Many years ago I considered myself a pretty good racquetball player. I belonged to at least three different clubs so I could play just about any time I chose.
My nickname at the time was "WALLS" because I ran so fast I was constantly crashing into them when charging for a return. It was during those years I did the most damage to both wrists which I'm paying for now. It seems most of the cartilage has since gone elsewhere. These days it's hard to even hold a pen and impossible to turn a door knob.
The story I'm about to tell happened when a friend invited me to play at the Jewish Community Center. Although it was open to all not only those who are Jewish. They had 4 or 5 courts available for members to reserve for one hour sessions and I took advantage when someone invited me to play, I absolutely loved the game and was in pretty good shape at the time. Win or lose, I always played my hardest since most of my competition were quite a bit younger and maybe a little better coordinated but not necessarily faster.
The friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, was in my age group and a pretty even match. We were both playing fairly well when all of a sudden we noticed some green spots appearing on the floor. We continued playing but the spots remained, in fact, they seemed to increase.
We finished our game and were taking a slight break before starting the next and we both realized that the floor was now covered with the green marks. It looked like something was actually growing through the floor.
I left the court to summon one of the attendants to show him what was going on. He came in, saw the floor and shook his head, he was dumbfounded, he had never seen anything like this. He did mention that they had recently had the floors redone and had used a new company. Maybe the resurfacing agent they used was creating the problem.
He apologized to us for the inconvenience and sent us to another court so we could continue playing. We moved our stuff into the next court and started playing again,. Ten minutes went bye and lo and behold, up came the spots. We finished our game, reported what was going on to the attendant and headed for the showers. He was now sure that it had to be caused by the new chemical they were using.
In the locker room as we were getting undressed for the showers I noticed my friend's shoes that he had just removed. They were an old pair that he had for years but hadn't worn for quite some time. I noticed that his soles were green, probably from the spots on the floor. On closer inspection we both saw that the soles of his old shoes were coming apart. The fast action, stopping and starting had begun disintegrating . All of the spots were coming from his gym shoes. We were laughing so hard we couldn't stop but we thought we might best forego our shower and get out of there, which we did.
To this day, some 15 or so years later, whenever we see each other, the vision returns and we break out in laughter.
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