PROGRESSIVE PROHIBITIONIST RELIGION IDEA: BEFRIEND THE PERSONS YOU ENJOYED THE MOST WHO WERE ALSO EXERCISE PARTNERS FOR YOU

In the view of my physical-fitness-minded and healthful-living-minded Progressive Prohibitionist Religion, it makes good sense for American citizens to generously befriend favorite persons from their own lives who were also very fine tennis-partners or jogging partners or hiking partners or other salutary-exercise partners for them.

Those exercise partners from your own life are among your finest-ever friends from your own  life, since they play a major role in enhancement of your own cardiovascular health, medical health, emotional well-being, and creatively vital lifespan.

Among the ways in which American citizens can befriend their all-time favorite exercise partners include:

---offer to treat them to a shared outing with yourself to a professional tennis tournament or professional basketball game.

---include that person's full legal name and current address as a cited beneficiary in your last will and testament.

---treat that individual to a healthful-dining meal and friendly conversation with yourself inside a restaurant that he or she particularly likes.

---offer to pay that former or current exercise partner's membership in the United States Tennis Association or some other non-profit group affiliated with the sport you had pursued with that exercise partner.

--treat several of your all-time favorite exercise partners to a special dinner party or banquet in their honor.

--make a point of including your all-time favorite exercise partners in your Holiday Season greeting cards mailing list.

--find out the birthdate of some of your all-time favorite exercise partners, and make a point of sending a Birthday card to them each year.

---offer to pay for enrollment for the two of you in a tennis academy or other athletic-instruction program.

---make a financial donation toward improvement or expansion of public tennis court facilities or other public athletic facilities in the city or town or metro area where your all-time favorite exercise partner currently resides.

Among the many polite exercise partners from my own life who helped me to boost my own cardiovascular health, are:

--Mark Becker, a permanent resident of Houston and an affable German-American neighbor of mine in Prather Dormitory on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin, who played tennis with me several times on the Intramural tennis courts of UT-Austin. Mark and I also went together to attend a Team Tennis event in 1978 or 1979 in the UT-Austin Superdrum special events center that featured a singles professional tennis match between Ms. Chris Evert of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Rosie Casals of San Francisco, California. Chris Evert won that abbreviated one-set (?) match through a very impressive come-from-behind victory after she had fallen behind 2-5 against Ms. Casals.

---Kazuo Hiraizumi, a tennis partner of mine during my teens and early twenties.

--Kurt Verhulst, an engineering student from Wisconsin at the University of Texas at Austin who along with the Cyprus-native Jason Charalambides, another engineering student at UT-Austin, played three-man doubles matches with me on the outdoor tennis court of the apartment complex in Austin where we each resided in separate units, Wind River Crossing Apartments.

---Denis Eremin, a foreign graduate student in Physics from Siberia who roomed with me near the UT-Austin campus in the late 1990s, played tennis with me at least once on the intramural tennis courts of UT-Austin. 


---Peter Eckstein (right last name? Epstein?) from Stockholm, Sweden, a schoolmate of mine at Washington University in St. Louis, played a tennis match with me one schoolday at a nearby college campus, and that campus may have been Concordia Seminary. It felt deliciously mischievous to me that beautiful spring day to be skipping my Spanish class for that one day in order to play tennis with Peter from Stockholm.

--Barbara from Cleveland, Ohio, herself a friendly female classmate of mine at Washington University in St. Louis, rallied with me on an outdoor tennis court on that campus on a day when some snow fell onto the court during our rallies. Fortunately, neither of us was injured by the admittedly-slippery playing conditions. Looking back, though, instead of joking about the snow while playing tennis together we probably should have stopped rallying because of the unsafe conditions the snowfall caused.

---The very nice male high school student in Pampa, Texas, whose last name was "Horton", who played tennis with me in Pampa, Texas, during a period when I was a full-time reporter for the "Pampa Daily News" general-circulation newspaper in that Texas Panhandle region city.

