As a 10 year old, our family began a journey into the unknown. Both my parents gave up their careers and moved the family of four to Claremont, California, where we would be opening a new tennis club. My father would be the Director of Tennis, with mom taking on duties as membership sales and pro shop manager. My brother and I...well, we mostly just hung out and played lots of tennis!
During that first summer, we actually lived in the clubhouse(a very cool old stone house) while the club was being completed. As our first players started coming out, I noticed several players with the letter "L" stenciled on their strings. Wonder what that is, I thought. After repeatedly seeing this mysterious L, I quizzed one player about the logo emblazoned on his racquet. His reply wasn't exactly what I had expected. " That my young friend is the signature of the wizard himself"...wait, what? A real wizard?? "Yes, he is a racquet stringing wizard who is quite legendary in these parts."
Having just started my career as the clubs new racquet stringer, I had to find out more about this legendary wizard. Surely he couldn't be as amazing as everyone said. Maybe I could start stenciling the letter "C" on my racquets and I could consider myself a wizard?
Little did I know, that this was my first real introduction to someone who was a master craftsman. I learned from some of his customers that this wizard was the most precise stringer and paid attention to every detail. Remarkably, he tuned each racquet with the help of his piano!
How was I going to compete with that? I didn't know how to play a piano!
Flash forward these 40+ years later... I never did learn how to play the piano, but what I did learn from this mysterious racquet stringing wizard, was that details matter and to never stop learning and perfecting your craft. And while I still don't feel confident enough to stencil a "C" on the racquets I string, after stringing over 10,000 racquets, I still feel that I am learning...and will never stop. For this life lesson, I am forever indebted to the wizard. Who by the way was actually a gentleman by the name of Gaylord Linden...that's where the "L" came from! This wizard holds several racquet stringing patents and was most surely the only stringer to use a piano to tune racquets.
With this new beginning of Portland Racquet Works, I feel that I have been working on this project since I was a 10 year old. I feel that the wizard would be pleased that in some way, I am doing my best to live up to his high standards.
I look forward to tuning your racquets.
Chris Merrill ~ Portland Racquet Works