Apr 5 2024 - Pickleball - What's in a Name?

 

Pickleball is a recent sport - created in 1965 by Joe Pritchard a U.S. Congressman. It possibly was named after his dog Pickles. Or maybe the dog was named after Pickleball.  Or the game was named after the pickle boat where the crew is made of leftover people from other crews, and pickleball was created from leftover stuff from other sports. But who ever heard of that expression? Supposedly a reporter doing a story on it told the Pritchards that people would remember the game better if it was named after the dog.  So I guess the history of the game came a bit later than the game and covering it in the news.  That's because someone did some fact checking and confirmed that the dog Pickles was born after the game had been named.  The Pritchards have gone on record saying that the dog was in fact named after the game.   But never mind fact, many people seemed to have weighed in over the naming of the game and vote for the dog. There are more "facts" that have been accumulated to strengthen the dog story:   "According to the McCallum family (as well as the Browns (neighbours) – who were also some of the first pickleball players), the new sport was definitely named after the dog. They say they remember the exact night they named it after “Pickles” the dog while sitting in the living room of the Prichard cabin, they even remember cheering with excitement at the revelation of this funny name for their new game."   There are even more possibilities.  The authors of the book on the History of Pickleball went sleuthing and found a third claimant to the name:  "Bill Bell claimed that he had named the game because he enjoyed hitting the ball in a way that would put his opponent in a pickle." Poor Pickleball - the game seems to be about how it got its name.  This is a sign of our times - where opinion is more fun than facts - don't worry about the facts:  "If nothing else, the contradicting stories make for interesting conversation regarding the early history of the sport." Everyone seems to love pickleball - an Olympic sport?  Sports Illustrated concluded the game wouldn't likely get to the Olympics before 2032.     What about this idea as our conclusion on   the story today.

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Circus Days

It's time for a few jokes to keep us light-hearted.  So in line with our images from the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, here are a few circus jokes.  These come from Enchanted Learning. On the Circus: Which circus performers can see in the dark? (The acro-bats!) Did you hear about the human cannonball? (He got fired!) What happened when the magician got mad? (She pulled her hare out!) What happened when the short fortune-teller who escaped from prison? (She was a small medium at large!)   A few Clown Jokes: What should you do if you're attacked by a group of clowns? (Go for the juggler/jugular!) Why did the clown wear loud socks! (So his feet wouldn't fall asleep!) I'd like to take over the clown's job! (Those are big shoes to fill!) And Elephant Jokes: How do you raise a baby elephant? (With a fork lift!) What do you get when you cross an elephant and a fish? (Swimming trunks!) What time is it when you find an elephant in your car? (Time to get a new car!) How do you know if there's an elephant under your bed? (Your head hits the ceiling!) What time is it when 10 elephants are chasing you? (Ten to one!)

Where's the Elephant

The Elephant in the Room - this expression had its origins in 1814.  Ivan Andreevich Krylov, poet and fabulist, wrote a fable entitled "The Inquisitive Man" which tells of a man who goes to a museum and notices all sorts of tiny things, but fails to notice an elephant. Dostoevsky referred to this story in his novel 'Demons.'  Mark Twain is credited with the first widely disseminated conceptual reference in his 1882 story "The Stolen White Elephant". There are related expressions - for example, skeleton in the closet.  There are elephant jokes.  Wikipedia says: An elephant joke is a joke, almost always an absurdriddle or conundrum and often a sequence of such, that involves an elephant. Elephant jokes were a fad in the 1960s, with many people constructing large numbers of them according to a set formula. Sometimes they involve parodies or puns. Four examples of elephant jokes are: Q: Why did the elephant paint its fingernails red? A: So it could hide in a cherry tree. Q: How can you tell that an elephant is in the bathtub with you? A: By the smell of peanuts on its breath. Q: How can you tell that an elephant has been in your refrigerator? A: By the footprints in the butter. Q: What time is it when an elephant sits on your fence? A: Time to build a new fence.