Summer thoughts

By Jim Magdefrau

It was the first try at a new sport.

Great-nephew Jalen joined me at the park across from the house to give pickleball a try.

First thoughts. There is more running than I expected, due mainly to chasing the missed balls. I swear I was in perfect form for a backhand and the paddle whiffed by the slow moving ball. Whoosh! So if anyone complains about the pop pop pop sound made by pickleball, let it be known it was from me.

I think I’ll grow into it as I work on new senior skills.

As a senior, I no longer have to worry about middle age. I can’t say I’m middle aged, because people don’t live to be 132 years old anymore.

Another sign of being a senior is being greeted by assisted living and care residents where I play music. I held the door open at one place for a resident, and she said with a big smile, “Thank you sir. Are you a resident here?”

Well. Nothing wrong with that. Perhaps someday I’ll forget the passcode to get out of the door and I’ll be an in-house musician. Again, nothing wrong with that.

But for now, I have to figure out this pickleball thing.

* * *

When I travel, I travel. I mean that I went a whole 10 miles into Nebraska.

Friends who encourage me to travel include our Swedish friends, who happened to play a house concert in north Omaha while I visited family in the area.

She and Jonas have places to live in Berlin and Martos, Spain.

She adds that summers in Sweden are really nice. This year, it was on a Tuesday.

* * *

When I type the word “sauerkraut” on my calendar, I know that summer is coming to an end. Summer had a great bike ride with old friends in beautiful Southwest Iowa along the Wabash Trace trail. Another county fair flew by. Belle Plaine had a fun July 4 and was set up perfectly for RAGBRAI a few weeks later. Watermelon Days was fun in Atkins. Now my focus is on a tractorcade starting in Keystone, plus the Labor Day celebration of Sauerkraut Days in Blairstown. And then football and fall sports, and eventually deciding if I need to upgrade my winter coat.

As long as I have the camera I’ll be getting occasional pictures. Long meetings? That’s off of my to-do list. On the to-do list is doing enough work to remind me why I retired.

And figuring out how to hit a pickleball.