Hello, everyone, post-Felix Baumgartner jump and mid- Dallas/Baltimore game,

On Sundays I usually post something of personal importance to me, but today I am posting about someone who is personally important to me.  I want to introduce my husband, Brian Altman to my groovy Google+ community.  I figure if today is good enough for a free fall jump into space, it’s good enough for Brian to jump into the Google+ atmosphere.

It’s not easy to write about one’s husband.  There is no way I could distill down into a few paragraphs the essence of his interesting and complicated life.  I can tell you that in addition to being my husband, he is an orthopedic surgeon at Ft. Knox in Kentucky, the father of three brilliant adult children, and a sports freak…let me repeat that…he is a sports freak, meaning he used to be a skier and equestrian and played ice hockey, and he still plays tennis, along with having a thing for the art, craft and profession of sports reporting and punditry (Mike & Mike).  Did I mention that he’s a sports freak?

He’s also a writer of medical thrillers and is working on his second novel.  Some while ago, when the whole Sandusky thing broke, he wrote a story about it, because his son had been a student at the high school in Locke Haven, PA, where Sandusky was often around.  Brian’s story was written from a father’s POV and you can find it in his first post attached.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Googlers of all ages and kinds and sorts from all over the globe, I offer up my husband on a platter….

Thank you for reading as always, and Circling Brian Altman if you are so inspired.

Wow but it’s ferociously windy here today.

Cheerio,

Giselle

Originally shared by Brian Altman

I’m brand new to Google+, I’ve just finished my profile, and the only members of my circles are ESPN and my wife Giselle Minoli.  I’m looking forward to figuring it all out.  This is my first post.

I followed the Sandusky story with interest.  I spent three years in Lock Haven, PA, which is located about a driver and nine-iron from State College, and served as its High School team physician.  Mr. Sandusky was a legend, and used to attend our home games.  My son knew some of his “contacts.”

I told you that so I could tell you this…

It’s a pleasant Autumn Sunday and I’m sitting in an armchair in my living room watching the NFL Pregame Show, which features pundits who are talking about the slate of football games that will entertain much of America for at least some of the afternoon.  It is the first Sunday since the sentencing of Jerry Sandusky, and the conversation has returned to Xs and Os instead of the events that occurred in a small college town in the center of Pennsylvania, nine or thirteen years ago.      

I don’t want to talk about you-know-what either.  But I do want to share something – I love tennis.  I played in college, and then spent the next twenty years of my life trying to maintain a sectional United States Tennis Association ranking while practicing orthopedic surgery.  Then I quit and got fat.  Now, at age sixty-two, I’m trying to get thin again.  

I work out with a professional, whom I pay to run me until I can’t breathe and am relegated to resting my hands on my knees while watching stuff come out of my mouth.  I play twice a week at a Tennis Club that has showers with ¾ inch pipes that produce an abundance of hot water and are said to be the best in the city.  Otherwise the locker room is modest.  There are two sinks and the commodes are enclosed in stalls with doors that can be locked in case you need do something in private.  It’s not uncommon for players to come and go in their tennis clothes, but I usually arrive after work, so I use the locker room before sweating for an hour before enjoying the “best shower in the city.”  

Recently, I had a rare weekday off so I called my pro, asked if he had some spare time and learned that there was an hour open if I was willing to endure the phagocytosis of the tennis courts by the daily afternoon junior clinic. 

When I entered the club I noticed a land fill of tennis bags blocking the entrance to a spacious area where parents sit by large picture windows and watch the maturation of their future scholarships.  The teenagers are accomplished players and make me wish I hadn’t wasted my childhood on baseball.  One of the new things in tennis is the advent of mini courts that are constructed with mini nets for mini players.  These children are adorable and play their game with large spongy balls and small, light racquets.

I had some shopping to do before my hour so I had come in jeans.  I went to the Locker Room, changed and allowed my mentor to run my ass off in preparation for my psychotic compulsive belief that I would someday play Wimbledon.  I returned to the Locker Room, stripped from my soaking wet T-shirt, stepped from my shorts and walked past a man using the urinal and headed for the shower.  While waiting for the water to warm, I heard the door open to allow the now no longer urinating man to leave.  I soaped my hair and allowed the warm water to sooth the sixty-two-year old muscles in my spine that had been extended by a laborious drill my old college tennis coach called “Nutcrackers.” A Nutcracker is an exercise that consists of a tennis-pro feeding tennis balls to a player standing at the net.  The player runs side to side hitting volleys until the pro decides it’s time to be sadistic and throw up a few lobs.  My instructor has a large shopping basket and kept hitting the balls in rapid succession, from side to side, deep and shallow, until stuff came out of my mouth.  

Then he said, “I don’t want to see any stuff coming out of your mouth.”

I told you that to tell you this…

I was enjoying the almost too hot water that enabled me to bend over and almost touch my toes, something I have not been able to do for more than twenty years, when I heard this young, high pitched, very youthful voice loudly proclaim that there was a “man in the shower.”  And then I heard the door open and close.  

I no longer enjoyed my shower.  Instead I covered myself with my towel and huddled in my chair in the corner of the room, waiting for the water to evaporate, before opening my locker and retrieving my clothes.  I can’t say I was completely dry when I dressed quickly and did my Pink Panther imitation, slinking down the corridor to the Exit.  

No one was going to accuse me of being alone in a shower with a young boy.