What is green, bumpy and enjoyed worldwide? The pickle, whether Kosher or garlic, it’s the real dill! What is the fastest growing pastime in the country, more popular than Tic Toc and Brazilian Butt lifts combined? Pickleball! It enables inactive people an opportunity to get out of the house and play a competitive game.
It is the fastest growing pastime in the country, more popular than Tic Toc and Brazilian butt lifts combined. Pickle Ball! It enables sedentary people an opportunity to get out of the house and play a competitive game. It’s a big dill!!
How nostalgic it is to reminisce about pickles. I’m old enough to remember pickles in a barrel at the corner market. They were not shrink-wrapped, weighed and marked. They were loose in a barrel. Just the thought of a pickle gets my glands salivating. Dills, half sours, pickle chips hot pepper pickles and deep-fried pickles. There’s nothing like a cool pickle on a hot summer day. Are you puckering yet?
Who sang and rhymed “I don’t want a pickle; I just want to ride on my motor-cycle”? Folk singer Arlo Guthrie, of Alice’s Restaurant fame, was one of the few who would rather ride than partake in that delicious bumpy, sweet/sour crunch of a fresh pickle. All because he couldn’t think of a better rhyme for it and changed cycle to sickle. This was not one of his more popular songs, but it did give the lowly pickle some national visibility.
And pickles have been around for thousands of years dating as far back as 2030 BC when cucumbers from their native India were picked in the Tigris Valley. That’s more than 4,000 years, or a little longer than it takes for a bill to go through Congress. The pickles could easily be packed for trips across the desert to provide the perfect counterpoint to sweet tea in a tiny cup. It wasn’t a great lunch, but pickles travel well.
In ancient Egypt, Kings were buried in a great stone sarcophagus packed with their earthly finery. When opened, a couple thousand years later, there were sure to be a few canopic jars with pickle relish, fresh as the day it was interred sitting blandly among the various bodily organs. You didn’t want to make the mistake of tasting something that was not a pickle.
Fast forward to today when my excitement level was boosted about a game called Pickle Ball. Although this anyone can play game, began in the 1960’s it has garnered a national following as sedentary people realized they needed an activity that could be accomplished either from an arm-chair or just shorten the damn tennis court and loosen the rules.
So there’s a new game in town and around the country, which has given couch potatoes a reason to get up from the Barca-lounger and get active. Fun, social and friendly, the rules are simple, and the game is easy for beginners to learn, but can develop into a quick, fast-paced, competitive game for experienced players.
The game is almost like tennis, except you don’t have to wear white but can wear any colorful combination of clothing which would be outlawed on most tennis courts. The game is so easy you may even enjoy a couple of drinks while pickling. Now that’s an All-American game!
