The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is a 2005 film most men would choose to watch only if their sole alternative entertainment option was The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 (2008). Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002) might also come up short in a head-to-head matchup, but it’s iffy.
I know people, all women, who’ve seen The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and I’ve heard bits about the story, but let’s face it: No plot could measure up to that admittedly intriguing title.
If I were to create a story inspired by the title alone, it would involve a pair of self-aware pants and the secret, centuries-old women’s order tasked with keeping it secure. One day, someone would be a little lax on guard duty, and the pants would slip out from their confines and emerge to explore the world (escapes would be easier if you’re mostly flat). From that point, the narrative might go the fish-out-of-water comedy route, as the curious, naïve pants learn about the world, delightfully entertaining the humans who watch them do so; or it could follow a monster movie template, as the sacred pantaloons rebel against efforts to return them to their former sanctuary-prison, resulting in the rage-fueled destruction of entire cities until a weakness is found. (A stuck zipper? A lost button? Some other embarrassing wardrobe malfunction?) Whether comedy, action or a combination of both, the result would undoubtedly prove more popular than the original with the male demographic.
My less exciting but entirely true story does give some male representation to the proceedings. It begins with the recent summer rental of a house near Newport, Rhode Island. Twelve family members, some with very different interests, would occupy it for several days. In the month or two before, we all looked at the town’s offerings, and it seemed like a perfect vacation spot, with something everyone would like, even if they spent the rest of the time suffering through everyone else’s choices.
My wife’s main interest was touring the Newport Mansions, those architectural testaments to the wealth and excess of the Gilded Age; my son was interested in the Newport area’s two auto museums, which were impressive even to a non-car enthusiast like me. We took a boat ride around the harbor and admired the multimillion-dollar yachts, those nautical testaments to the wealth and excess of the modern age. We also visited a public beach at East Matunuck. It was free, a welcome novelty compared with most New Jersey beaches, but you did have to pay for parking and suffer the smell of decomposing red and brown seaweed, which releases a potent “rotten egg” odor due to hydrogen sulfide. I’ll take a long walk to the ocean at Wildwood Crest any day.
The National Museum of American Illustration in Newport would have been a top attraction for me, but it’s been closed to the public since 2020. “Online exhibitions” are offered on the museum website, but at this point the entire endeavor seems like a convenient tax dodge, a way to classify your mansion as a tax-exempt museum and house your collection inside it while never actually allowing the common folk inside to see the art.
Also on my Newport to-do list was a visit to the International Tennis Hall of Fame. The museum was a bit underwhelming. I would have loved to see videos of the top 10 points won by various players or a short film summarizing the sport’s greatest matches and rivalries. But I was excited to actually play tennis on a grass court, which I’d never done.
It’s not cheap to rent a grass tennis court at the Tennis Hall of Fame, even for an hour, but I decided this might be my one and only opportunity. After checking, it seems there are more public grass courts in the U.S. than I thought, but the closest ones are in Newport and East Hampton, New York. Interestingly, the largest grass-court facility in the U.S. is at a golf resort in Wisconsin, while a court modeled on Wimbledon’s Centre Court is available to the public with a visit to the Kuhn Family Farm in Iowa.
Nonmembers of the Hall of Fame Tennis Club, aka the riffraff, are only allowed to reserve slots starting at 11:30 a.m., so I booked that time and hoped the weather would cooperate. When I called a week before our reservation to confirm a few things, I was told that players were required to wear “tennis whites,” which consisted of a white shirt and white shorts, at minimum. The representative I spoke to was careful to clarify that this was not a “whites-only” tennis club, which at first sounded like an equal-opportunity statement presented to avoid trouble with the NAACP. Apparently, she meant it mainly as a statement of the club’s clothing policy: While most members chose to also wear a white tennis visor or hat, sneakers, socks and hats were exempted from the white-only rule.
I owned a white Dri-FIT shirt, but no white pants, so I ordered a cheap pair from Amazon; my daughter did the same for a tennis skirt. It irritated me that I was being forced to spend even more money on this tennis experience, but at this point, $10 here or there was an afterthought.
I’ve always thought it strange that tennis is, in many circles, considered a rich person’s sport. In my experience, a free public hard court, a $25 racket and a few old tennis balls are all you really need. If there are cracks in the court or the ball doesn’t bounce perfectly, deal with it! I’d love to see pros matched up on crumbling courts, with windy weather, cheap rackets and a mix of new and dead balls. It would test their ability to adapt under less-than-ideal conditions and serve as a more entertaining alternative than watching them compete in the sheltered environment of most tennis tournaments.
Just a day before we left for Newport, my son commented that he’d like to play tennis there. He hadn’t expressed any interest until then, and though it was a last-minute inconvenience, I didn’t want to discourage him. He had a white shirt, but no white shorts. I figured we’d buy a pair at a Walmart in Newport or at the Hall of Fame Pro Shop.
The morning of our reservation, we piled into the minivan and headed out. The International Tennis Hall of Fame is located in downtown Newport, which is not ideal for auto travel. Traffic was heavy, and the nearest Walmart was more than 20 minutes away and in the wrong direction, so we would take our chances with the Pro Shop.
Everything in Newport is expensive, including the parking. Some lots charge $20 per hour, with daily maximums around $60. Luckily, there’s a CVS across from the Hall of Fame that validates parking, providing two hours free with any purchase from the store.
Walking into the Hall of Fame’s Pro Shop, we checked in for our court time, and I asked a salesperson where one might find the cheapest white shorts in the store. She led us to a nice pair that cost $85, a large percentage more than I was willing to spend.
I went back to the front desk and decided to be frank with the manager, because being Pete wasn’t getting me anywhere. I explained the situation and asked if my son and I could use the changing rooms to exchange pants halfway through the hour. That way, we could each have half an hour playing against my daughter.
I’m guessing it’s not a common request because he seemed a bit taken aback. But ever the professional, he agreed this was something that did not violate any rules. I hadn’t, after all, suggested playing in tighty-whities.
I started the hour, armed with several slightly worn tennis balls. The ball tends to skid on a grass court, which keeps it low and makes its movements less predictable than on a hard court. Halfway through, my son and I met in the locker room. I put on another pair of shorts I’d brought with me and gave him the white ones to wear. Having sweated in them for 30 minutes on a hot, humid day, I think I got the better of that deal.
He played for the rest of the time, pretty well for someone who doesn’t do it regularly, and the legend of the Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants was born.
In The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, the pants travel around the world, and the characters learn about true friendship. Our pants traveled about 250 miles by car, and no life lessons were learned, other than “cheap will find a way.” It may not be the most compelling tale, but maybe there’s some modest entertainment value to be found. After all, it kept you reading this long, didn’t it? And when Hollywood comes knocking and the movie rights to The Brotherhood of the Traveling Pants are sold for millions, maybe I’ll go back and splurge on that $85 pair of shorts.
Peter Dabbene’s website is www.peterdabbene.com, and his previous Hamilton Post columns can be read at centraljersey.media. His poetry/photo book, “The Lotus Eater (and Other Poems),” is available through Amazon.com for $20 in print or $10 as an ebook.
