Autographed Ping Pong Balls

Sri Lanka, 1997

When my brother Jordan and I were kids, our dad set up a ping pong table in our downstairs recreation room. It barely fit, and we’d often collide with the walls behind us as we hustled to return each other’s serves, slams, and slices. We played for hours every day. I took one rubber-nubbed paddle and spray painted it gold. This newly minted “Golden Paddle” went to the victor of our matches: a bitterly contested trophy.

I play some ping pong as an adult, though not as well. Still, I never turn down a game.

During each of my three visits to Sri Lanka—in 1984 and 1997 on writing assignments, and in 2005 as a member of a tsunami relief team—my friend Arthur Clarke invited me to the Otter Club, a recreational compound not far from his home in Colombo. I’d first met the author and futurist when I was 16, after he responded to a fan letter I’d written him. We remained friends until his death in 2008. Clarke had a fierce passion for ping pong. We played at the Otter Club’s indoor tables, out of the brutal equatorial sun.

He beat me consistently during my first visit, and throughout my second, even though he was steadying himself with a cane. He was an infuriating opponent, gloating gleefully throughout each game and chortling over every victory.

Clarke had suffered from polio as a child, and in his later years developed post-polio syndrome. When I visited Sri Lanka in 2005, after the Indian Ocean tsunami, he was in and out of a wheelchair. But he challenged me again, rising unsteadily and gripping the edge of the ping pong table with his free hand as he played.

I managed to win that match.

I’m not proud of what I did next: I asked Clarke to sign the balls we’d used, as material proof that I’d finally beaten him. A dubious prize, compared to the Golden Paddle.