Monday, May 31, 2021 (Court Day #380)

With my wife wanted me to install a gopher trap this morning, I arrived at Brommer Park about 9:15 to sunny skies and busy courts.

Left to right: Dale, his wife Sandra, Tish (far court), Juls, Jennifer W., Jason, Dean, and player.
Left to right: Steve, Tom S., Tristan (far) partnered with Imran, Alan C., Carl, and Ted B.

The most comical moment today was Alan finally testing out my Players Rogue 2 paddle that he’s been wanting to try, while I tried his. We both hated them and switched back to our own paddles then went on to come from behind and win against Leslie and Juls. What didn’t I like about Alan’s paddle? Weight, weight distribution (longer paddle), too much bounce (more power, less control). Could I get used to it? Sure, just as I’m sure he’d get used to mine.

I played through a variety of games over the course of the morning.

A familiar man arrived as little after noon. “Hi, Andrew.” Shoot. I’ve obviously met him but I couldn’t recall his name nor the circumstances. We got into a game and he mentioned to the others that today was his third day out. His name was Doug. Ah. Ding, ding! I’d taken him from sitting on the wall to the first time on a pickleball court warming up here 8 days ago on Sunday.

And it turns out Paul was the name of the man who I thought was coaching yesterday. He was merely introducing his daughter and fiancé to pickleball. He was visiting from somewhere but grew up here and may be moving permanently back. Paul is a good intermediate player.

I ended up playing with Tony against Paul and Doug. Tony, a tall, fit man whom I’d never seen before. He was sporting a Cabrillo College basketball polo shirt. He said he’d been playing for about 7 months. I looked him up and found this:
https://athletics.cabrillo.edu/sports/mbkb/2019-20/releases/20200302idzh21

After a game, Tony said, “If you are playing left-handed, you must be pretty good right-handed.” I said, “I’m a solid 3.5 playing right-handed.” He looked at me somewhat blanky. Later, I figured that he probably didn’t have any reference for what that meant. Regardless, very pleasant fellow. We talked him into two more games after he said he should go home to keep his wife happy.

Doug, as I anticipated after I played with him the first time, is doing really well for his third time out. Sure, there are some strategy things that I shared with him after our last game—being patient and waiting for an attackable shot, for one.

At 1:27 p.m., it was time to head home and the “honey do” list!

Number of days on a court: 380
Number of total hours: 1,081

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