When Pickleball Saved the World
by Ken Haas
Early on, most thought it was just a game with a name of disputed origin invented for children by three guys and a dog. Though a few saw the genius even then. A very few who knew the vehicle of deliverance could be nothing plausible. Nothing that had promised to bring us closer but failed, like prayerbooks, common enemies, family. What it needed to be was something silly, viral with no vaccine. A folly to usurp a sport played first on lawns in white shorts by kings of England and France. A froth fit equally for folks of all ages, heights and widths, with inscrutable rules where established lines could be painted over and nothing new had to be paved, so a driveway could work, or a Red Lobster parking lot. An accident of whiffle balls served underhand by confused revelers of every gender and race who had largely never met. An occasion without earbuds, since the complex score, which no one could remember, had to be called out confidently before each point. As it came to be in Naples, Istanbul, Mombasa and Cleveland. Slowly, though, it began to matter again whether the damn thing was in or out. Neighbors noticed the noise. The popping, the whooping, the thanking. There were leagues to be formed, profits to be made. No one can say how we got here from there. Legend has it that the pastime evolved because we could not. More holes in the balls and rules, so the harder one tried to win, the harder winning became. And the paddles were made longer and thinner, fit also then to power kayaks, for the fun and for the flood. Which never came, just fewer rainbows, convincing the last of us that we would only ever be human.
Ken Haas lives in San Francisco, where he works in healthcare. His first book, Borrowed Light, won the 2020 Red Mountain Press Discovery Award, as well as a 2021 prize from the National Federation of Press Women. Ken has been nominated for multiple Pushcart Prizes has won the Betsy Colquitt Poetry Award, and serves on the Board of the Community of Writers. His poems have appeared in over 50 respected journals and numerous anthologies.