DEADLINES

Every month, as the 20th day rolls around, I get anxious because I have a deadline.  The 20th is the day we have set as the deadline for our contributors to our website for submitting their updated articles.  Our contributors include Jack Hodges with his wonderful column “From the Picklehood”.  Jack is, to many of us is the “Father of Pickleball” in the state of Hawaii.   Just like there are stories of how pickleball started on Bainbridge island, we have stories about Jack starting to teach at the Koloa courts when there was no such thing as pickleball.  He has had his column on our webpage from the very beginning, much to the delight of our many readers.  Also anxious about the deadline is Lucia Bartels, our PAK vice-president and court organizer extraordinaire at Kekaha and Hanapepe.  As if she wasn’t busy enough, she has taken responsibility for our columns featuring local and visitor player profiles.  I have my President’s Report to do, as I have for over forty updates now.  Juliet Peters, (who just won two silvers in the recent Hawaii Pacific Health/ESPN Hawaii Tournament in Honolulu)  who also serves on our PAK board as Communications Chair must take all the input and post it online, then notify our members when it is available.  We don’t always make the deadline, but we try as best we can.  After all, we are worth every nickel we get paid for doing this (nothing).  Thanks all for the dedication and commitment to our cause.

 

So, I looked up the dictionary meaning of deadline.  It’s number one meaning is “the latest time or date by which something should be completed.”  A historical reference is made to a deadline being “a line drawn around a prison, beyond which prisoners were likely to be shot.”  The second one reminds me of our often-mentioned deadline for getting the quantity and quality of pickleball courts we need on Kauai:  “In our lifetime”. From the very beginning, when the average age of picklers was over 60 that has been our self-imposed deadline.  We want good courts before we die.  Those of us that have morphed into our seventies and beyond still want that and our time for getting it is getting shorter with each year. 

 

We continue to seek innovative ways to solve the dilemma of too many players and not enough courts.  So many doors have been closed or never even opened to hear our story.  We continue to trudge on, but our deadline is coming.  Mahalo for being with us on the journey.

 

Until next time,

Nolan