Saturday May 6th, 1978

Jake Putnam hits at the Reed Gym courts, April 1978--Jim Hall Photo

It was cold and windy this morning in Pocatello. May is just a breath away from winter, in fact it snowed last week. Jim Hall and I are still in training, we played this morning at the indoor court at Reed Gym. The surface is rubber and joined in sections, it's fast but not the fastest court I've played on. Hall and I practiced volleys almost the whole time...Im doing what Mr. B told us last summer, keeping the ball in front of me, keeping body weight forward and then setting up for the next volley. Its all about the flex step and getting ready.

After watching Ashe last night I realized one thing, when he's late he makes up for it with the wrist. The harder one hits with Arthur the better he likes it, he wrists it back with pace and he keeps the ball deep to the baseline. On the other hand Pasarell's ground stokes were picture perfect, the ball seemed to stay on the strings forever; when the ball hits the racquet dead center it makes a distinctive sound, that's the beauty of this player.

Jim and I hit for 2 hours, when we left Reed I looked up on the mountains of the Pocatello range and there's still snow. Scout Mountain to the South is completely snow-capped. It is still so cold that we play bundled up against the wind whenever outside. I wonder if summer will every come.

We had lunch at the Student Union. Then we went to the Library to check on our TV show, we had to put some final touches on our last episode with some light editing. Paul wanted us to finish up our project so public access can run the last episodes all summer. We had a great run with the show this spring, producing 4 shows, 30 minutes each, all sketch comedies but we also made our share of statements. Our friends think we're a bit crazy but its so much fun. I like public access TV because we're our own bosses. We write, shoot and produce whatever we want. We're careful because we don't want to get sued, we didn't have any complaints and Channel 12 is happy with us.

After the edits we decided to get another hit in at Poky High. We have to be ready for Mercersburg, I'm excited to meet up with Sanderson in New Hampshire, Pat called this afternoon and said everything is ready for our long drive next week.

When I got home there was a big box from Wilson complete with two new Jack Kramer frames, my second shipment of the year...Christmas in May! Frank Brennan made a phone call for me last fall, because of my ranking and my spot on the ISU tennis team they're sending me four frames a year. They even sent a three sets of strings! I can't wait to get them strung...Im on such a tight budget, now I'll have to figure out how to pay for the stringing.

Jim and I are meeting out tonight at the Sandpiper, His girlfriend Wendy and her friend Clarrissa are meeting us out, it should be lot of fun. Im back at Mom and Jerry's house, they're heading out to dinner and Brenda is already gone. Im going to take a bath here in a few minutes and then take off.