"society girl and experienced bear hunter"

From Dorothy Wickenden's Nothing Daunted: The Unexpected Education of Two Society Girls in the West (Scribner, 2011):

Sam [Perry] doted on Marjorie, his firstborn, treating her like a son. Every year she accompanied him on a weeks-long hunting expedition. As one newspaper account described her, "Wearing a heavy flannel shirt and chaps, like a cowboy of the plains, she has ridden through the wildest regions of the state, shooting deer and bear and even an occasional mountain lion." One year she returned with a bear cub she named Perrywinkle and kept in her parents' backyard in Denver. (As an older woman, when her two favorite dogs died, she skinned them and used their pelts as rugs.)

(On a side note, there is nothing like reading about pioneer wives to snap me out of a pity party right fast. Good God, what those women endured.)

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tennis wisdom/dedication from the elders

In the July/August issue of the University of Chicago alumni magazine, there was this tidbit:

Max Liberles, AB '61, writes that he still plays tennis at least three times a week (doubles); hits the gym; walks in the Shell Point Retirement Community in Fort Myers, FL; ad works on that '63 Morgan. "I'm working on my cardiologist to let me make a singles comeback try soon, but this is an uphill climb."

I've resumed reading Paul Metzler's Advanced Tennis (rev. ed., Macmillan, 1972). What he says about self-consciousness and concentration applies to so much more than tennis, and maybe I'll quote some of that some other time. But what I bookmarked to blog some months ago was this:

Temper is not a match-winning attribute. Overcome it or you will be carrying a cancer about with you all your tennis days.

You may think you have a quick temper by nature and cannot really be blamed for your actions. If so, it is time you got things straight. Everyone has a temper, even the calmest-looking people. A so-called quick temper is in essence no more than an uncontrolled temper, and in tennis this is not an asset. . . .

People who lose their tempers on tennis courts generally seek to justify themselves in several ways. They explain that they are only wild with themselves, and that no offense is intended to anyone else. They usually say they could scarcely play if they didn't let off steam once in a while. Some add that they cannot get worked up into a winning mood if they have to smile pleasantly all the time.

Displays of temper do give offense to others. Spectators come to see tennis, not tantrums. . . .

You do not have to smile politely all over the place, and you shouldn't try to. It can make you feel like a fool and perhaps even look like one, and it tends to make your play timid and your concentration sloppy. If you are the type who likes to play a tight, taciturn game when really trying to win, by all means do so.

This entry was originally posted at http://bronze-ribbons.dreamwidth.org/382540.html. I see comments at DW, IJ, and LJ (when notifications are working, anyway), but not on feeds.