ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Monday, July 15, 1996                  TAG: 9607150025
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 3    EDITION: METRO 
COLUMN: Ben Beagle
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE

HE'S BENT OUT OF SHAPE OVER GIRLS WITH GOOD KNEES

I know it's considered pretty trashy to feel the way I do about tennis, but I'm bloody glad that business at Wimbledon is over and out.

I say this despite the fact that Steffi Graf makes a very nice curtsey.

I've been accused of having an interest in only the most violent of sports, in which persons are sometimes maimed and go through life with bad knees.

I was born to be fair. I suspect Steffi Graf has very good knees, which allow her to curtsey like that, but I'll admit I'd rather watch some big persons run power-dive-red-dog-three.

During the Great Depression, we couldn't afford tennis whites, and the game never caught on with me. It isn't a lot of fun batting a tennis ball against the weatherboarding of a rented house that needs painting.

What I'm saying here is that in the above environment, people didn't come charging into our house yelling, "Tennis anyone?''

I know a disadvantaged childhood is no reason to be a "perfect crab," which is what some members of my family call me.

I don't act like that all the time. I get that way when I can't stand any more of Billie Jean King. You talk about a woman who can get on your nerves. She's worse than Martha Stewart.

I know that Martha stands for decorous behavior and stuff like that. She also is a symbol for that fresh, outdoorsy look and is at her best while gathering rhubarb and running her mouth.

The woman is just too cute, and I hate it when she makes all these cute things. I don't think she'd be a good person to have a beer with. She'd make all these neat things out of the empties.

I also thinks she wears khaki pants too much, although I know a nice print dress doesn't go with a rhubarb patch.

I'll bet she stood up her date for the prom because she was in the basement making clever things out of corn shucks. Or in the kitchen making neat things to eat.

And now I still have to get through the Olympics - which will include a lot of running by young women with very good knees.

If you'd ask me how I feel about running, I'd go back to my childhood again to say that we saw enough running. You could sit on the front porch and see half of the neighborhood running from bill collectors or the sheriff, who had court orders to levy on the furniture.

I have to go now. I've got to cut off the TV before Martha shows us how to make rhubarb pie.

LENGTH: Medium:   56 lines