Incidental Relic

Strangely enough this photo is rather evocative for me, since it brings to mind such a volume of specific memories and associations. In my former job I was responsible for maintaining this tennis court, which included taking down the wind screens on the perimeter fencing in the fall and putting them back up again in the spring. This involved running these plastic clips through grommets every six inches or so and then clipping them to the top of the fence. Another set of clips would be go along the bottom to stretch the screens tight. Several times I performed this task with another person; one guy who was eventually fired from this job and tragically passed away shortly thereafter, one who was a former student of mine years before, another who eventually took over my position when I left. Generally, though, I preferred to do the job myself. It gave me some time to be outside just thinking my own thoughts while dragging the ladder around and performing the actual task on autopilot. These clips, I should say, could be a real pain to work with.  Just looking at this thing triggers a real tactile response; I can feel the smoothness of the plastic, the rounded ridge and the flattened side with small raised lettering, the amount of pressure it takes to bend the opening aside so it will fit through the grommet, and of course those sharpened ends. The nets were sort of heavy, and if it were wet or windy out forget it, you would never get them put up properly. I would always end up with cuts and bruises on my fingers before the job was done. Honestly I could keep riffing on this theme for awhile - where the screens were stored, the year they got repaired by a local sailmaker and what that entailed, the times particularly strong winds ripped them off the fence, yada, yada, yada. It’s curious what a complex chain of associations can be attached to some unremarkable object most people will walk by all the time and think nothing about.