Prelude

It was evening.

She was a bit sweaty.

I was a bit sweaty.

We were both a little out of breath from the exertion.

Then I heard something every man likes to hear from a woman.

“Andrew, you are amazing!”

Yes, I returned a ball over the net no one had expect me to. Laura exclaimed, “I had already relaxed!” (Thinking she had hit a winner.) I got a few of those back over tonight.

Thursday, May 25, 2017. (Court Day #29)

My sister asked me to pick up my niece and nephew from a class that ended at 6:30, the time when pickleball started at Skypark in Scotts Valley. So, I got to the courts a few minutes before 7 p.m. Maree was there, she smiled and said, “You’re late!” I gave my explanation on my way to park my backpack along the fence with the others near the bench. I was the odd man out, so I have to wait about five minutes before I could join a game. (Deja vu.)

I played my first game with Ted against Bruce and his wife Janet. It was a fairly even game.

Jenny

I played a number of games with Laura, her husband Terry—I had no idea they were married—and their daughter Jenny, whom I’d never seen. Jenny was wearing a T-shirt bearing a phone number: 867-5309. Now, anyone familiar with ’80s pop music will recognize that number as the title of a very popular song by Tommy Tutone, “867-5309/Jenny”:

“Jenny I’ve got your number

I need to make you mine

Jenny don’t change your number

Eight six seven five three oh nine”

I like Jenny already. I remember decades ago, hearing that a family in the San Jose area had that phone number and got so sick of people calling up and asking for “Jenny” that they changed their number!

Anyway, Jenny is not a bad player. Not as good as her mom, but with more playing time could become a force.

Tick tick, tick. Silence.

The last game of the night was Eric and me against Laura and her husband Terry. Eric and I had been comfortably leading but Laura had a serving run like I had earlier in the game. They went up 10-9. I was on the left, Eric on the right. Laura hit a shot as I approached the net. Time stopped. “Just get it over the net. Don’t try to drop it close. Be safe.” I hit the ball back about 2 to 3 feet past the kitchen line. The ball was over. The point could continue.

I’m going to draw from a seemingly unrelated experience. Bagpipe competition. Competing pipers are graded by their regional association, usually 4, 3, 2, 1, Professional. (Sometimes, you’ll see a grade 5 competition, but those are not very common.) Most competing pipers, maybe as many as three-quarters, at any given time are grade 4 pipers. Most competing pipers never make it out of grade 4. I made it to grade 3 before “overuse syndrome” with my hands forced me to stop competing and drop out of my pipe band. Back to my point. (Yes, it’ll make sense in a second.) Unlike higher grades, in grade 4 competition, in most smaller competitions and even some larger ones, it’s not about perfect expression or tuning. It’s about simply hitting all the right notes and playing them cleanly. (The musical fingering for bagpipes is more complex than a casual observer might think. Pipers have to squeeze in a lot of quick embellishment notes. A test performed in the U.K. found pipers to have the quickest fingers of any musician group—faster than pianists, flautists, any number of others.) The grade 4 winning piper is often the one who makes the least mistakes. And why do I mention this? The same applies for most typical pickleball games. The team/player who makes the least amount of mistakes wins.

Back to the game. I hit the ball 2 to 3 feet past the kitchen line when I could have hit it into the net like so many times before. What happened? Laura hit it into the net instead and we won the point. I didn’t need to hit a winner. I just didn’t need to hit a loser.

My great shots are still all too often accompanied by embarrassing shots. But at least there are some great shots that amaze people. That’s at least promising.

Oh, and Eric and I did pull out a win. Despite our errors. We just made less of them!

Play wrapped up and I was in my car at 9:07 to head home for a late dinner!
Number of days on a court: 29
Number of total hours: 83

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