Most of you know my story. I started playing pickleball about four years ago at Woodside Bible Church in Troy, Michigan. For the last two years, I have made Middletown, Ohio my home courts. And every winter for the last couple of years while visiting my parents while they vacationed in Florida, I tried to get my dad to transition from tennis to pickleball… and every year he resisted. Sure, he’d humor me — and after our morning tennis session I would put a pickleball paddle in his hand and we would hit the hard, plastic, perforated ball for all of about 5 minutes… and then the next day we would do it all over again — with Dad once again preferring the tennis racket over the pickleball paddle.
Saturday Morning Phone Call in April
And then — seemingly out of nowhere — while I was talking to my Mom and Dad on one of our regular Saturday morning phone calls, they told me that they thought “the pickleball era was about to begin.” The previous week they had gone to their local senior center and played for about an hour — an hour! Both of them — Dad and Mom! And since then, they have been playing most Wednesday and Fridays. In between on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays they go to their exercise class. And did I mention, they’re 84 years old! Awesome!
Playing with the Newbies on the New Courts in Holland, Michigan
Last Saturday we attended a wedding in metro Detroit — and on the Wednesday prior we made a slight detour and headed to west Michigan to visit my Mom and Dad. So last week I got to play with them. They had just opened 8 new courts in Holland, Michigan (Moran Park), and me, my wife, my Mom and my Dad played. It was tons of fun — laughter, exercise, catching up and competition. And they were good! And I loved it!
A Pickleball Family
So now most of my family plays. Mom and Dad were a couple of the last “hold-outs.” Shown below is video of me, Dad and my brother and his wife playing at Sandy Pines (obviously, not on the new courts in Holland). Spoiler alert: The good guys win! 🙂 See you on the courts!
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