler (7) was being sick. I guess this is what life with four kids (two of them being 2 year old twins) is like…
Right now, on a Tuesday evening in november, Whitey’s kids are in bed, I’m sitting on the couch in the living area which one hour ago was a complete war zone and I realize: for this guy, playing tournaments is a holiday!
(14th November, 20:28, Philadelphia)
Laurens
Jan Anjema: Audio Interview |
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