--a female Anglo high school student named Lori (Laurie?) who played tennis with me several times on a public tennis court in New Ulm, Minnesota, in the early 1980s.

---Dan Knezek, a tennis partner of mine in Austin during the late 1990s and early 21st Century.

--Mike Kolcek, a tennis partner of mine in El Campo, Texas, during my one-year period in the late 1980s as a resident and newspaper reporter in El Campo.

---Stan Kristianek, a tennis partner of mine in El Campo during my period of residence in El Campo, Texas, in the late 1980s.

---Bob Lockhart, a Vermont native and tennis partner of mine in Boston, Massachusetts, who was an undergraduate student at Boston University during that period of the 1980s.

---Jim Huff, a tennis partner and two-below-practice-football exercise partner of mine during my childhood.

---Lou Ann Huff, a two-below practice-football exercise partner of mine during my childhood.

---Dixie Huff, a two-below practice-football exercise partner of mine during my childhood.

---Joe Eckhardt, a Mankato, Minnesota-based high school student tennis partner of mine in the 1980s during my periods of residence in New Ulm, Minnesota, as a full-time reporter for the New Ulm "Journal" daily newspaper.

---Don Eliason, a New Ulm High School varsity tennis player and tennis partner of mine in the 1980s during my period of residence in New Ulm, Minnesota.

--Paul Williams, a Clark University undergraduate student and married gentleman from Connecticut who played outdoor tennis with me in Worcester, Massachusetts, in the 1980s during a period when I was a full-time reporter and occasional columnist for "Worcester Magazine" in that city.

---Massachusetts Institute of Technology Russian Studies doctoral student and instructor Doug Weiner, a former resident of the Bronx borough of New York City and Harvard University alumnus who jogged with me around the public esplanade in Boston, Massachusetts, on several or more occasions in the 1980s.

--the numerous persons I played tennis with at Holiday Park Tennis Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1979 after meeting them for the first time ever when we each hit against the practice backboard at that City of Fort Lauderdale-owned public tennis center, including Jamie Dwight, a student a Middlebury College in Vermont, who urged me to move to New England as soon as possible and stated that Florida was very lacking in cultural life, in his emphatic opinion.

---The "Broward Times" newspaper reporter in Florida whom I was expected to replace as a region-beat reporter covering Coral Springs and Lauderdale, Clint Williams, who played tennis with me one day in 1979 at a public tennis court in western Broward County,  Florida. Clint Williams had given notice that he planned to move back to his native state of North Carolina in order to pursue a radio-broadcasting career there, he stated.

---Mike Jackson, a classmate of mine and tennis partner of mine during my high school years.

---McDonald Smith Jr., who introduced me to handball and squash, which I played with him and other members of the Austin High Debate squad, possibly including Bill Leach and McDonald's brother Tolly and possibly Meredith John and Chris John, at a University of Texas at Austin athletic facility during my high school years.

---Dave McDonald, a Harvard University Classics Department major and undergraduate student at Harvard who played tennis with me on a public tennis court in Boston, Massachusetts.

---Bell McBride, a female State of Texas-licensed professional real estate agent who played tennis with me several times in the early 21st Century at the outdoor tennis court at the apartment complex in northwest Austin, Wind River Crossing Apartments, where I resided at that time as a rent-paying official tenant.

--Anita Blank, a former Pennsylvanian and McCallum High School tennis instructor for me in Austin, Texas, during a summer-school program I enrolled in at her school, who very kindly agreed to play tennis with me on several occasions after I graduated from Stephen F. Austin High School. One of those occasions occurred on the Intramural courts of UT-Austin, with one women's tennis coach from UT-Austin observing my style as a player and offering her candid observation to Anita, which Anita then helpfully shared with me, that that female tennis coach at UT had noticed a "double-hitch" in my own forehand.

--Michael Gibson, a schoolmate of mine and debate-team partner of mine at Stephen F. Austin High School, who played tennis with me in the 1970s.

---Liz Steyer, a classmate of mine at Stephen F. Austin High School, who played a mixed-doubles tennis match with me one day in which her partner was a schoolmate of hers with the last name of Strange. 

