The Pickle Jar
November 4 - 8
Happy first day of November. I hope you all survived Halloween and are not sitting on a ton of unclaimed candy. In my neighborhood we did OK on doling out the goodies. For a change of pace, beside candy, ghosts and ghouls could choose between 2 pieces of candy or one Slim Jim. Middle and high schoolers often opted for the Slim Jim. With a number of events in November, probably the biggest one is Thanksgiving. While I am not a big Thanksgiving guy I do feel sorry for it. Just around the corner is Christmas with a great number of songs associated with the day. What music does Thanksgiving get to claim? The only one I can think of is Alice's Restaurant Massacree. The song and movie are iconic but I think President Lincoln would only find a coincidental connection at best to the holiday. In case it has been a moment since you listened to it: https://youtu.be/WaKIX6oaSLs?si=rWUX_VrIT4sPd9HX . While you tap your toes to the music, let's blast off to the Pickleverse.
Pickleball 101: November 12 at 1:00 PM at The Centre will be the next Pickleball 101 session. There is a sign-up at the bottom of the blog. Please feel free to share with anyone that may be interested in participating.
The Centre: A final reminder that to reserve a private court for your group at The Centre now requires you to communicate with the staff via telephone or email. I would recommend contacting them by telephone. Their phone number is 814-689-1802. Drop-in is still managed via the SignUpGenius, this week's link is at the bottom of the blog.
Fall Back: Remember to set your clocks back an hour when you go to bed on Saturday night. With some warm weather (at least for November) sticking around for part of the coming week TeamReach, leaders creating drop-in sessions will need to read all the different tea leaves to set up practical start times. If you want to start earlier than the listed time, make a comment with your sign-up.
300: I am excited to announce that this past week the 300th, 301st, and 302nd persons signed up for the Pickle Jar. It amazes me that a few years ago this was just a small little group notice memo for about 2 dozen pickle pals. Thank you for allowing me to share a few minutes with you and I really am touched by those that have retired their paddles but opted to continue to receive the blog. I am always open to suggestions for content, feel free to share ideas with me. Oh, sorry Levon E. there is no prize for being #300. Maybe if we ever hit 500.
Old Paddles New Beginnings: Over the summer I collected gently used paddles that players no longer used, did some refurbishing of them and then donated them to Bellefonte High School. With Christmas on its way and with folks perhaps looking to get a new paddle, if you don't need your old one I would be happy to collect it and add to Bellefonte's pickleball supply.
Aero Paddles: I have 3 of the new Holbrook Aero paddles available for test drives. They are getting a lot of love. Players are liking the lightweight fee; and the amount of spin - I mean you can grip and rip with these.
Tip Of The Week: As many AM players have discovered at Bernel the past week, the sun and wind can provide some challenges depending on your orientation to them. To negate one team having an advantage for an entire game it is a good practice to trade sides of the court at the halfway mark. For a 9 point game, switch at 5 and for an 11 point game, switch at 6. This can be especially pertinent if a lob is your opponent's go to move when you press them at the NVZ and you are looking up into the sun. Before the start of the game, discuss if doing the switch would be the best practice for that game.
Have a great weekend and I hope to see you on the court! Below are the links for indoor play and for Pickleball 101:
The Centre: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A0B4BA5AA28AB9-52921393-nvsc#/
C3 Sports: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A0B4BA5AA28AB9-52739364-c3pickleball
Pickleball 101: https://www.signupgenius.com/go/70A0B4BA5AA28AB9-52921427-pickleball
Randy Hoffman
Holbrook PIckleball Ambassador
https://holbrookpickleball.com/
Discount Code = RANDYHOFFMAN20