Thursday, October 17, 2024 (Court Day #729)

Today was the 35th anniversary of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, which had its epicenter just several miles from downtown Santa Cruz. It was a magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale. It damaged at least hundreds, and probably thousands, of buildings in Santa Cruz alone, including dozens that had to be completely demolished. (Chimneys cracked at the roofline were quite common. My parents’ home was a victim of that too.) The event had a major impact on the character of our downtown business district. Miraculously, only three people died, though many more were injured. It’s something I know I will never forget.

Sample Paddle

I was informed by email today that there’s a sample paddle on its way to me from Aireo. It’s another paddle that I can share with my students. 

Scotts Valley

As I arrived in Scotts Valley just about 7 p.m., the sky was a dark blue gray but with a glimmer of amber stretched along the western horizon. By the time the time change hits next month, it’ll be completely dark even before I get to the courts.

Michelle & Jason

My first game tonight was with Michelle as my partner. Michelle is the wife of Jason Cohen, who is a bookstore manager and an avid painter. Jason used to be my daughter’s boss before she went off to medical school. Since then, he changed jobs from that downtown retail store to the university bookstore.

Jason was at the other end of the courts in the game with some other people. I had met Michelle a couple of times before at art events. They had mentioned that they sometimes play pickleball, but I’d never bumped into them at the courts before.

Michelle and I played against Tim H. and Wendy.

So we had me, who is a 4.0 player, partnered with Michelle, who is a 3.0 player against Wendy who is a 3.5 and Tim who is approaching a 4.5 level. You can probably guess, Michelle and I lost, and the result was never in question. Still, a fun game.

Next Game

Next game I played was Tim H. and Minori against her boyfriend David L. and myself. It started out with David and I losing a fair margin, but then we started coming back and made a game of it. We still lost, at least it was more respectable. Midway through that game, I was disgusted with my play and part of me wanted to simply stop and go home. But I did start to play gradually better.

Jordan

Jordan was just leaving as I got there. He was pretty sweaty and apparently tired as well. Too bad, he’s always fun to play with and against.

Gabe, Aaron, Dr. David

The next game was Dr. Dave and myself against big lefty Aaron Bartley and Gabe. We played a couple of games in this configuration and I’m pretty sure Dave and I lost both games. Gabe was playing pretty well and Dave wasn’t.

Gabe was pretty funny. I was mixing up my serves, sometimes targeting a backhand, hitting short and angled, and I put some pretty strong top spin on some of them. There is a couple of times Gabe audibly blurted out something to the effect of “wow!” after I hit a particularly good serve. All three of my courtmates were complimenting me after the second game about the speed of my hands. Always nice to hear.

On the downside, there were at least three or four shots tonight—maybe even half a dozen—where I wasn’t covering the middle well enough and I wasn’t close enough to the side of the court with the ball. Yep. There’s a difference between knowing what to do and actually executing it. 

Surprise! Paddle!

They had only this morning said the paddle had shipped, but it was waiting for me when I got home from playing.

The paddle arrived with a paddle cover, overgrip, and an assortment of pamphlets explaining the rules and the features of the paddle. The paddle has a very grippy surface. Impressive.

Number of days on a court: 729
Number of total hours: 2,987
Number of paid coaching hours: 84.5

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