The Shame Of The Past

Back in those days, of course, most people were blissfully unaware of the dangers of tennis. Some of them, we are led to believe, even went as far as to wear shorts whilst engaged in this sordid practice.

Nowadays, though, we know better and no-one in the civilised world (and Canada) would want to be seen holding a tennis racquet whilst stuffing their balls into their shorts. In these more enlightened days, tennis has been relegated to just one of those shameful practices that so often besmirch the childhood and adolescent of any civilisation. Just like slavery, warfare, television advertising or microwavable versions of real food, such things prevent any civilisation from regarding itself as free from the shackles of superstition, ignorance, the poking of strangers with fillets of wet haddock and other such dark practices that once so enthralled its ancestors.

However, we should not ourselves be ashamed of what has gone on before in our history. Civilisation is always an on-going process - possibly one that can never be truly complete. Rather, we ought to be proud that we have seen such barbaric - and, yes, even evil - practices such as slavery, suppression of women, over-cooking of vegetables, reality television and, now, even the horror that is tennis, consigned to the pages of history. Humanity can now, today, stand a little taller because of this.