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The Great Pickleball Noise War
I was an adult when I started playing tennis seriously, but try as I might to ratchet up my game I seemed to have plateaued at intermediate level 3. I was too good to enjoy playing with beginners, and not good enough to play with advanced players who certainly didn’t want to play with me. So my tennis life was not a happy one. (See Tennis Woes)
Then I discovered pickleball, the relatively new racket sport that’s all the rage. Once I started playing I found I was much better at it than tennis, and I found it much more fun! (See Pickled!)
We spend half our time in a community that has both indoor and outdoor pickleball courts, and so for the past several years I’d been happily playing all year round. Of course when the weather permits, playing outdoors is undeniably preferable, and recently with summer approaching we were all eagerly waiting to get back outside. But then the infamous pickleball noise battle began!
As you may know pickleball is played with paddles and whiffle balls. And when paddle and ball make contact the loud “whack” is music to our ears – but apparently for those who live within earshot of the courts the constant whacking sound can be disturbing.
In fact in many towns and communities the fight over pickleball noise has led to litigation, and in some cases the pickleball courts have been closed and the sport banned.
Sad to say that’s now happened on my turf. Our lovely tree-lined pickleball courts have been shuttered until further notice, and in frustration we write angry letters, sign endless petitions, and argue with our neighbors at loud and contentious town meetings.
And as we anxiously await a resolution to the great pickleball noise war, out on those empty pickleball courts the silence is deafening.
– Dana Susan Lehrman
Dana Susan LehrmanThis retired librarian loves big city bustle and cozy country weekends, friends and family, good books and theatre, movies and jazz, travel, tennis, Yankee baseball, and writing about life as she sees it on her blog World Thru Brown Eyes!
www.WorldThruBrownEyes.com
If it wasn’t the ‘whack’ noises it would have been the grunts, groans and heavy breathing?
Yes Kevin, or the expletives when we miss a shot!
As I finished reading your story, I was already imagining a wonderful, rhyming narrative poem. Something like Longfellow’s “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere,” or “Hiawatha,” to honor the Pickleball wars that are taking place not only in your neighborhood but everywhere the sport is played! Maybe you could do that next?
Thanx Dale, I wrote my pickleball story in a state of depression over the situation, don’t think I’m up to a narrative poem. I just want some resolution!
I hope you still have access to indoor courts in the meantime. This is a sad story. Such a fun sport and yet a neighborhood irritant. Good luck getting this worked out! We just have battles over bike lanes, not because of noise but still.
Yes Khati we have access to the indoor courts but the space is not air conditioned and uncomfortable in summer!
We’re hoping for some compromise so we can play outdoors again, possibly on a restricted schedule and with sound-reducing paddles and balls. We shall see!