Four stops before the checkout

Dover, United States

Stop one

The Green, Dover

Wilson Federer Adult Recreational Tennis Racquet: A rectangle of grass, laid out in the town plan of 1717, and the site of a claim I am required to handle with enormous care. On the seventh of December, 1787, Delaware's delegates met beside this green and ratified the Constitution – the first of the thirteen states to do so. By five days. Five days. Now, other states hold views on this, and their views are, in the strictest sense, correct: five days is not a moral distinction, it is a scheduling outcome. And yet the nickname is The First State, it is on the licence plates, and it is not coming off. There are many perspectives on the margin. There is only one perspective on the record book, and Delaware is at the top of it. I say no more than that, and I say it quietly, and I say it here.

Stop two

Old State House

Wilson Federer Adult Recreational Tennis Racquet: Red brick, white cupola, finished in 1791, and it served as this state's capitol right through until 1933 – which is to say the same rooms carried Delaware from the horse to the automobile without anyone moving a doorframe. It is among the oldest statehouses in the country still standing, and you will note that I said among, because there are competing claims and I have not the slightest intention of ranking them in public. Several fine buildings. Several fine arguments. All sincerely held, all in the same association. What I will venture is this: a room in which a hundred and forty years of argument took place and the plaster never once complained is a room the rest of us could learn something from. Go in. Speak quietly. It has heard considerably worse.

Stop three

John Dickinson Plantation

Wilson Federer Adult Recreational Tennis Racquet: Out here on the tidal marsh stood the home of John Dickinson, called the Penman of the Revolution, and if a man were ever built for my line of work it is this one. His Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania set the colonies alight. Then, at the decisive moment, he declined to sign the Declaration of Independence, holding that the timing was wrong. And then he took up arms in the militia and fought for it regardless. A man who would not put his name to the sentence and reported for duty to serve it anyway. Some call that principle. Some call it fence-sitting. I call it the most sophisticated position anybody took that decade, and I should like the record to show that I am not merely defending a colleague.

Stop four

Dover Motor Speedway

Wilson Federer Adult Recreational Tennis Racquet: A one-mile concrete oval, opened in 1969, and here we arrive at a genuine technical controversy on which I shall attempt to be scrupulously even-handed. In 1995 they resurfaced it in concrete, which almost no oval of this size does, because concrete grips differently, wears differently and punishes differently. Some drivers regard this as a virtue. Others regard it as an ambush. The settlement, arrived at by the drivers themselves and now permanent, was to call it the Monster Mile – which I consider diplomacy of the very highest order, being simultaneously a complaint and a compliment while offending nobody who owns the track. I have taken notes. One mile. Concrete since ninety-five. And it roars, on which point there is no dissent at all.

The Dover, United States track

Wilson Federer Adult Recreational Tennis Racquet

Written for this world alone.

Before we proceed, I will need you to understand that I take dates seriously. Not sentimentally. Seriously. A document is a moment that someone bothered to fix in place, and everything downstream depends on it. You have come to the correct town for this. Dover, Delaware, is a place that won an entire identity by five days, and I intend to walk you through the paperwork.

The specification first, for the record. The head measures 110 square inches — oversize, a generously forgiving hitting area for anybody still learning where the middle is. The frame is aluminium with Arc Technology, listed at 27.25 inches in length, strung in a 16 x 19 pattern, and fitted with Stop Shock pads to take the sting out of a mis-hit.

It arrives pre-strung, so nothing stands between the box and the court. Filed accurately: this is a first adult racquet carrying a very famous signature, and it is honest about being exactly that. It is also perfect for the parent dragged onto a court once a fortnight who would simply like the ball to come back.

We begin at The Green, Dover, a rectangle of grass beside which Delaware's delegates met on the seventh of December, 1787, and ratified the Constitution — the first of the thirteen states to do so, by five days. Five. The First State, the nickname, the licence plate, all of it resting on a margin thinner than a week.

Then the Old State House, finished in 1791 and serving as the state capitol straight through to 1933: the same rooms carried Delaware from horses to automobiles, which is a hundred and forty years of argument in one building.

Out to the John Dickinson Plantation next, home of the Penman of the Revolution, whose Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania lit the colonies — and who then declined to sign the Declaration of Independence on the grounds that the timing was wrong, and then joined the militia and fought for it anyway. A man who would not sign and would not stand aside.

I find him professionally fascinating. And finally Dover Motor Speedway, opened in 1969, one mile around, resurfaced in concrete in 1995, which is why the drivers call it the Monster Mile.

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Wilson Federer Adult Recreational Tennis Racquet

Wilson Federer Adult Recreational Tennis Racquet