HOSTING AT PICKLEBALL, AND THE WORLD [Sa, 1-18-20]

I like to walk outside, but some days it is rainy, or just too cold, so I go to the mall. As I walked there this morning, a couple of social workers came in with a group of mentally and physically challenged adults. It reminded me of playing pickleball in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in winter.

The UP is sparsely settled. Towns are small and far between. Winters are thirteen months long every year. A warm day is anything above single digits, Fahrenheit. There isn’t much to do. And one day, as our motley crew of retirees and widows and nurses and licensed marijuana growers played pickleball in the gym of The Covenant Church, in Norway, ten miles east of Iron Mountain, a couple of social workers brought in a short-bus load of mentally and physically challenged people to watch.

At first, we had no idea who they were or why they had come. Apparently, their social workers had reached a desperation point and just loaded them up and went looking for something to do.

Anyone who wanted to play pickleball was welcome at our soiree, so we had new folks show up from time to time, but not a whole lot at one time, and none of these folks looked like they’d be very good at trying to hit an erratic ball with a big paddle. They just stood along the wall and stared.

I was on the court, playing with Mary against a duo of Debbie and Lee. Mary and I were a good duo. There was a famous game where Mary and I were down 14 to 1 and I said, “Now, we’ve got them where we want them, Mary.” She looked uncertain, as people often do at my pronouncements, but we actually scored the next 15 points and won. So, we were not about to stop playing just because some strangers had come in. The other players, sitting against the other wall, waiting their turn, stared back at the newcomers. Except for Vicky.

Vicky is one of those women who is a hostess even in someone else’s house, or town, or church, or gym. She went over to the newcomers, learned why they were there, sympathized with the desperate social workers, learned everyone’s name, got them chairs, and told us players that we needed to put on a good show because these folks had come 35 miles, from a different time zone, even, to watch us play.

We did a pretty good presentation. Our audience cheered whenever the ball went a long way, the farther the better, regardless of whether it was any place close to the court. They booed when I hit a shot beyond Vicky’s reach, the sixty-year old with the wild ponytail now being Miss America in their eyes. When they left, they waved, except that each one said goodbye personally to Vicky.

As I said, there isn’t much to do in the UP in winter, if you can’t ski or skate. Our new friends kept coming back to watch, and cheer for one of the players. You know which one.

Each of us decides whether we shall be a guest or a host in this world.

John Robert McFarland