You Don’t Have to Be Good to Belong

A lesson my son taught me on the pickleball court

Photo by Jon Matthews on Unsplash

For his seventh birthday, my son received a pickleball set. Four multi-colored rackets and four balls, all neatly wrapped in a cute carrying case.

He was ecstatic.

Up until this point, pickleball had been a sport we played at the cottage, or when we went to a resort for the weekend. It was a “vacation” sport. We hit the ball back and forth, ran around on the court, and made up the rules as we went.

We didn’t serve properly, we didn’t keep score, we hit the ball back on two bounces — or more—and we had no idea what the actual rules were.

All that changed when we visited a court last weekend.

Saturday morning, I drove my son to a set of pickleball courts that I had looked up earlier. We had never been there, but it had good ratings on Google, was close by, and in a safe area.

So we tried it.

When we arrived, the courts were packed. I saw people inside waiting on the sidelines, so we went in as well.

“We are going to have to wait for our turn,” I told him. “They are really busy right now.”

A lady overheard me and walked over.