Author: nhagberg

Four years ago today, Steve Wilkinson passed away. Steve “saw” the court better than any person I ever played.  He always was thinking three shots ahead of his opponent.  He set points up methodically, surgically.  If I had a dollar for every time he short-angled me to my backhand, forced me out of my comfort…

I have a confession to make. I am Clark Griswold. Yes, that Clark Griswold. Your neighbor who puts up so many holiday lights, the entire neighborhood suffers a brownout each evening at 4:30 when the sun goes down and the lights go on. The neighbor whose house guides airplanes home through the thickest fog, and…

On this Winter Solstice, the longest night of the year, we all look for the winter days to quit being so long and light to come back. Sometimes all we get is a sliver. But a sliver of light is still light. One of TLC’s cherished adult campers, who still plays six days a week,…

What do Hanukkah and tennis have to do with each other?  It turns out, plenty. A dear friend of my spouse’s and mine is a musical genius.  There is no other way to put it. During our 25 year concert career, he played on many of our 14 recordings and recording release concerts and wove…

At TLC, everything we do is centered around giving thanks to others.  It is where everything starts and everything ends.  Everything.  Our daily Thank You Bowl where we draw from the bowl and read each morning thank you notes campers have written for staff and staff have written for campers.  Our random Gratitude Minutes at…

Have you ever seen someone grip something so hard you swear they are going to burst their muscles, tendons, and blood vessels all at the same time? I have. Over and over. Many campers, particularly adults, appear to be on some sort of secret mission, for which an enemy agent will have to pry their…

Those who know me best know how competitive I am.  How I, more than anyone I know, need the Three Crowns℠ to focus on what is important.  There was a moment when it all made sense again at the Minnesota State High School League Girls State Tennis Tournament last week. 109 TLC campers participated in…

Sometimes, people deserve more blogs than they get. I believe this is only the third blog I have written over seven years on David Lachman. Today may or may not be the last. For sixteen years David has either been a camper, an instructor, or assistant director of TLC.  The last seven have been as…

We swim in the water we are born into at birth.  Sometimes it is full of love.  And sometimes it is not. And we don’t realize, often, that if it is not, when we grow up we can climb out of that water that is unhealthy for us and find water that will give life,…

She wailed like a wounded animal. Her eyes darted from place to place looking for some sort of refuge from her pain. There was no way of getting through those tears to calm her.  I watched and my heart broke.  She was eleven years old and she was relentlessly homesick, away from home alone. I…