Pickleball Comes to Mayne Island

One of the highlights of my time in Tucson this past April was playing pickleball with Lorne and the other retired guys every morning between 8:30 and 11:30 AM.  So, I have been waiting for the opportunity to have someone to play it with since coming home.

But where could we play?
And what could we use for a net?
I had picked up a starter package in Tucson with two wiffle balls and two paddles.
Shelby has ordered online an official pickleball net for Father's Day...
But I was anxious to not miss the chance to play while the guys were home for the weekend.
So, I went to my scrap pile and found some weathered half-inch plywood from which I could make a couple more paddles so that we could play doubles right away.

So we just took a short rope and and tied one end to the rear door handle of our car... which just happened to be about 36 inches high... and the other end we put thru the rear door and closed the door on it at the same height.

Soon Seth and I were batting the ball back and forth... having a great time.

I don't have a picture of the next stage of development, which was adding the masking tape to the pavement to create the serving zone and the rear limit line.  This was important so we could play a game and know if our serves were good or our shots were too long.

In no time at all we were in the throws of a serious game of pickleball.

Shelby came out and saw us having such a good time with next to nothing for equipment and said,
"Plywood for homemade paddles... 50 cents.
Rope for net... 75 cents.
Whiffleball... 90 cents.
Cars to hold up the rope... eighty thousand dollars."

Yes... and I might add, "A grandson to play pickleball with... Priceless!"

On the U.S. Memorial Day Seth and I invited Shelby and Alan to join us in a match at our Mayne Island Tennis courts.  With a new roll of green masking tape and a measuring tape we very quickly laid out an official pickleball lines and were into some serious competition.

We played hard for a couple of hours.  Our only problem was we didn't remember to bring water.  So I volunteered to go and get some.  As I was turning the car onto the street I noticed the neighbour watering her newly planted grass... so I backed up and asked if that water was good for drinking.

She said it was great water for drinking and invited us to have a drink from the hose.

As we were driving home we were wondering how best to find out if there were other people on Mayne Island who might like to play pickleball.  That will be my next challenge.