It doesn’t bounce like a tennis ball.

I was supposed to see a legendary musician in concert, one whom I’ve never seen, who may not tour again, but I couldn’t pass up Lesley’s 60th birthday party at the Santa Monica Pickleball Center. There was going to be instruction and everything!

But I wouldn’t know almost anybody.

This is a regular experience when you are young, going where you don’t know anybody. It’s expected. Like the first day of summer camp, the first day of college. Then again, except for a few, nobody knows anybody else there either, whereas at this party…

Was my social anxiety going to hold me back?

NO!

So… It looks simple, and it is. But there’s a learning curve, and for me it was all about the ball, and its bounce, or lack thereof.

I consider myself a pretty good athlete, winning the athlete of the year at Camp Laurelwood was one of the highlights of my life, but when was the last time I tried something completely new? And, by the way, I’m not that good of a tennis player, never was. Learned at that aforementioned camp, and there was the boom in the seventies, but I was not a member of a country club, I never got a leg up, I was never good, even though I played, we all played. And the skills are transferable, right?

Well, not exactly.

So the instructor had us all line up, we were going to practice serving the ball. You can do it one of two ways, you can either drop it and then hit it after the bounce, or drop it and hit in the air, volleyball style, albeit underhand. Looks simple, right? I was TERRIBLE! Man, it’s so frustrating. Like the kid you put in right field, the one you pick last, who’s got no ability whatsoever. I was dribbling it into the net, if it went that far. The teacher was dealing with me like I was completely inept. I could hit the ball on the fly, but it seemed the pros dropped it and then hit it, and I just couldn’t do this.

So I practiced. And when everybody went off to eat pizza and chips, I continued to practice. That’s when it occurred to me, I dropped the ball and I expected it to come right back up, like a tennis ball. Hell, I’ve been playing with tennis balls my entire life, throwing against the wall, playing baseball, playing catch, never mind playing tennis. The bounce of the ball is ingrained in my DNA. But that’s not the way a pickle ball bounces. In truth, it barely bounces at all, and you’ve got to prepare for this.

I finally got it right. And it felt so good. I knew my talent was in there somewhere, I knew I wasn’t DOA, I knew I could do it.

And then it came to playing.

They split the group into two, those who needed remedial lessons and those who could play by themselves. I went with the group who could play by themselves, there were four of us, on the court. And the funny thing is the worst player, this woman, was a stickler for the rules, she was the one keeping score, the rest of us didn’t really care.

And this was when I learned even more about the ball. If she served it, with little oomph, it was going to cross the net, if it did at all, and die. If I was standing in the back of the court, waiting for it to reach me, it didn’t.

But if the guy on her side served, it was different. It was easier to judge the bounce, maybe because it bounced right in front of me.

But then that guy was replaced by a guy with a wimpy serve and he was dropping them like crazy. I had to move closer to the net. And then the woman was replaced by someone better with a better attitude, that it was all about fun.

And the guy on my side, he was taking it seriously. Thank god, he was having some of the same problems I was having, with the bounce, I didn’t want to be the weak link.

And I’m loving playing, and then my brain starts firing…how am I going to feel tomorrow? At my age running around, clomping on the court… But I couldn’t stop, I was having too good a time.

But after an hour and a half or so, when my shirt was inundated with sweat, I took a break, my game was falling apart, I needed sustenance. And I told myself I wasn’t going to eat the pizza, the heart doctor said to go light on the carbs, but I couldn’t resist, I was just too hungry. And the pizza tasted so good! Having worked out, you know how good food feels after that, and you feel good about yourself.

And after some game where we all tried to hit the ball in a hat, most people continued to kibbitz, or gave up. But there was this one woman, who was unskilled and having a hard time getting it, she was on the court asking questions of the instructors, as if this game could be conquered intellectually. But in truth, you just had to play.

But the guy she was playing with, he was the good time sort. He knew it wasn’t about winning, it was about playing. After all, we weren’t champs.

And I took a blank space on the other side of the court with the instructor. I must say, he could reach balls I couldn’t. And there was one hit…I found myself reaching, extending, on one foot…and I realized that’s how you get hurt. Yes, I was scared off pickleball by that story in the “New York Times” last summer, the one about all the injuries, I didn’t want to sacrifice my ski season: https://tinyurl.com/mt3fwfbr

Then again, I don’t want to be one of those people who’s afraid to experience sport because of the potential for injuries, then you’re not living. It’s all about playing, participating. Believe me, on the court I wasn’t thinking about politics, I wasn’t thinking about anything but the game.

And the way it works is after the ball goes over the net, on the serve, you go forward. Because of the short bounce. And if you can smack it then…

We’d had some good rallies, and they felt so good. Believe me, it wasn’t hard, especially if you’d played some tennis, once you got over the bounce factor. (I know I’m hammering this, but in all my reading about pickleball I’ve never seen it mentioned. Sure, people talk about it being a whiffle ball, but we never played tennis with a whiffle ball.)

And now I’m in the groove. I know not to extend for balls almost out of reach, this wasn’t life and death, we were just playing, not even keeping score.

But the instructor kept on complimenting me, putting his hand out for a slap when I hit a good one. I felt good.

So I’m rushing the net, I’m gonna slap the ball good, hit it where it can’t be returned and…

And…

I’m still not sure exactly what happened. Whether I misjudged it or missed it. And, once again, if you’re used to tennis, the ball doesn’t move the exact same way. But the little yellow ball, about the size of a baseball, came over net and…THWACKED ME RIGHT IN THE EYE!

I didn’t see it coming. My eye was wide open. And…

Did my contact pop out? Did I break the contact?

My eye was closed, stunned. I mean for a minute there you think about losing your vision, but then you raise your lid a bit and can still see so…

You still wonder.

And everybody’s concerned. But it’s not their fault. And I don’t want to be the one person injured at the party, there’s always one. The one nobody knows.

So I sat down on the bench and waited to recover. And as I did, I realized I was going to have one hell of a shiner the next day. Kind of like when I ran into that wooden hanger in Oslo. And the black and blue takes a while to go away.

And then I started to wonder if the eye would close up over time. I thought I’d better leave before that happened, while I could still drive home.

But when I got home there was no black and blue, just red smarting spots above and below my eye. As they say, it appears I dodged a bullet.

Not that the sensation is gone. My contact survived, intact, in place. And I was worried it would hurt to get it out, and hurt to put it back in, but that was not the case. It’s the penumbra of my eye that took the brunt, even though my eye was wide open.

So I won’t call it a battle scar. And since I really wasn’t hurt, I’m chalking it up to the cost of playing the game. And still being confused by the trajectory of the yellow plastic ball.

But I’m ready to play again.