Arthur Robert Ashe Jr
I've never been a tennis fan. I dare say I despise the game as both a spectator and competition sport. Something about it screams pretentious wussie to me and I have been known to go to great lengths to toy with tennis players from a standpoint of poking fun and practical joking.However, over the years a few tennis players have caught my attention. Like the lesbian Billie Jean King who simply had to get out there and whup a man's ass back around the time I finished high school.
Then of course there is John McEnroe and his never ending stream of antics and temper tantrums which brought me no end of amusement.
 Arthur Robert Ashe Jr July 10, 1943 – February 6, 1993 |
Yes, I joked about AIDS profusely during the 1980s and early 1990s but this had become tempered over time with that reality which was the horrible death which awaited a typical sufferer and slowly my thoughts turned to those stricken individuals and I stopped viewing it all as some remote joke that didn't intersect with my own life.
Far later, I learned that my childhood best friend, Christopher E Gagnon had contracted the disease and passed when we both were just turning 40 and alas, there went my plans to reconnect which had remained on the back burner for so long.
On this day in 1992 Arthur Ashe announced that he had full blown AIDS which was contracted as the result of blood transfusions during his heart surgeries. He was characterized as a 'tennis great' and I cannot speak to this never having seriously watched any competition nor engaged the rules of the sport at any level ...
But here was a man who came forward during a time when sufferers of the disease were ostracized and criticized and ridiculed and he spoke of his affliction knowing full well the portends were grave.
All I can say is I wish my own humanity were so devoid of selfishness.
This was a man of character, composure, and empathy for his fellows at the end of a life that was done all too soon.
Rest in peace.