Maybe Age is a Number, The two hour tour

Yesterday we only had three people from our group available to play pickleball so when we got there I asked if anyone wanted to join us. An old man said he would play which at first seemed less than ideal. When he came on the court he asked who the best player was, the other two guys pointed at me. He said he would play with me then since he is 80 years old! However he wasn’t just any 80 year old.

He told us he just played in the 80+ division in the US Open and took a bronze medal. He said he even played singles at the Open. I could not believe 80 year olds even played singles. His name was Jerry. Jerry was surprisingly agile for his age and had good dexterity. I had fun playing with him and we actually did well, beating the other guys pretty easily three straight games. My one buddy was pretty upset about getting his ass handed to him by a team that included an 80 year old. I enjoyed the end result , of course.

I made the more than two hour round trip last night up to Babcock Ranch to drop off Elsa for her four day visit with Ali and Shugs. When we pulled up Elsa made her normal noises of excitement and almost wagged her tail off as she came in the door. It was cute. This time I was more thoughtful and brought not only one of her beds but also one of her favorite toys and her nylobone to chew on. She almost immediately was up on their couch chewing away, funny.

I hung out and caught up with Ali and Shugs for a little while as I had not seen them since mid-January. I stayed until around 8:30 which was late enough since it was a school night. Even though I was hauling ass most of the way it still took a full hour to get home.

Last year I was shining in the glow of fresh gutters being installed on the house in only a couple of hours. I also was mentioning Christine regularly as things were looking and feeling good at that time.