A Fencer in the Family

What's the point of having grandchildren if you can't brag about them?

Our 15-year-old granddaughter with a 4.0 grade point average, her affinity for chess and Scrabble, and her love for the unique sport of fencing makes it easy.

Hannah started to fence because her parents wanted her and her siblings to participate in a sport as an antidote to iPods and video games. They hoped that fencing for Hannah might be the physical equivalent of chess, and they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Her collection of medals is impressive.

It's not hard to watch a fencing match. Unlike other contact

sports, the participants seem to be well protected and the weapons fairly benign.

This is in sharp contrast to sports like football or rugby (which my son plays) in which injuries occur on an ongoing basis. (I've watched exactly two rugby games. During the second, I was actually close enough to hear bones crunching and see a player carried off the field. It was a long time ago and I haven't watched a rugby game since.)

The ranking of fencing competitions is way beyond me but I know that recently in Atlanta, Hannah came in sixth out of a group of 112 contestants. The top eight players are considered "ranked" and receive medals.

She's also brought home medals from such distant places as Montreal and could have competed in Budapest, Hungary but chose not to do so.

For people like me who are children of immigrant parents, the world of competitive sports is a new and unfamiliar one. Our extracurricular activities consisted of scholastic tutoring and music lessons: lots of activity for the mind, almost none for the body.

I remember that for some unfathomable reason all the girls got piano lessons and all the boys violin lessons. For exercise, we walked to school and to the local library.

Fast forward to today, when the child who is not in Little League, soccer, gymnastics or some other sport is a deprived child indeed.

It's a brave new world and we are probably the better for it.

Who would have dreamed that we would have-of all things-a fencing champion in the family? We don't live in Lake Woebegone, but our grandchildren are certainly all above average.

Contact Dina Adler at dinaadler@yahoo.com.