--Cousin Cathy Gardner, who in the 1960s or 1970s introduced me to croquet on the front yard of the home of her parents, Uncle Dwight Gardner and Aunt Jeannie Gardner, near Iowa City, Iowa.

--Angie Way, a civic leader in Big Spring, Texas, and curator of the historical museum there, who participated in a paddle-boating outing with me one day on the river near Big Spring that was a delightful experience for me.

---Bruce Garrison, a very athletic classmate of mine at Eanes Elementary School and resident of Rollingwood, Texas, who encouraged me to get involved in athletics with himself and his friends during that period.

---Sarah Goodfriend, a high school student schoolmate of mine at Stephen F. Austin High School and co-member of the Austin High debate squad, who played tennis with me one day on a public tennis court at the Intramural tennis courts owned and managed by the University of Texas at Austin.

---John Aschenmacher (sp?), a friendly German-American male undergraduate student from Wisconsin at Martin Luther College, a Missouri Synod seminary-school in New Ulm, Minnesota, who played tennis with me several times at the tennis courts of his college campus in New Ulm, Minnesota.

---A male U.S. Postal Service employee in New Ulm, Minnesota, who played tennis with me several times on a public tennis court in New Ulm.

--Peter Kizilos, a Yale University alumnus and University of Minnesota student who played tennis with me on one occasion on a public tennis court on the campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

---Mary Procter (sp?), a permanent resident of Wisconsin who exhibited very fine concentration during rallying with me on a public tennis court of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis in 1982 or 1983. Mary, a very talented ice skater, was a former participant in the Olympic Winter Olympics, and was a personal friend of her former Olympics teammate Eric Heiden of Madison, Wisconsin.

---A married woman, Ingrid Liedman, who played tennis with me several times on a public tennis court in New Ulm, Minnesota.

---A high school student by the last name of "Boyd" who played tennis with me in Pampa, Texas, and who volunteered that he recommended to me one day that I should move to Minneapolis, Minnesota, he said.

---A male gentleman in Big Spring, Texas, who played racquetball with me several times in that west Texas city in the late 1980s or 1990.

---a male community-college instructor with the last name of Hunter, if I remember correctly, who played tennis with me several times  at a private country club in Sweetwater, Texas, during my period of residence in Sweetwater as a full-time reporter and columnists for the "Sweetwater Reporter" daily newspaper.

--Kenny Anderson (right last name?), a former classmate of mine in a summer tennis class at McCallum High School in Austin, Texas, who played tennis with me on an individual basis several times in the 1970s in Austin, Texas.

--My biological mother, Mrs. Phyllis Delores (maiden name Gardner) McMillan, who politely encouraged me to take walks around the block with her in the mid-1980s during a period in which I temporary lived with her and Father in their home in Westlake Hills, Texas. In one of those walks, Mother volunteered to me that "The New York Times does sometimes spend a lot of money to train in or recruit a new staff member for the Times".

--Robert Bode, a classmate of mine at O. Henry Junior High and at Stephen F. Austin High School, who played tennis with me on at least one total occasion on a public tennis court on the grounds of Austin High School.

--Michael McMillan, an older brother of mine who invited me to participate on a very long bicycle trip from our parents' home in Westlake Hills, Texas, to Airport Boulevard at a point with a view of the Mrs. Johnson's Bakery in north Austin, with a return bicycle trip as well. That was the longest bicycle-riding experience I had ever participated in.

---Kent Neal McMillan, my oldest brother, who agreed to compete against myself and my older brother Michael on one total occasion, during a match we played on an isolated public tennis court on the grounds of The University of Texas at Austin.

--Gary Legwold (sp?), a male coworker of mine at "The Physician and Sportsmedicine" McGraw-Hill periodical publication based in Edina, Minnesota, played a singles match against me on one total occasion in the middle of a workday for each of us in a context that was authorized by our work supervisor, Fran Caldwell, with all of our staff members watching that match along the sidelines.