We recently celebrated my daughter’s 16th birthday, and one of her requests was to get her ears pierced. I got mine done when I was five, but I actually stopped wearing earrings after high school and just never picked the habit back up…so I thought, “Oh, I’ll go through my jewelry box” on her birthday and pull out any pairs I still had lying around to pass along to her. Well, while I was digging, I found some other jewelry I had put in there when the kids were small and grabby, LOL, including…the diamond tennis bracelet that my husband gave me on our wedding day. I was a bit appalled at myself for having left this beautiful gift hidden in the bottom of my jewelry box drawer for YEARS! I got it out and put it on and delivered the earrings to my daughter, who then asked (of course) “Why is it called a tennis bracelet?”
I had no idea, so looked it up.
As it turns out, the phrase is quite new. It all started with a tennis player named Chris Evert, who played professionally from 1972 – 1989. She wore a diamond in-line bracelet created by George Bedewi, not even taking it off for matches. In one heated match, the bracelet broke–and they actually halted the game to recover it. This put both the bracelet design and the jeweler who created it into the spotlight and brought instant fame to this new bracelet of design…which came to be termed the “tennis” bracelet because of the tennis match that gave it such attention.
I’m quite happy to have rediscovered mine and have it on even as I type this. 😉 Do you like tennis bracelets, diamond or otherwise, or do you prefer another design?
Roseanna M. White is a bestselling, Christy Award winning author who has long claimed that words are the air she breathes. When not writing fiction, she’s homeschooling her two kids, editing, designing book covers, and pretending her house will clean itself. Roseanna is the author of a slew of historical novels that span several continents and thousands of years. Spies and war and mayhem always seem to find their way into her books…to offset her real life, which is blessedly ordinary.
I most certainly do have a tennis bracelet. It was my 40th birthday present to myself, and I do wear it! But here’s another story. For my Sweet 16, my parents gifted me with a beautiful aquamarine birthstone ring. I wore it often until pregnancies and weight gain meant it no longer fit. Then I lost it. I spent 10 years racking my brain wondering how the heck I could have misplaced something so special, even feeling sick to my stomach at times. We replaced my dresser, and no. The cat hadn’t knocked it under there, either. I gave up. Then one day recently I decided to sort through a small box of random junk from my daughter’s childhood. A couple of books, a bag of state quarters, half-used crayons, plastic beads, bubblegum machine toys, and something small and silver and light blue buried in dust at the bottom – my long-lost ring! When asked, all my daughter could admit to was “maybe” trying it on at some point. Within days, I had it resized, and I am now able to enjoy wearing it once again, just as you are again enjoying your bracelet. No doubt we both will continue to treasure those things lost, and then found.
Oh, I love that, Janice! So glad you found your precious ring and are able to enjoy it!! (And man, things turn up in the strangest places sometimes, don’t they? LOL.)