Battle of the Oldies but Goodies

Cresswind versus Imagery

Last Saturday the pickleball club at Imagery participated in a tournament at Cresswind, another 55+ active adult community in the Charlotte area. This is the second time we have played there, and it always such a fun time. They have four permanent pickleball courts, but their tennis courts are striped for pickleball which gives them eight additional courts. We have never hosted them because we just have two permanent pickleball courts. We can only add an additional four pickleball courts by taping out the two tennis courts here. 

The weather was perfect with blue skies, light winds and temperatures in the mid-70s. The clubs were broken down by sex and skill level. We played the same team two times, for a total of six games. It was competitive and fun, and my partner and I won four of our six games. Our two losses were to the same team, and they went on to win our division, so we felt pretty good about our performance.

At the end of the day, we all just love the game of pickleball. We are blessed at this stage of our lives to be able to participate in the sport, have fun, and make new friends. Pickle on!

Golden Oldies Pickleball

pickleball social

We play pickleball quite frequently, sometimes a couple times a week in our community and a day or two a week elsewhere in the Charlotte area. This game has changed a lot since becoming the fastest growing sport in America. Most notably is the number of younger players getting caught up in the game. While this is great for the sport, it is not also so good for the older folks when playing in leagues or tournaments. Even the "senior" divisions are listed as ages 50+.

Despite the fact that I am in good shape for my age and pretty fast on the court, I do not have the athleticism of someone a couple decades younger than me. I am not looking to make excuses, just stating a fact. After talking with some players that I met from another 55+ community, we decided to meet to see if we could do a joint social pickleball event between our two communities.

We pulled together a fun night of play, mixing our players with theirs in a round robin format. We held it at their community because they have six courts plus a restaurant and bar. We had 90 total players register, and it was a blast. While there was downtime between games, no one seemed bothered by this. They used the time to get to know they other players in their foursome. At the end of the evening, the two clubs purchased pizzas and cheesy bread for the players, and we hung out for a couple of hours swapping pickleball stories. It was a great experience, and one we hope to repeat!

Photography Challenge Week 19

This week's challenge was to tell a story of aging using just one photograph. Rather than going the more traditional route of photographing an elderly person or their hand, I chose to represent aging in a different manner. This was taken on a rural road in Iowa while visiting my in-laws over Mother's Day weekend.

Dogwood Photography Challenge Week 19

Sixty is NOT the New Fifty

me in 1956

Today I turn sixty. News media have bandied about that sixty is the new fifty (or forty or even thirty, in some extremely optimistic articles)! I think they have it all wrong. There are some things I could do in my younger years that don't work out so well for me now. For the most part, they are insignificant: trying to stay awake after two alcoholic beverages (or after 10:30, with or without alcohol), stepping off a curb incorrectly and feeling it in my back the next day, or being able to sleep all the way through the night. On the other hand, I didn't have certain life experiences back then - the ones that enable me today to deal with difficult people and tough situations, and help me treasure all the good things that have come my way. I have enjoyed each decade of my life so far - some more than others - and can truly say I wouldn't want to go back to my thirties or forties even if it was possible to do so. I love my life right now, and am more than grateful for the man who has shared it with me for the past thirty-seven plus years.

Sixty is just a number. Do I think it is a different sixty than my mother or grandmothers experienced? Of course. In many ways my life is much easier than it ever was for my ancestors. Modern conveniences have made it so that much less time is spent on mundane chores like laundry, cooking and cleaning. Changes in transportation and technology make it possible to connect much more easily and quickly with our family and friends. I certainly have more leisure time than my grandmothers ever had.

registering students to vote 1974

Why do we make so much out of certain birthdays? Thirteen seemed magical to me because I was finally a teenager. At sixteen I could drive a car, though in our one-car family that didn't happen very often. It was also when I got my first job (outside of baby-sitting for $.50 an hour) as a waitress at the long-forgotten Kings Food Host. Receiving the minimum wage of $1.60 an hour seemed huge at the time. When I turned eighteen I registered to vote, and due to my early birthday became a registrar so that I could sign up my fellow senior class members at the high school. I could also legally drink because that was the law in Iowa at the time. I guess that took away some of the excitement of turning twenty-one.

But what about the birthdays after the much touted "21"? They all seemed to pass in a blur. College graduation, marriage, moves, graduate school, jobs, raising children and starting new businesses mark the passage of time. Like pages from those little flip books we used to make as kids, images fly through my mind. From a newly-made family of two who became a family of four, we returned to a family of two when our children followed in our footsteps, going to college and then taking jobs far from home. Life happens.

As I continue to travel down life's highway at my new speed limit of 60, here are my takeaways from the first 59 years of living:

• You have to love yourself before you can truly love others.
• Life can be difficult, but if it was easy we would never appreciate the good things that come along.
• Most things we worry about never come to fruition.
• Take the dream trip. Tomorrow is not guaranteed.
• Ditch the negative people. They will only bring you down. You can rarely raise them up.
• Try new things. They keep your brain sharp and expose you to new people.
• Most importantly, find (and keep) your sense of humor.

Age is an attitude, not a number that defines us. Sixty is just sixty - and that is fine with me.