King: In third grade I wrote a Halloween story that was judged the best in our class.

Kirshenbaum: I thought for sure I must have won something in grade school; I was a good student and not the worst athlete, but if I did win a ribbon or certificate, I don't remember it, which leads me to conclude that I didn't win anything because surely I would've remembered if I had. The closest I came to an accolade, any recognition of achievement was in the fifth grade when I made the snowflakes for the Winter Pageant. On the program, at the bottom, on a line unto itself was printed: Snowflakes by Binnie Kirshenbaum.


––How did you win this accolade?

Beller: For each level, Tennis I, II, and so on, a counselor would put you through the paces on the court. You would have to hit a certain number of backhands, forehands, execute certain things. For the tennis six it was quite rigorous. I dimly recall there being a requirement for an "American Twist," serve. This involved throwing the ball above your head in such a way that you had to arch your back and give it a lot of topspin, coming over the ball. As you might gather from the name, Cape Cod Sea Camps was focused on sailing. I did not sail. The second most intense activity at the camp was tennis, and I was into tennis. However I was a dinker. I fought my way up the tennis ladder by being someone who would hit the ball back a lot and, at the key moment, dink it over the net so it hit the service line and just died. It is the least graceful form of tennis. I hated myself for playing that way, but then when the competition got intense I always went to this special skill, the dink. In some ways I feel like I have been a recovering dinker ever since. With this in mind I was not thought to be a big tennis talent and Tennis VI seemed beyond me. I had barely squeezed my way through the Tennis V test. I don't recall who administered the test for Tennis VI. I think it was a woman. I do remember thinking she was being very easy on me. At the end she said I got it. I was amazed. And here is why this is important to me––I told my friends that night at assembly. It was a special assembly where the end of the year awards were given out. I told my friend Mike Kaneb in this really low key way that I passed Tennis VI, and in his fraught but understated way, he went nuts. He had a murmurous style, but he got quite animated, he thought it was the greatest thing, he couldn't believe it, and neither could I. But I was already braced for the blow that was coming that night at the awards ceremony, where they handed out the prize for best this and best that. Among they prizes was best actor, or most accomplished in drama, or whatever the called it. There was a big musical at the end of camp - that year it was Oklahoma - and then throughout the season there were these funny little melodramas that were put on every week. You rehearsed like crazy all week and then put on the show on Sunday. I always did these weekly things, never did the big musical, and that year I had really been on fire in those weekly shows cracking everybody up. I still recall one of my lines, I was a cop, I looked around and said, "There's something in the air!" For some reason people really laughed when I delivered that line. But the prize tended to go to whomever had been the lead in the musical. To this day I look back at that evening and my dread of what would happen and think it anticipates some of the weird tension between short story writers and novelists––weekly play versus end of year musical. So here comes the big moment and the winner is... The guy who was the lead in Oklahoma. As I knew it would be. And yet. So for me this great peak, Tennis VI, has always been redolent of the disappointment, oddly enough, that came later that night. I should add as an addendum that before changing it to the roman numerals, above, I wrote it out as words, Tennis One and so forth, and at the end there, I wrote Tennis Sex. Make of this what you will.

Furst:  By five years old, I’d risen to the rank of Sea Horse in the swim classes I took at the Alexandria YMCA. This meant that I’d mastered the rudiments not only of the crawl but also of the breast- and backstrokes.  I was no longer a Minnow.  I had rank and expertise. Having shown such promise at such a young age, I joined the swim club. (Was it a club or a team?  It must have been a club—I’d never have made the cut on a team). 
    In my one and only meet, I swam the breaststroke leg of the 50-yard relay.  My partners in this race consisted of two tykes like me, and anchoring us on the butterfly, a toned and powerful Dolphin (a Dolphin being someone who’d risen as high as you could go in the YMCA’s system).  It was an exciting day, charged with the smell of the chlorine and athlete’s foot.  The fold-out risers were packed with parents, mine included.  When my turn came, I dove off the blocks, swam halfway across the pool and stopped, treading water as I searched the stands for my mother.  Finding her, I waved with furious pride—Mom!  It’s me!  Look!  I’m swimming!  Look!  I’m racing!  Look!  Look!  She waved back and the joy on her face in that moment drowned out the boos of my teammates.