I put me in my place, which means I correct myself when I make a mistake. I make lots of mistakes. I try to correct them.

Sometimes I’m not even aware of when I’m wrong. People generously tell me, correct me, put me in my place, which is very much like putting me down because I’ve put myself too much up, self-inflated my opinions, my pronouncements.

I know, I should by myself be able to bring myself down, but there are many times when I need the help of others. Sometimes those others restrain themselves and let me go on and on unchecked, either from politeness or fear of retribution, or some other equally valid reason.

Examples are in order and appropriate to show what I’m talking about.

My wife’s father, Jimmy, who was a baritone of operatic dimension and studying music seriously in the hope of an operatic career, once said to me, “What’s all the fuss about Figaro’s nose?”

I thought he was making a joke, triggered by the Mozart opera’s name, “Le nozze di Figaro.” But I wasn’t sure he was just joking. I thought, “Could it be that he really doesn’t know the English translation, “The Marriage of Figaro?” He wouldn’t have had that problem with the German version, “Figaro’s Hochzeit.”

But then, somewhat smug from what I had recently heard but obviously misunderstood, I pronounced that Russian singers hadn’t learned sight singing, didn’t know or employ solfeggio. I was conflating that with solfege, which I didn’t understand either, just enough to say “Do, re, mi, is a way of learning the scales and sight reading music,” something I still haven’t learned to do, because, I suspect, from innate laziness, and the stubborn resistance to something that’s hard for me to do. Jimmy, who knew more about it than I did, was unsure, registered cautious surprise about my pronouncement, was even incredulous, but held back from the possibility that just maybe I was right and did know something after all. It didn’t take me long to look up the words and realize that I was wrong and had overstated, but didn’t bother to make a public correction, which would have resulted in my own embarrassment. When you know you’re wrong, and suspect that others know it too because it seems so obvious, there’s no need to state the obvious.

All of which is related to my tendency to “rush to judgment.” I’ve confessed it many times, even in my blogs. I’ve humbled myself, but that’s apparently not enough to stop me from pronouncing judgments.

I am aware, when I think about it, that as things change, I change with them. Early on, and this must be about sixty five years ago, maybe more, I was happy to recognize Rod Laver as the GOAT, Greatest Of All Time tennis players, Rocket Rod with the Popeye serving arm, 200 practice serves every day, accurate placement, strong cross court, alert net play, smashing overhead, the perfect complete player, my personal hero. I just missed seeing him in person when the Australia contingent came to compete at UCLA and my high school team was bussed to the audience, a highlight of my early academic career.

Then McEnroe and Connors came on the scene. Connors was scrappy and relentless, but McEnroe had a larger game and worked to eclipse his rival. I was ok with that, until Sampras came along. A Greek at the top at last, satisfying because I had learned by now that the Greeks started everything, and I had married into a Greek family, or at least half Greek. But Sampras was at the top for several years and broke all the records and then retired to rest comfortably on his laurels and didn’t listen to me when I cried, “Not yet! There might be others to come along and challenge your record…”

And they did, and I had to change my prognostications yet again, and we had the rival duo of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal, and I thought Federer was it because he had the most beautifully fluid motion, but Nadal never let down intensity all the way to the end, and then Bear Grylls took Federer on a death-defying hike and wore him out before Wimbledon, and Novak Djokovic came along to elbow in and make it a trio at the tennis top, and seemed to be going for an unstoppable Number One GOAT, but then disqualified himself by refusing vaccination for reasons I still can’t quite understand or agree with, and he threw away his unquestioned first place which now is open for contention, and age is limiting all three.

And I just don’t know anymore, and I know tennis is like life, there’s always something new to come along and it’s not over ‘til it’s over, and for me to keep being right, I have to keep revising, and admitting to be right that I was previously and supplantedly wrong.

So I put myself in my place every tennis year when the tournaments come along to open my eyes.

And so yes, I have to correct myself, continually if not constantly. Like the blog I wrote about George London. I seemed to remember that his career ended because of a ruptured diaphragm, and I wrote that down, but then I looked it up to find it was a paralyzed vocal cord, and I had to change what I wrote.

If I were paranoid, I’d probably have to go back over everything I ever wrote and fact check it. But if I were that paranoid, I’d fact check the fact checkers, because other people make mistakes the way I do, and misremember things, and we all know how history keeps being rewritten.

So, though I don’t like it and am annoyed when someone has to correct me to put me in my place, I keep trying to correct myself so they won’t have to.