Detroit Free Press

LONDON -- Now I know the real reason our forefathers left this country: the rain.I'm not kidding. The way it's been coming down, I'd have been on a boat, too. "America? Yeah, yeah, fine. Just get me outta here."This has been the wettest week I can remember. At Wimbledon, they have a budding tradition: play a game, run inside, play a game, run inside. It's not strawberries and cream anymore, it's strawberries and skim milk.Excuse me, I have to help pull the tarp over the grass . . .

WIMBLEDON, England -- You see lots of ponytails in women's tennis. Some of them will fool you. Take Monday at Wimbledon, a wet, cloudy day that was the grass-court equivalent of a soggy biscuit.Across the net at Centre Court stood two female players, both in short white skirts and designer tennis tops -- and both in ponytails. But on Martina Hingis, who's 15, the hairdo was an extension of her teenage exuberance. On Steffi Graf, 27, the ponytail was all that remained of a carefree life.

Right off the bat, I confess a certain nostalgia for my school years. I had fun. I had friends. I had laughs. So perhaps my logic is blurry. I never realized that being a boy was such a distraction.I knew girls were a distraction. I discovered that in sixth grade, when the first girl I liked cast a quick glance in my direction, fluttered her eyelashes, and I felt a queasy, goose-bumping rush. At that moment, the teacher could have said "America was discovered by hyenas" and I would have written it down.

All week long, I've heard people dismiss this new book which claims Isiah Thomas had a gambling problem. Not because they know Isiah. Not because they were at the house where these high-stakes dice games supposedly took place.No. They dismiss it by saying, "I don't believe anything that uses unnamed sources."I heard the same thing a few weeks ago, when all those charges were comingout about the Michigan basketball program, charges that a booster had been funneling money to players for years. The critics' response?

A scout's journal . . . I don't follow the big names. The big names, they got plenty of guys following them. You think Ki-Jana Carter is gonna go unnoticed? Come on. We already know his shirt size and his favorite sports car. How much more can a lousy scout dig up?Me, I go for the small names. I beat the bushes. I check under rocks. I scour the country for every backwater college that still believes in the tackle and the forward pass.And I watch. And I make notes.Sometimes I have a drink and fall asleep.

I am from Earth. You are from Mars. I take your hand and we go Christmas shopping."Very big," you say, as we pull into the mall parking lot. "Is this a center for intelligent life-sharing experience?" "YO, JERK, THAT'S MY SPACE!" I yell.We park the car, and walk through whipping wind and blinding snow, as we cross the approximately 37 miles to the mall entrance. When we open the door, we are flattened by an army of exiting shoppers."Are their loved ones in danger?" you ask, wiping the footprints off your space suit.

Irecently returned from Japan. I have the business cards to prove it.There are business cards in my pants pockets and my shirt pockets. Last night I found one in my hair. This is because Japanese people, upon meeting in a business setting, immediately bow and present their card. And you are supposed to present yours.Unless, of course, you don't have one. Like me. In which case you stand there holding their cards and smiling stupidly, like the neighbor who has no candy for the trick-or-treaters."I am honored to meet you," my Japanese associates would say.